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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029192115 
 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SACRED THEOLOGY 
 
ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 SACEED THEOLOGY 
 
 ITS PRINCIPLES 
 
 BY 
 
 ABRAHAM KUYPER, D.D. 
 
 FREE TJNIVEKSITY, AMSTERDAM 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH 
 
 By EEV. J. HENDRIK DE VRIES, M.A. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 PROFESSOR BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1898 
 
A.v\777'^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 NnrtoooB ^um 
 
 J. S. CuBhing & Co. — Berwick Si Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
The translation of this Theological Encyclopedia was 
 undertaken by appointment of the author, with whose co- 
 operation also the proof-sheets have been read. In the 
 original, this work consists of three volumes, the contents of 
 which are stated in Dr. Warfield's " Introductory Note." 
 The volume here presented contains the first fifty-three 
 pages of Vol. I. of the original, and Vol. II. entire. The 
 full definition of " Principium Theologiae " being given on 
 page 341, the word " principium " as a technical term has 
 been retained in its Latin form throughout. Grateful thanks 
 are due to Professor B. B. Warfield, D.D., LL.D., for valu- 
 able assistance given. And it may also be stated here, that 
 profound regard for the author, and firm faith in the 
 standards of Calvinism which he so masterfully defends in 
 the Netherlands, are the motives that have inspired to the 
 end this effort of the 
 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 Princeton, N.J., June 20, 1898. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The original work, a part of which only is here given in 
 English, consists of three volumes. These together form a 
 systematic whole. The first volume contains an introduc- 
 tion to Theological Encyclopedia, included in pages 1-55 of 
 this translation. This is followed by a history of Theologi- 
 cal Encyclopedia of about five hundred pages. No such 
 history had ever been written before. Brief, summary re- 
 views are given in some encyclopedias, but no history of 
 this department as such can be found. And yet the need of 
 it is imperative for the sake of a broad study of the position 
 which Theological Encyclopedia at present occupies in the 
 domain of science. Moreover, the writer was impelled to 
 undertake this task because the general history of Theology 
 has for the most part been interpreted in a sense which does 
 not agree with what he deems should be understood by 
 Theology. In writing so extensive a history of Theologi- 
 cal Encyclopedia he had a twofold purpose in view : on 
 the one hand of conveying a fuller knowledge of Encyclo- 
 pedia of Theology than had thus far been furnished, and 
 on the other hand of giving a review of the entire history 
 of Thfeology from his view-point. Upon this introductory 
 volume follows Volume II., which is here given entire in 
 the English translation. And then follows the third vol- 
 ume, almost equally large, in which the separate theological 
 departments find their logical division and interpretation 
 according to the author's principles. In this third volume 
 the principles previously developed are brought to their 
 logical sequence, showing that only in the full acceptance 
 of the proper principle can a pure and correct development 
 be discovered for all these departments of Theology. 
 
VIU PREFACE 
 
 The author does not hesitate to say frankly that in the 
 writing of this work he occupies the Calvinistic view-point, 
 though this is not to be taken in an exclusively dogmatical 
 sense. There are primordial principles which are funda- 
 mental to Calvinism, and these only he defends. He is no 
 Calvinist by birth. Having received his training in a con- 
 servative-supernaturalistic spirit, he broke with faith in 
 every form when a student at Leyden, and then cast himself 
 into the arms of the barest radicalism. At a later period, 
 perceiving the poverty of this radicalism, and shivering with 
 the chilling atmosphere which it created in his heart, he 
 felt attracted first to the Determinism of Professor Scholten, 
 and then to the warmth of the Vermittelungs-theologie, as 
 presented by Martensen and his followers. But if this 
 warmed his heart, it provided no rest for his thought. In 
 this Vermittelungs-theologie there is no stability of starting- 
 point, no unity of principle, and no harmonious life-interpre- 
 tation on which a world-view, based on coherent principles, 
 can be erected. In this state of mind and of heart he came 
 in contact with those descendants of the ancient Calvinists, 
 who in the Netherlands still honor the traditions of the 
 fathers ; and it astonished him to find among these simple 
 people a stability of thought, a unity of comprehensive in- 
 sight, in fact a world-view based on principles which needed 
 but a scientific treatment and interpretation to give them a 
 place of equal significance over against the dominant views 
 of the age. To put forth an effort in this direction has 
 from that moment on been his determined purpose, and 
 toward this end he has devoted a series of studies in The- 
 ology, in Politics, and in Esthetics, part of which have 
 already been published, and part of which are embodied in 
 the acts of the Second Chamber of the States-General. To 
 all this, however, there was still wanting that unity which 
 alone can give a concentric exposition of the nature of theol- 
 ogy, and to supply this want he set himself the task of writ- 
 ing this extensive Theological Encyclopedia. Thus only 
 was he able to reach the heart of the question. 
 
 That the treatment of the principium of Theology, i.e. of 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 the Holy Scripture, is given so much space could not be 
 avoided. In all this controversy the Holy Scripture is the 
 question at stake, and the encyclopedia that places itself un- 
 conditionally upon the Scriptures as its basis cannot find a 
 plan until the all-embracing question of the Scriptures has 
 been fundamentally solved. 
 
 It is only natural that certain portions of this book should 
 bear a severely Dutch stamp. Being an enemy to abstrac- 
 tions, and a lover of the concreteness of representation, the 
 author could not do anything else than write from the envi- 
 ronment in which he lives. In one point only does this 
 require an explanation. In this book he speaks of Methodism 
 in a way which would have been impossible either in England 
 or in America, where Methodism has achieved a Church for- 
 mation of its own. For this reason he begs leave to state that 
 he views Methodism as a necessary reaction, born from Cal- 
 vinism itself, against the influences which so often threaten 
 to petrify the life of the Church. As such, Methodism had 
 in his opinion a high calling which it is bound to obey, and 
 a real spiritual significance. And it becomes subject to seri- 
 ous criticism only when, and in so far as, from being a reac- 
 tion, it undertakes to be itself an action ; and when, not 
 satisfied with imparting a new impulse to the sleeping 
 Church, it seeks to exalt itself in the Church's stead. This, 
 he thinks, it is not able to do, and hence falls into serious 
 excesses. 
 
 In closing this brief preface he begs to offer his sincere 
 thanks to the Rev. J. Hendrik de Vries, who with rare 
 accuracy of style and language has finished the difficult and 
 laborious task of this translation. 
 
 ABRAHAM KUYPER. 
 
 Amsteedam, June 1, 1898. 
 
INTRODUCTOKY NOTE 
 
 It gives me the greatest pleasure to respond to the request 
 of my friend, the Rev. J. Hendrik de Vries, — to vi^hom a 
 debt of gratitude is due from us all for putting into English 
 a section of this valuable treatise, — that I should in a few 
 words introduce its author to his American audience. It is 
 not often that an opportunity falls to one to make known a 
 thinker of Dr. Kuyper's quality to a new circle of readers ; 
 and I count it a high honor to have been given this privi- 
 lege. For many years now Dr. Kuyper has exercised a very 
 remarkable influence in his own country. As leader and 
 organizer of the Anti-revolutionary party, and chief editor 
 of its organ, De Standaard, a newspaper which, we are told 
 by good authority, occupies not only " a place of honor, but 
 the place of honor among Dutch dailies " ; ^ as founder, de- 
 fender, and developer of the Free University of Amsterdam, 
 through which the people of the Netherlands are receiving 
 an object lesson of the possibility and quality of higher edu- 
 cation conducted on Christitin and Reformed foundations, free 
 from interference from the State ; as consistent advocate in 
 the Church of freedom of conscience, confessional rights, and 
 the principles of that Reformed religion to which the Dutch 
 people owe all that has made them great, and strenuous pro- 
 moter of tha great end of bringing all who love those princi- 
 ples together into one powerful communion, free to confess 
 and live the religion of their hearts ; as a religious teacher 
 whose instructions in his' weekly journal, De Heraut, are the 
 
 1 Jhr. Mr. A. F. de Savornin Lohman in De Nederlander of April 1, 1897 
 (as extracted in the Gedenkboek, published in commemoration of the com- 
 pletion of the first twenty-five years of service hy Dr. Kuyper as chief-editor 
 of De Standaard, Amsterdam, 1897, p. 89). 
 
 xi 
 
xil INTRODTJCTOKY NOTE 
 
 food of hundreds of hungry souls, whose prelections in the 
 Free University are building up a race of theologians imbued 
 with the historical no less than the systematic spirit, and to 
 whose writings men of all parties look for light and inspira- 
 tion ; in fine, as a force in Church and State in whose arm 
 those who share his fundamental principles trust with a 
 well-founded hope of victory, Dr. Kuyper is probably to-day 
 the most considerable figure in both political and ecclesiasti- 
 cal Holland. As long as thirteen years ago Dr. Johannes 
 Gloel, looking in upon the Church life of Holland from 
 without, thought it not too much to say that Dr. Kuyper's 
 was the best known name in the land ; ^ and though in the 
 interval friends have been lost, yet doubtless also friends 
 have been made, and assuredly the sharp conflicts which 
 have marked these years have not lessened the conspicuous- 
 ness of the central figure in them all. It is certainly high 
 time that we should make the acquaintance of such a man in 
 America. The present volume will, naturally, reveal him to 
 us on one side only of his multiform activity. It is a fragment 
 of his scientific theological work which it gives us ; indeed, 
 to speak literally, it is only a fragment of one of his theo- 
 logical works, though possibly thus far his most considerable 
 contribution to theological science. But the reader will not 
 fail to perceive, even in this fragment, evidence of those 
 qualities which have made its author the leader of men 
 which he is, — the depth of his insight, the breadth of his 
 outlook, the thoroughness of his method, the comprehensive- 
 ness of his survey, the intensity of his conviction, the elo- 
 quence of his language, the directness of his style, the pith 
 and wealth of his illustrations, the force, completeness, win- 
 ningness of his presentation. 
 
 For anything like a complete estimate of Dr. Kuyper's 
 powers and performance there would be needed a tolerably 
 thorough acquaintance with the whole political and religious 
 life of Holland during the last third of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. It would even be something of a task to undertake a 
 study of his mind and work in his literary product, which 
 1 Hollands kirchliches Leben, Wtirtemberg, 1885. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE xiii 
 
 has grown to a very considerable voluminousness, and touches 
 upon nearly the whole circle of civil and ecclesiastical inter- 
 ests of the present-day Netherlands. All that exists is a 
 rather superficial and not very correct sketch of his life and 
 opinions from the pen of Jhr. Mr. Witsius H. de Savornin 
 Lohman.i It was written, unhappily, nearly ten years ago, 
 and Dr. Kuyper has not ceased to live and move in the 
 meanwhUe; and its greater part is devoted, naturally, to 
 an account of Dr. Kuyper's political program as leader 
 of the Anti-revolutionary party. It may be supplemented, 
 however, from the theological side from the sympathetic 
 and very informing account to be found in Dr. Hermann 
 Bavinck's paper on Recent Dogmatic Thought in the Nether- 
 lands, which appeared a few years ago in the pages of The 
 Presbyterian and Reformed Review.^ With this there may 
 profitably be compared, by those who like to hear both 
 sides of a question, the series of papers on The Netherland- 
 ish Reformed Church of the Present by Professor H. G. 
 Klein of Utrecht, which are buried in the columns of a 
 Reformed journal which used to be published in Austria,^ 
 while Dr. Kuyper himself has lifted the veil from many 
 of his earlier experiences in a delightful booklet which 
 he appropriately calls Confidences.^ With these references 
 I may exonerate myself from attempting more here than to 
 suggest the outlines of his work on the theological side. 
 
 Dr. Kuyper was born in 1837, and received his scholastic 
 training at Leyden, as a student of literature and theology. 
 He obtained his theological doctorate in 1863, with a treatise 
 on the idea of the Church in Calvin and a Lasco. During 
 his university career, when he sat at the feet of Scholten (at 
 
 ^ It was published as one of the issues of the series entitled Mannen van 
 Beteekenis in Onze Dagen, edited by Dr. E. J. Pijzel, and published at 
 Haarlem by H. D. Tjeenk Willink. It is a pamphlet of 72 pages, and 
 appeared in 1889. 
 
 2 Issue of April, 1892, Vol. III. pp. 209 sq. 
 
 3 Evangelisck Meformirte Blaetter aus Oesterreich (Kuttelberg, Oesterr. 
 Schlesien, 1891 ; Vol. I. pp. 9 seq.). 
 
 * Confidentie : Sohrijven aan den weled. Heer J. H. van der Linden, door 
 Dr. A. Kuyper (Amsterdam : Hoveker en Zoon, 1873). Additional sources 
 of information are given by both Dr. Bavinck and Dr. Klein. 
 
xiv INTEODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 that time in his more conservative period) and Kuenen, he 
 had little clearness of religious insight and felt little drawing 
 to theological study, and gave himself, therefore, rather to the 
 cultivation of literature under the guidance of Professor de 
 Vries. At its close a great change came over him, mediated 
 partly by some striking experiences of providential guidance 
 in connection with the preparation of a prize-paper which 
 he had undertaken, partly by the continued and absorbing 
 study of Calvin and a Lasco to which the preparation of that 
 paper led him, and partly by the powerful impression made 
 upon him by Miss Yonge's romance. The Heir of Reddiffe, 
 read in this state of mind. The good work thus begun was 
 completed under the influence of the example and conversa- 
 tion of the pious Reformed people of his first pastoral charge, 
 at the little village of Beesd, where he ministered the Word 
 from 1863 to 1867. Thus prepared for his work, he entered 
 upon it at once con amove, when he was called in the latter 
 year to the Church at Utrecht. From that moment, at 
 Utrecht and Amsterdam, in the pulpit and professor's 
 chair, in the Chamber of Deputies, and the editorial page 
 of his journals, he has unceasingly waged battle for the 
 freedom of the Church of God to found itself on the Word 
 alone, and to live and teach in accordance with its own free 
 confession. 
 
 In his new enthusiasm of faith he went to Utrecht in the 
 highest hope, looking upon that city, in which dwelt and 
 taught the Corypliseuses of the orthodoxy of the day, as " a 
 Zion of God," and expecting to find in them leaders whom 
 he would need but to follow to the reestablishment of the 
 Church and of the religious life of the land on the one firm 
 foundation of the Word of God. He soon discovered that 
 there were limits, in reliance upon the Reformed principles, 
 and even in trust in God's Word, beyond which the Apolo- 
 getical School of Utrecht was not prepared to go. " I had 
 thought to find them," he says,^ " learned brethi-en, for whom 
 the Holy Scriptures, just as they lie, were the authoritj^ of 
 their lives, — who with the Word for a weapon were defend- 
 1 Gedenkboek, etc., as above, p. 68. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE XV 
 
 ing the stronghold of the Netherlandish Jerusalem with un- 
 daunted valor ; men who did not merely stand on the wall 
 and ward off assaults, but rushed forth from the gates and 
 drove off the foe. But what did I find ? Everywhere a cry 
 of distressed hearts. Everybody shut up in the hold, with 
 no thought of anything beyond a weak defence, watching for 
 the shots to fall, and only when they came giving some poor 
 reply, while bulwark after bulwark of the faith was yielded 
 to the enemy." Such an attitude was intolerable to one of 
 Dr. Kuyper's ardent and aggressive spirit. Nor did he find 
 more comfort in the Ethical School, although he was by no 
 means insensible to the attractions of its " Mediating The- 
 ology." ^ The weakness and wastefulness of both apology 
 and mediation as a means of establishing and advancing 
 Christianity he felt, moreover, most profoundly; and, plant- 
 ing liimself once for all squarely on the infallible Word and 
 the Reformed Confessions, he consecrated all his great and 
 varied powers to purifying the camp and compacting the 
 forces of positive truth. The effect of the assumption of 
 this bold, aggressive position was, naturally, to offend and 
 alienate the adherents of the more " moderate " schools. 
 The followers of Van Oosterzee and Doedes, of de la Saus- 
 saye and Gunning, — men who, according to their lights, 
 had wrought each a good work in the defence and propaga- 
 tion of the principles of the Gospel, — were necessarily left 
 behind, where they did not even throw themselves into the 
 camp of the enemy. But the result has vindicated not only 
 its righteousness, but its wisdom. Not merely as over 
 against the forces of more or less open unbelief, but also of 
 those timid souls who would fain pitch their tents in neutral 
 territory. Dr. Kuyper has raised the banner of unadulterated 
 
 ^ In the Preface to the first volume of his Encyclopaedie Dr. Kuyper says : 
 ' ' Brought up under the teaching of Scholten and Kuenen, in an entirely 
 different circle of theological ideas, and later not less strongly influenced by 
 the ' Mediating Theology,' the author found rest neither for his heart nor 
 for his mind until his eyes were opened to the depth, the earnestness, and 
 the heauty of the Reformed Confession, which has come to us out of those 
 spiritually rich days when Calvinism was still a world-power, not only in the 
 theological, hut also in the social and political, realm." 
 
xvi INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 Christianity, and the people of God have flocked to its lead- 
 ing. He cannot, indeed, be credited with the creation of 
 the Reformed party in the Church, any more than of the 
 Anti-revolutionary party in the State. As the year 1849, 
 when Groen van Prinsterer was elected to the Lower Cham- 
 ber of the States General, may be accounted the formal birth- 
 day of the latter, so the year 1842, when the Address of 
 Groen and his six companions was laid before the Synod of 
 the Netherlandish Reformed Church, praying for the main- 
 tenance of the rights of the Reformed Confession against 
 the Groningen teaching, may be thought of as the formal 
 birthday of the former. But as it is he who has organized 
 and compacted the Anti-revolutionary party and led it to its 
 present position of power, so it is he to whom is due above 
 all others the present strength of the Reformed tendency in 
 the religious life and thought of Holland, and to whom are 
 turned in hope to-day the eyes of all who truly love the 
 Word of God and the principles of the Reformed religion, — 
 that "sterling silver," "fine gold," "pure nard," of Chris- 
 tianity, as he himself phrases it. 
 
 In the prosecution of his self-chosen task of recovering 
 for the AVord of God and the principles of the Reformed 
 religion their rightful place in the civil and religious life of 
 the Netherlands, Dr. Kuyper has made the most vigorous 
 and versatile use of every means of reaching the minds and 
 hearts of the people. He edits the daily political paper. 
 Be Standaard, which he has made a veritable power in the 
 land. He edits the weekly religious paper, De Heraut, and 
 discusses in its columns in the most thorough way all live 
 topics of theology and religion. He is serving the State as 
 a member of the Lower Chamber of the States General. He 
 is serving the Church as Professor of Dogmatics in the theo- 
 logical faculty of the Free University at Amsterdam. It is a 
 matter of course that he has made the freest use also of occa- 
 sional discussion and scientific presentation. Political pam- 
 phlets, devotional treatises, studies on ecclesiastical topics 
 and theological themes, from his pen, have poured from the 
 press in an almost unbroken stream. It is a somewhat 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE xvii 
 
 remarkable literary product for a busy man to have pro- 
 duced when looked at from the point of view of mere 
 quantity; when its quality is considered, whether from the 
 point of view of richness of style, fulness of details, wide- 
 ness of view, or force of presentation, it is simply a marvel. 
 There have been published in our day few discussions of 
 civil and social questions more wide-minded and thoughtful, 
 few devotional writings more penetrating and uplifting, few 
 theological treatises more profound and stimulating. Among 
 the more valuable of his theological writings should certainly 
 be enumerated the numerous addresses which have been 
 given permanence in print, especially the Rectoral addresses 
 delivered at the Free University at Amsterdam, several of 
 which attain the dimension of short treatises, and are fur- 
 nished with an apparatus of notes, while retaining the grace 
 of Dr. Kuyper's spoken style. Such, for example, are those 
 on Present Day Biblical Criticism, delivered in 1881, Cal- 
 vinism and Art, delivered in 1888, and the tendency of Pan- 
 theizing thought towards the Obliteration of the Boundary 
 Lines, and the confounding of things that differ, delivered 
 in 1892. Among his more considerable works in scientific 
 theology there fall to be mentioned especially, his edition 
 of the Opuscala Theologica of Francis Junius, published in 
 1882, his copious commentary, in four volumes, on the Hei- 
 delberg Catechism, which bears the title of H Voto Dor- 
 draceno, published 1892-95, his somewhat popular treatise 
 on The Work of the Holy Spirit, in three volumes, pub- 
 lished in 1888-89, and, doubtless we may say above all, his 
 Encyclopaedie der Heilige Q-odgeleerdheid in three volumes, 
 published in 1894, of which the present volume presents a 
 part in English. 
 
 This important work differs from other encyclopedias of 
 theology in several particulars. It is marked by the strict- 
 ness of its scientific conception of its sphere and the skill 
 with which its proper province is discriminated and occu- 
 pied. It is marked not less by the comprehensiveness of its 
 grasp upon its material, and the thoroughness with which it 
 is worked out in its details. It is especially marked by the 
 
xviii INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 attractiveness of the style in which it is written, which is 
 never dull, and often rises into real eloquence. It is marked 
 above all, however, by the frankness with which it is based 
 on the principles of the Reformed theology, — with which 
 it takes its starting-point "from what Calvin called the 
 semen religionis, or the senms divinitatu in ipsis meduUis et 
 visceribus hominis infixus" so as to grant at once that it must 
 seem as foolishness to him who chooses a different point of 
 departure ; and with which also it builds up its structure on 
 the assumption of the truth of the Reformed presuppositions, 
 and allows at once that it separates itself by so much from 
 the point of view of all other systems. With so substantial 
 a portion of the work before the reader, however, as this 
 volume supplies, it cannot be necessary to speak here of its 
 method or quality. It is only needful that the reader should 
 remember that he has before him, here, only a portion of the 
 whole work. In its completeness it iills three volumes of 
 about the size of this one. The first of these is introductory, 
 and treats of the name, idea, and conception of Encyclope- 
 dia, and then, more specifically, of the idea, divisions, and 
 (most copiously) the history of Theological Encyclopedia. 
 The second volume — the one here translated — is the gen- 
 eral part, and discusses, as will be seen from its table of 
 contents, all those questions which concern the place of 
 theology among the sciences, and the nature of theology as 
 a science with a "principium" of its own. This volume 
 is notable for the extended and thorough discussion it ac- 
 cords to the " Principium Theologiae," — involving, to be 
 sure, some slight breach of proportion in the disposition of 
 the material and possibly some trenching upon the domain of 
 Dogmatics, for which the author duly makes his apologies ; 
 but bringing so great a gain to the reader that he will 
 find himself especially grateful for just this section. The 
 third volume contains the treatment of the several, divisions 
 of theology, which is carried through in a wonderfully fresh 
 and original fashion. It is to be hoped that the reception 
 accorded the present volume will be such as to encourage the 
 translator and publishers to go on and complete the work in 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE xix 
 
 its English form, and thus that this volume will prove to 
 be, in the literal sense of the word, but the introduction of 
 Dr. Kuyper to English readers. I cannot but feel assured 
 from my own experience that he who reads one treatise 
 of Dr. Kuyper's cannot fail to have his appetite whetted for 
 more. 
 
 BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD. 
 
 Princeton, June 16, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FIBST DIVISION 
 
 THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Name Encyclopedia 
 
 PAOB 
 
 § 1. Significance of the Name 1 
 
 § 2. Use in the Greek Classics 2 
 
 § 3. Transition among the Fathers 4 
 
 § 4. Usage in the Period of the Eeformation .... 6 
 
 § 5. Usage of the Word after the Seventeenth Century . . 9 
 
 § 6. Usage of the Word in our Century 11 
 
 § 7. Conclusion 12 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Idea of Encyclopedia 
 
 § 8. The First Appearance of this Idea 15 
 
 § 9. Development of the Organic Idea 17 
 
 § 10. Victory of the Organic Idea 19 
 
 § 11. The Break in the Process 20 
 
 § 12. Provisional Result 22 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Conception of Encyclopedia 
 
 § 13. Forming of the Conception 24 
 
 § 14. Critical Demand 26 
 
 § 15. Encyclopedic Necessity 2"? 
 
 § 16. Scientific Character 28; 
 
 § 17. Limitation of the Conception 3L 
 
 § 18. Subdivision of Philosophy 32' 
 
 § 19. Methodology and Hodegetics 33; 
 
 xxi 
 
xxu 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 § 20. " Wissenschaftslelire " 
 
 § 21. Organic Character . 
 
 §22. Still Incomplete 
 
 § 23. A Threefold Task . 
 
 § 24. Method of Encj-clopedia 
 
 § 25. Purely Formal 
 
 § 26. Result . . . . 
 
 41 
 42 
 42 
 4y 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Conceptiok of Theological Encyclopedia 
 
 § 27. Two Difficulties 4.5 
 
 § 28. The First Difficulty 46 
 
 § 29. The Second Difficulty 47 
 
 § 30. No Onesidedness 49 
 
 § 31. View-point here taken 50 
 
 § 32. Compass of its Task 52 
 
 § 33. Its Relation to Jlethodology 53 
 
 § 34. Its Aim . . . . " .54 
 
 § 35. Result 54 
 
 SECOND DIVISION 
 
 THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 
 § 36. Introduction 
 
 56 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Conception of Science 
 
 § 37. Etymologj' and Accepted Use of the Word .... .59 
 
 § 38. Subject and Object O^ 
 
 § 39. Organic Relation between Subject and Object ... 67 
 
 § 40. Language 3^ 
 
 § 41. Fallacious Theories 39 
 
 § 42. The Spiritual Sciences 90 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Science impaired bv Sin 
 
 § 43. Science and the Fact of Sin 
 § 44. Truth .... 
 
 106 
 114 
 
CONTENTS xxiii 
 
 PA8E 
 
 § 45. Wisdom 119 
 
 § 46. Faith 125 
 
 § 47. Religion 14G 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Twofold Development of Science 
 
 § 48. Two Kinds of People 150 
 
 § 49. Two Kinds of Science 155 
 
 § 50. The Process of Science 17(3 
 
 § 51. Both Sciences Universal 181 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Division op Science 
 
 § 52. Organic Division of Scientific Study 183 
 
 § 53. The Five Faculties 192 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Theology in the Organism of Science 
 
 §54. Is there a Place for Theology in the Organism of Science ? . 211 
 § 55. The Influence of Palingenesis upon our View of Theology 
 
 and its Relation to the Other Sciences .... 219 
 
 THIRD DIVISION 
 
 THEOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Conception of Theology 
 
 § 56. The Name 228 
 
 § 57. The Theological Modality of the Conception of Theology . 235 
 
 § 58. The Idea of Theology 241 
 
 § 59. The Dependent Character of Theology 248 
 
 § 60. Ectypal Theology the Fruit of Revelation . . . .257 
 
 § 61. The Conception of Theology as a Science . . . .292 
 
XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 § 62. Degenerations of Theology as " Knowledge of God ' 
 
 § 63. Falsifications of the Conception of Theology 
 
 § 64. Deformations of Theology 
 
 § 65. The Relation of Theology to its Object . 
 
 § 66. Sancta Theologia (Sacred Theology) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 300 
 306 
 319 
 327 
 333 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Fundamental, Regulative, and Distinctive Principle 
 OF Theology, or Principium Theologiae 
 
 § 67. What is here to be understood by Principium . . . 341 
 § 68. Different Representations of the Workings of this Prin- 
 cipium ... 348 
 
 § 69. The Relation between this Principium and our Consciousness 355 
 § 70. Relation between this Principium and the Natural Prin- 
 cipium 368 
 
 § 71. Is the Natural Principium able to summon the Special Prin- 
 cipium before its Tribunal ? 380 
 
 § 72. Universality of this Principium 389 
 
 § 73. This Principium and the Holy Scripture .... 397 
 
 § 74. The Special Principium and the Written Word . . . 405 
 
 § 75. Inspiration : its Relation to the Principium Essendi . . 413 
 
 § 76. Inspiration in Connection with Miracles .... 420 
 
 § 77. Inspiration according to the Self-testimony of the Scripture 428 
 
 § 78. The Testimony of the Apostles 441 
 
 § 79. Significance of this Result for the Old Testament . . 453 
 
 § 80. Inspiration of the New Testament 460 
 
 § 81. Unity and Multiplicity 473 
 
 § 82. The Instruments of Inspiration 481 
 
 § 83. The Factors of Inspiration 504 
 
 § 84. The Forms of Inspiration 520 
 
 § 85. Graphical Inspiration 544 
 
 § 86. Testimonium SpiritusSancti, or theWitness of the Holy Spirit 553 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Method of Theology 
 
 § 87. What is demanded by the Nature of this Principium 
 
 § 88. The Principium of Theology in Action 
 
 § 89. Relation to the Spiritual Reality . 
 
 § 90. Spiritus Sanctus Doctor . 
 
 § 91. The Church and the Office . 
 
 § 92. The Liberty of Scientific Theology 
 
 564 
 
 571 
 578 
 583 
 5S7 
 593 
 
CONTENTS XXV 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Organism op Theology 
 
 PASK 
 
 § 93. Part of an Organism 600 
 
 § 94. In the Organism of Science Theology is an Independent 
 
 Organ 603 
 
 § 95. The Boundary of Theology in the Organism of Science . 605 
 
 § 96. Self-determination of the Organism of Theology . . 615 
 
 § 97. Organic Articulation of Propaedeutics 617 
 
 § 98. Organic Articulation to the Spiritual Reality . . . 624 
 § 99. The Organism of Theology in its Parts . . . .627 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The History op Theology 
 
 § 100. Introduction 637 
 
 § 101. The Period of Naivety 639 
 
 § 102. The Internal Conflict 646 
 
 § 103. Triumph claimed Prematurely 652 
 
 § 104. The Development of Multiformity 658 
 
 § 105. The Apparent Defeat 668 
 
 § 106. The Period of Resurrection 672 
 
 INDEX 681 
 
DIVISION I 
 
 THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 oXWo 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NAME ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 § 1. Significance of the Name 
 
 Since the encyclopedic, scientific and theological view- 
 point of this Theological Encyclopedia differs in more than 
 one respect from the ideas that are most widely accepted in 
 our times, even among " believing " theologians, clearness 
 demands that we indicate this difference and give an account 
 of it. The conception of " Theological Uncyclopedia " itself 
 should therefore be investigated first, and this investigation 
 should be preceded by the definition of the general concep- 
 tion of Encyclopedia. 
 
 This definition starts out with the etymological explana- 
 tion of the word which is used as the name of this depart- 
 ment of science. Not as evidence from etymology ; this is 
 excluded by our plan : but because the indication of the 
 first activity in the human mind which has given rise to the 
 origin of any department is frequently found in the his- 
 torical choice of the name. This is not always so. To 
 our Western consciousness Algebra is a meaningless term, 
 however capable it may be of an etymological explanation 
 in its original. Metaphysics originated by mere accident. 
 Anemology is an artificially fabricated term. But as a rule 
 there is a history in a name, which it will not do to pass 
 by. And this is the case in a special sense with the name 
 
 1 
 
2 § 2. USE IN THE GREEK CLASSICS [Div. I 
 
 Encyclopedia. To exclude arbitrariness, and to keep our- 
 selves from ideal subjectivity, the conservative path must 
 again be discovered, at least to this extent — that no defi- 
 nition of any conception should be admitted, which does 
 not take account of what went on in the human spirit (even 
 though with no very clear consciousness) when the germ 
 of this conception first originated. (See Dr. Georg Runze, 
 Die Bedeutung der Sprache fur das wissenschaftliche Er- 
 kennen, Halle, 1886.) 
 
 § 2. Use in the Greek Classics 
 
 As for most scientific conceptions, the germ of the con- 
 ception of " Encyclopedia " also is found among the Greeks. 
 They were the people who, in contrast with the intuitive 
 powers of the Eastern nations on the one hand, and in dis- 
 tinction from the limited form of the life of the spirit in 
 Rome on the other hand, were divinely endowed with the 
 disposition, tendency and talent of extricating its thinking 
 consciousness from the world of phenomena and of soaring 
 above it on free wings. And yet, as far as we know, the 
 word Encyclopedia in its combination was unknown to them. 
 The first trace of this combination is discovered in Galen, 
 the physician and philosopher, who died about two hundred 
 years after the birth of Christ.^ The Greeks left the two 
 parts of the word standing side by side, and spoke of 'E7KU- 
 kXios TraiBeia. 
 
 The sense of iraiSeia in this combination needs no further 
 explanation. IlaiSeia means instruction, training, educa- 
 tion ; that by which a ttuk becomes an avqp. The difficulty 
 lies in the definition which makes this iraiSeia, iyKVKXio<;. 
 In its simplest sense, eyKVK\io<; is all that which presents 
 itself to you as being included in a «u/c\o?, i.e. a ring or 
 circle. But this idea admits of all sorts of shades, accord- 
 
 1 In his Uspl SiaiTijs d^iav, i.e. de victiis ratione in morbis acutis, c. 11. 
 I have named Galen as the first Greek writer. It is also found already in 
 Pliny, Natur. hist. § 14 : iam omnia attingunt, quae Graecl riji iyKVKXoiraiSelas 
 vocant, et tamen ignota aut incerta ingeniis facta, alia vero ita multis prodita 
 ut in fastidium sint adducta. 
 
Chap. I] § 2. USE IN THE GREEK CLASSICS 3 
 
 ing as it indicates something that forms a circle by itself ; 
 something that lies in a sphere or circle, or within a certain 
 circumference, and is thus included in it ; or something that 
 moves within such a circle. A round temple was called lepbv 
 ijKVKXiov, because such a temple forms a circle. The hmaia^ 
 or common civil rights, were called iyKiiKXia, because they 
 reside in the circle of citizens, and confine themselves 
 to its limits. In Athens, the XecTovpyiai were called 67- 
 KmXiai, and they spoke of iyxyKXia avaXdafiara, iyKvicXi.ai 
 hairdvai, i^KVKXM BiaKovi^fiara, etc., to indicate services in the 
 interest of the state which are rendered in turn, expenses that 
 returned periodically, or activities that constantly changed 
 after a fixed programme of rotation. Aristotle QPolit. II., 
 p. 1269'', 35) calls even the daily, and therefore periodically, 
 returning task, to, iyKvuXia. Thus unconsciously the idea 
 of that which was of a daily occurrence, and in a certain 
 sense ordinary and normal, was included under eV/cv/cXw? ; ^ 
 and it was in this process of thought that iyKVKXio^ was 
 added to •jraiBeia by which to indicate that kind and that 
 measure of instruction or knowledge which was deemed 
 indispensable for a normally developed Athenian citizen ; 
 in part, therefore, in the same sense in which Demosthenes 
 calls the legal rights that are common to all citizens, iyKVKXia 
 Sixaia (XXV. 74) ,2 or, in a better sense still, Aristotle 
 wrote his e<yKVKXia <f>cXocro(f>rjfjiaTa, i.e. popular philosophy. 
 It is a mistake, therefore, to interpret iyicvKXto'; TratheCa as 
 a group of sciences which in the abstract formed a circle 
 or a whole, and it is equally ill-advised to understand by 
 it nothing more than " everyday matters of knowledge." 
 The idea of a circle or rotation must certainly be main- 
 tained ; only the definition of what falls within this circle 
 must not be derived from the mutual connection of these 
 departments of knowledge as such, but from their connec- 
 tion in relation to the forming of the young Greek. 
 
 The explanation of Quintilian (I. 10) : orlis doctrinae, 
 
 1 Isocrates describes it even as to. Kara tt)v rj/iipap iKiar-qv yiyvbixiva (III. 22). 
 '' (^ -yap oiSi tQp l<rGiv oiSk rCiv iyKVKKiav Si.Ka.luiv ncToutxlav Sid6a<riv ol vd/j-oi, 
 ouTos TuJi/ av-qKiaruiv iripovt airios ylyverai oiiK opSCis k.t.\. 
 
4 § 3. TRANSITION AMONG THE FATHERS [Div. I 
 
 quem Qraeei ijKVK'Xiov -iraihuav vacant, is based on a mis- 
 understanding, as is also that of Vitruvius I. 6, praef., and 
 I. 2, encyclios disciplina uti corpus unum ex his membris com- 
 positum est: in so far as both evidently argued from the 
 general significance of the word eV^wXto?, instead of asking 
 themselves the question how it was actually used by the 
 Greeks in connection with iraiBeia. This use referred 
 chiefly to what was normal, as Hesychius also interprets it 
 by saying, to, i'^KVKXovfieva tSi /3ico koX avvi^di] ; and Strabo, 
 who writes that we should not call "him who is wholly 
 uneducated a statesman, but him who partakes of the all- 
 round and customary training of freemen." We. should 
 say : the normal measure of knowledge which a civilized 
 citizen has at command. But Quintilian and Vitruvius 
 were correct in so far as they showed themselves im- 
 pressed with the fact that there was a reason why the 
 Athenians did not speak of ffvvijdrj'; iraiheCa, but purposely 
 spoke of iyKVK\io<; iraiBeia. The Greek language was not 
 a crystallized one, like the Latin. A Greek understood and 
 saw through the word iyKVKXw;, and, when he used it in the 
 sense of normal, he did not abandon the original significance 
 of kvkXo'}. With reference to liis conception of it, the use 
 of this word in connection with ■n-aiSeia plainly shows : 
 (1) that from the knowledge of his times taken as a 
 whole he separated certain parts ; (2) that he did not 
 choose these parts arbitrarily, but that he arranged them 
 after a given standard ; and (3) that he derived this stand- 
 ard from a circle of life, and that, in connection with this 
 circle of life, he grouped his separated parts of human knowl- 
 edge so as to form one whole. And tliis threefold action of 
 his mind assumed, at the same time, that he had more or less 
 objectified for himself the whole of human knowledge; 
 
 § 3. Transition aviong the Fathers 
 
 In every distinction lurks an antithesis. The syKVKXio^ 
 ■TraiBeia, which was also called iyKVKKia iiadrjuaTo., iraihev- 
 Hara, or more simply still ra iyKvicXca, did not stand in 
 antithesis to what was beneath it, ^he who had no ijKv- 
 
Chap. I] § 3. TRANSITION AMONG THE FATHERS 5 
 
 K\io<i TraiSeia was simply called aTratSeuro?, — but to the 
 higher development of the philosopher and the knowledge 
 necessary for a given profession or calling. This excelled 
 the common kukXos of the life of the citizen. Thus iyicvK'Kio'i 
 TraiSeia was the lower and ordinary in antithesis to what was 
 reached by higher knowledge. 
 
 When the higher knowledge of the Christian Religion came 
 out of Israel into the Roman-Grecian world, it was but natu- 
 ral that Christian scholars should class the entire heathen- 
 classical development with what was lower and oommon, in 
 antithesis to the higher yv&a-iv of the Holy Scriptures. This 
 readily explains the fact that, as we are told by Suicer (see 
 his Thesaurus in voce), in the Greek of ecclesiastical liter- 
 ature iyKVKXio<; iraihela gradually obtains a modified signifi- 
 cance and comes to mean the knowledge or science which 
 covered the entire circle of the heathen-classical life ; over 
 against which stood 6eo\oy(a, dewpia, or yv&aK as higher 
 knowledge. Suicer infers this from what Eusebius writes 
 in his Church History, VI. 18, concerning Origen ; viz. 
 that he trained the youth in ra Trj<; e^wOev ^i\oao(j)ia<; and 
 instructed them in the iyKVKXia, showing them the subse- 
 quent benefit they should derive from this later on for 
 sacred studies. In the same sense Hesychius would explain 
 iyKVKXia as being ra e^m ypafi^aTa, which means that the 
 iyKVK\io<; TraiBeia formed a circle to the heathen Greek, in 
 which he himself was included and of which he formed the 
 centre ; while to the Christian Greek to, eaeo were the mys- 
 teries of the Christian religion, and the iyKVKXio'; -n-aiBeia 
 came to him e^wdev, i.e. from without his circle of life. 
 Thus, if a closer investigation confirms us in this view, 
 this transition was gradual and led to iyKVK\io<; iraiSeia, 
 no longer signifying the common instruction given to the 
 ordinary citizen, but the whole realm of worldly science in 
 distinction from Sancta Theologia. As Zonaras states it : 
 "Simply every art and science." 
 
6 § 4. USAGE IN THE [Ci^- I 
 
 § 4. Usage in the Period of the Reformation 
 With the decline of Greek culture the use of eV/cwXto? 
 ^aiMa in its pregnant sense fell away. In the scholastic 
 and ecclesiastical use of the word, which formed itself under 
 Western influence, the original conception of the iyicvKXio'; 
 iraiheCa was expressed hy Trivium et Quadrivium; and the 
 later conception of tA e^a, ypd/ifiaTa either by litterae pro- 
 fanae or artes liberales. We read nothing of Encyclopedia 
 in the Middle Ages. In ordinary conversation, even in that 
 of the " clergy," the word was lost, and only after the rise of 
 Humanism in the sixteenth century does it appear again; 
 and then according to the interpretation of Quintilian, as the 
 circle of sciences. Thus Elyot writes, in 1536 : " Whiche of 
 some is called the worlde of science, of others the circle of 
 doctrine, whiche is in one word of Greke : Encyclopicedia." 
 {The Crouvernor, quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica, un- 
 der the word Encycl.') Evidently the use of the word by 
 the Greeks is here not inquired into ; the sense of the word 
 is indicated by the sound ; and in the wake of Quintilian, 
 Elyot also does not understand the kvkXo'; to be the circle 
 of citizens, but the circle of sciences, — the orbis doctrinae. 
 
 This cleared the way for a new transition of meaning. 
 In the latter part of the sixteenth and beginning of the 
 seventeenth century the name Encyclopedia passed from 
 the world of science to the book in which this " world of 
 science " was contained. The naive assumption that the 
 knowledge of the several sciences was already as good as 
 complete easily accounts for the several efforts that were 
 made during the Middle Ages to embody in one single 
 volume the collective knowledge with which they were sat- 
 isfied and for which they were grateful. This sort of book 
 •was given the name of Speculum, Compendium, Syntagma, or 
 Sy sterna; and the effort to give manuals of this sort a 
 methodical arrangement met with increasing success. And 
 when attention was again called to the word Encyclopedia, 
 and this was taken as the Orbis doctrinae, it was but natural 
 that Encyclopedia should be considered a very proper name 
 
Chap. I] PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION 7 
 
 for such a vade-mecum. Ringelberg seems to have been the 
 first to choose it as such for the title of his Lucubrationes vel 
 potius ahsolutissima KV/cXoiracBeia, published at Basle in 1541. 
 After him the Hungarian, Paul Scalichius de Lika (Paulus 
 de Scala), used it for the title of his work : Epistemon Ency- 
 clopediae s. orbis disciplinarum turn sacrarum turn profanarum 
 Bas. 1559. And when it was once adopted, Encyclopedia 
 seemed to meet with so much favor for manuals of this sort 
 that when, in 1584, the Margarita philosophica by Reisch, 
 which had been published in Freiburg in 1503, went through 
 a second edition, the editor inserted also the name of Ency- 
 clopedia on the title-page of this work. Matthias Martinius, 
 the well-known Reformed theologian of Bremen (f 1630), imi- 
 tated at once the example of the publishers of Basle in his 
 Idea methodicae et brevis Encyclopediae sive adumbratio uni- 
 versalis (1606). And when also the Reformed theologian, 
 loannes Henricus Alstedt, chose the same name for his Cursus 
 philosophieus, especially for his renowned quarto of over 2000 
 pages, the modified use of the word Encyclopedia became 
 established. In a smaller form this work was published as 
 early as 1608, but was republished on a much larger scale in 
 1620, at Herborn, and received the title, Oxtrsus philosophi- 
 cae Encyclopediae ; the third volume of which also appeared 
 separately under the title, Septem artes liberales. This work 
 of Alstedt was for many years the standard work for the 
 study of general science, which is the more evident from 
 the fact that in 1649 it was reprinted, at Leyden, in four 
 octavo volumes. The edition of 1620 was dedicated to the 
 States-General of the United Netherlands. 
 
 A short sketch of Alstedt' s work is here given, so that 
 it may be clearly seen what was understood by Encyclo- 
 pedia in this third significance. First we have a Compen- 
 dium Encyclopediae philosophieae, or a catechetical resume 
 of the whole work. Then follows the first volume of 
 the real work, which is a treatise on the four Praecognita 
 philosophica, to wit : (1) Archeology, or the doctrine of prin- 
 ciples ; (2) Sexiology, or the doctrine of intellectual charac- 
 teristics ; (3) Technology, or the doctrine of the sciences ; and 
 
8 § 4. USAGE IN THE [Div. I 
 
 (4) Didactics, or the doctrine of methods. These constitute 
 the prolegomena, and then come in turn the sciences them- 
 selves, divided into theoretical, practical and poetical. The 
 theoretical are twelve in number, to wit : Metaphysica, Pneu- 
 matica, Physica, Arithmetica, Greometria, Cosmographia, Ura- 
 noscopia, Greographia, Optica, Musica and Architectonica. The 
 practical sciences are these five: Mhica, Oeconomica (the 
 doctrine of the family), Politica, Scolastica (pedagogy) 
 and Historica. And finally the disciplinae poeticae, or the 
 Arts, are seven in number : (1) Lexica, (2) Grrammatica, 
 (3) Rhetorica, (4) Logica, (6) Oratorica, (6) Poetica, 
 (7) Mnemonica. 
 
 From this sketch it is evident that under the name of 
 Encyclopedia Alstedt virtually embraced all the sciences, 
 and was bent on establishing them mutually in technical re- 
 lations. What he offers is no medley or hodge-podge, but 
 a well-ordered whole. And yet this systematizing of the 
 several disciplinae is merely accidental with him. His real 
 purpose is to collect the peculiar contents of these sciences in 
 a short resume, and that to such an extent that in the divi- 
 sion Lexica he places before you successively a Hebrew, Greek 
 and Latin dictionary ; that under the rubric Historica he 
 furnishes a fairly extensive universal history ; and that under 
 the title of Mathematica, Musica, etc., he presents you on 
 each occasion with a brief manual of these sciences. But 
 being a man of systematic thought, he presents these col- 
 lected contents not merely in a well-ordered succession, 
 but even with an introduction that throws light upon 
 the character of the department and upon its relation to 
 the other departments. When, for instance, he passes on 
 from JEthica to Oeconomica, Politica and Scolastica, he directs 
 your attention to the fact that the three last named together 
 form the Symbiotica, i.e. the disciplinae of social life, and 
 how they flow from the principles of JEthica. And since 
 from the comprehensiveness of the book the impression of the 
 relation of the several parts is of necessity somewhat lost, he 
 introduced the work itself with his Compendium Encyclopediae, 
 in which he treats exclusively the mutual relations of the 
 
Chap. I] PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION 9 
 
 whole and the parts. For which reason Alstedt's Encyclo- 
 pedia stands for his times really very high. It is evidently 
 his purpose to exhibit before our eyes the body of the sciences 
 ( Corpus Seientiarum) as one whole ; and he seeks to reach 
 this end on the one hand by giving us a description of the 
 members of the body, but also on the other hand by direct- 
 ing our attention to the skeleton and the network of nerves 
 and veins that unite these parts. 
 
 But even with Alstedt the word Encyclopedia as such has not 
 received a pregnant significance. In his introduction he him- 
 self tells us that his Encyclopedia has the same end in view 
 as was held by Petrus Ramus in his Professio regia, by Gre- 
 gorius Tholosanus in his Syntaxis artis mirabilis, and by 
 Wower in his Polymathia. To him, therefore, Encyclopedia 
 is but a convenient name for what had been furnished by 
 others before him. With Alstedt Encyclopedia refers rather 
 to the exhaustive scope than to the organic coherence of his 
 work ; what Martinius called adumbratio universitatis. This, 
 however, did not prevent him from unconsciously attaching 
 a double significance to the name : (1) that of a book which 
 comprehended in brief the results of the most widely known 
 sciences, and (2) that of a study of the mutual relations of 
 the sciences. Alstedt had a systematic nature, and his 
 organic interpretation of science is already evident from his 
 announcement that it is his purpose to furnish a " description 
 in one exhibit of the whole estate of the kingdom of phi- 
 losophy." To work methodically was to him an outspoken 
 necessity. Thus in his introduction he writes : " That the 
 foundation of all philosophy may be presented in one view 
 to systematic minds eager for learning." 
 
 § 5. Use of the Word after the Seventeenth Century 
 In the second half of the seventeenth and in the course of 
 the eighteenth century, the systematic conception in the use 
 of the word Encyclopedia retires still more into the back- 
 ground than with Alstedt. It is still used as the title for 
 more or less systematic reviews of the contents of separate 
 sciences, and medical and juridical compendiums are published 
 
10 § 5. USE OF THE WOED AETBE 17TH CENTURY [Div. I 
 
 under the name of Encyclopediae, but in general Encyclopedia 
 acquires more and more the stamp of a Polyhistory. Finally 
 the idea of a systematic collocation of the sciences is entirely 
 abandoned, and, in order to condense the ever-increasing quan- 
 tity of material in a convenient form, refuge is taken in the lexi- 
 cographical form. Somewhat in the spirit of Suidas the alpha- 
 bet takes the place of the organic system, and the so-called 
 Alphabetical Real-Encyclopedia holds its triumphant entry. 
 First came Jablonski with his AUgemeines Lexicon der 
 Kilnste und Wissenohaften, Lpz. 1721, and Zedler with 
 his Cfrosses volhtandiges Universallexicon aller Wissenohaften 
 und Kunste, 1732-1750, in 68 volumes; followed by the 
 Deutsche Encyelopaedie, oder allgemeines Worterhuch aller 
 Kunste und Wissenschaften in 23 volumes ; and, finally, the 
 still unfinished work of Ursoh and Grriiber begun in 1818. 
 The name of Encyclopedia came especially into use for this 
 kind of Real-Lexicon through the Encyclopedic of Diderot 
 and d'Alembert and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, or a uni- 
 versal dictionary of arts and sciences. Till, finally, Pierer, 
 Meyer, and Brockhaus undertook to let this Real-Lexicon 
 run a continuous course, and for a small price to furnish a 
 Conversationsleosicon or Jteal-Encyclopaedie, which keeps the 
 people informed of the progress of scientific investigations. 
 These general Real-Lexica have found favor also in the 
 domain of the separate sciences, so that now there are such 
 alphabetical Encyclopedias for almost all departments and 
 sciences, partly for the learned and partly for the general 
 public. And in this sense, the present meaning of the word 
 Encyclopedia is: A work which embraces briefly, and in alphar 
 betical order, the most important particulars thus far known 
 of each of the subjects that belong either to a single depart- 
 ment of science or to the domain of science at large. The 
 distinction between the non-theological and theological 
 sciences is here utterly lost from view. Already, in 1559, 
 this antithesis had been abandoned by Paulus de Scala. 
 Martinius and Alstedt had still respected it. But when 
 the Polyhistory excluded all system from Encyclopedia, of 
 itself this antithesis also fell away. 
 
Chap. I] §6.' USAGE OF THE WORD IN OUR CENTURY 11 
 
 § 6. Usage of the Word in our Century 
 
 The understanding of Encyclopedia, as a brief resume of 
 the results of a science, was still held in our century in so 
 radical a sense, that in the Introduction to his Enoyelopaedie 
 und Methodologie der Philologischen Wissenschaft, Lpz. 1877, 
 p. 36, Boeekh writes that the conception of Encyclopedia lies 
 in its being " a general presentation," and then adds : "A 
 logical scheme is not necessarily involved in it, seeing that 
 it might be constructed simply as an Alphabetical Encyclo- 
 pedia. I do not mean to say that an Encyclopedia should 
 be devoid of all logical character, but only, as an Encyclo- 
 pedia it is not necessary." All idea of system is thus ex- 
 cluded from the conception attached by him to the name. 
 To him it is no oriis doctrinae, as it was to Elyot, nor 
 a " description of the estate of the kingdom of sciences " 
 (delineatio latifundii regni scientiarum') as it was to Alstedt. 
 To him no system follows from the idea of Encyclopedia. 
 From its very nature it needs but to be an agglomerate ; 
 and if it has any connection, that flows from its general 
 character, and not from its nature as Encyclopedia. 
 
 The use of the word Encyclopedia came, however, to 
 stand in direct opposition to this under the influence of 
 modern philosophy, after Hegel chose the name of Ency- 
 clopedia as title for his systematic review of philosophy 
 (^Encyclopaedia der Phil. Wissenschaft, Heidelb. 1817, 1827, 
 1830, Berlin, 1840 and 1843. Sammtl. Werke, Bd. 6, la and 
 7J). Before Hegel, Klugel, G. F. Reuss, J. G. Buhle, K. 
 Ruef, W. J. G. Krug, E. Schmid and others had used the 
 name of Encyclopedia for their expositions of the relations of 
 the sciences or of the departments of any one science. Mur- 
 sinna and Clarisse did the same in theology, J. S. Piitter in 
 law and Boerhaave in medicine. But the idea of system in 
 the conception of Encyclopedia came to the foreground with 
 full consciousness only when Fichte took science itself to be 
 an object of science, and when Hegel, in the same track, 
 wedded the name of Encyclopedia to this idea. Science, as 
 such, now became an object of scientific investigation ; the 
 
12 § 7. CONCLUSION [Div. I 
 
 idea of system became the chief aim in Encyclopedia; and from 
 the material of each science so much only was taken as was 
 necessary for the proper understanding of its organic life. 
 
 This idea, which answered so fully the need of our time, 
 extended itself, though slowly, from science in general to 
 the individual sciences. Special Encyclopedias also ceased 
 to be compendia, and more and more took the form of sci- 
 entific investigation into the nature of these special sciences. 
 There were differences in the proportionate treatment of 
 what was formal and material in a science. In several 
 Encyclopedias the resume of the general data of a science 
 was stiU very extensive, while from other Encyclopedias 
 it almost entirely disappeared. But, even with this by no 
 means insignificant difference, the idea of system came more 
 and more to be viewed by almost every one as the distin- 
 guishing mark of the Encyclopedical treatment. Thus, 
 while with Alstedt Encyclopedia is stUl the name of a hook, 
 it has come to be more and more the name of a separate 
 science. 
 
 § 7. Conclusion 
 
 This brief review of the use of the word Encyclopedia 
 leads to the following result. The use of this word has 
 passed through five stages. (1) Originally the Greek 
 attached the significance to it of a certain group of subjects 
 of knowledge whose scope Avas determined by the circle of 
 the life of the Athenian citizen. (2) The rise of Christian 
 Theology extended this significance to the entire heathen- 
 classical science in distinction from Theology. (3) Reviving 
 Humanism used it in the sense of Compendium, and, with a 
 weak effort to furnish a systematic exposition, it embraced 
 under it the entire Humanistical knowledge. (4) During 
 the most flourishing period of Polyhistory, Encyclopedia 
 became the name for an alphabetical agglomerate of what 
 M-as noteworthy in every subject in general, with the exclu- 
 sion of almost all conception of system. And, finally (5), 
 through the rise of the newer philosophy the word Encyclo- 
 pedia became the name of an independent science, which has 
 for its object of investigation all other science. 
 
Chap. I] § 7. CONCLUSION 13 
 
 Thus the word Encyclopedia serves successively to indi- 
 cate a part of human knowledge ; then profane science ; then, 
 it is used as the name of a booh, taken partly as compendium 
 and partly as an alphabetical agglomerate ; and, finally, as the 
 name of an independent science. 
 
 But however different these five interpretations may seem, 
 the fundamental significance, that led to the formation of the 
 word Encyclopedia, is not lost. By his iyKVK\io<; irai^eia 
 the Greek divided the whole of human knowledge ; i.e. he 
 objectified it, analyzed it, and brought a certain order into it, 
 while by his e^/twXio? he bound the separated part to a given 
 circle. The Christian writers did this same thing; only 
 with this difference, that the part separated by them was 
 larger, that it was bound to a more extended circle, and that 
 this circle was determined by another principle as its centre. 
 The Humanists put the content of this part of human knowl- 
 edge in the place of the abstract conception of it, and tried 
 to fix the boundary of the circle, in which this part of 
 knowledge moved, not by the persons with whom it be- 
 longed, but by the organic coherence of this knowledge 
 itself. Polyhistory and Real-Encyclopedia in the alpha- 
 betical form gave, like the Compendia of the Humanists, 
 the content of the knowledge itself, but under the two 
 restrictions, that that only would be taken up which was 
 of importance either to the circle of the learned or of the 
 public at large, and that the circle in which one moved 
 was not bound to the science itself, but, as with the Greek, 
 to the " learned " or educated public. And finally the latest 
 interpretation, which gives the name of Encyclopedia to an 
 individual science that takes all the other sciences for the 
 object of its investigation, turns from the content of the 
 Humanists and of Polyhistory to the well-ordered concep- 
 tion of the Greeks, i.e. to a norma for the grouping; only 
 with this difference, that it interprets this ordering, for- 
 mulating and grouping organically, and so on the one hand 
 extends them to the whole realm of science, and on the other 
 hand causes them to be governed by the principle of science 
 itself. 
 
14 § 7. CONCLUSION [Dir. I 
 
 The reason which has led to the repeated resumption of 
 the word Encyclopedia, and which finally implanted this 
 organic sense in it, lies in the conception of the icvk\o<;. 
 That the Greek took this word to define the TracBeCa, shows 
 that there was present in his mind the idea of what belonged 
 together within the realm of human knowledge and grouped 
 itself about one common centre. The Polyhistor and the 
 alphabetical Real-Encyclopedist weakened this conception. 
 The writers of the old Compendia, and they who at present 
 seek in Encyclopedia chiefly the idea of organic relation, 
 cause this original motive of the Greeks to assert itself 
 again, and also enlarge upon it. Quintilian already con- 
 ceived something of the rich development of which this 
 motive of the kvk\o^ was susceptible when he interpreted 
 Encyclopedia by "orbis doctrinae." 
 
 This motive will ever maintain the supremacy in the 
 meaning of the word, even though the sense has lost for 
 us something of the riches attached to the kvk'Ko<; by the 
 Greek, especially in relation to the a^alpa (see Plato, 
 de Legihus, X., p. 898 a). If it is not possible for science 
 to be anything but a unit, if it has an inner impulse which 
 determines its course, and if in this course it is fastened 
 or bound to a fixed point, as a circle to its centre, there 
 can be no reason to question the propriety of the devel- 
 opment of the meaning of this word " Encyclopedia," by 
 which it has come to mean the investigation of the organ- 
 ism of science. To avoid confusion of speech, therefore, 
 it would be well, if from now on the alphabetical collection 
 of separate articles would call itself nothing but Lexicon, — 
 either Real-Lexicon in a general, or Lexicon for Arts and 
 Sciences in a special, sense, — so that Encyclopedia might 
 be exclusively used as the name of that science which has 
 science itself as its object of investigation. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE IDEA OP ENCrCLOPEDIA 
 
 § 8. The First Appearance of this Idea 
 
 The historic career of the idea of Encyclopedia is different 
 from that of the name. Much of what falls under this idea 
 bore a different name, while on the other hand the name 
 Encyclopedia has repeatedly been used for what was entirely 
 foreign to the idea of it. The idea of Encyclopedia lies in 
 the conception that the several parts of human knowledge 
 are related to each other, and that it is possible and neces- 
 sary for our mind to penetrate into this relation and to expli- 
 cate it. When a group of phenomena reflects itself in a 
 mirror, man is compelled to investigate not merely those 
 phenomena, but also the reflected image, by means of Optics. 
 And what Optics effects for the image presented to sight, 
 Encyclopedia designs to do for the reflection of what exists 
 in our science. There lies a majesty in the human mind by 
 virtue of which it cannot rest until it has acquired full domin- 
 ion in the world of thought. It cannot bear the suggestion 
 that there should still be something in that world of thought 
 that has withdrawn itself from the power of its sceptre. 
 This impels it to scan not merely the whole horizon of 
 phenomena with its knowledge, but the field of knowledge 
 itself with its thought. An atomistical science offends the 
 unity-sense of its own mind, or, by the pulverizing of the 
 cosmos, robs that mind of confidence of step in its walk. 
 And therefore it is bound to presume a relation between 
 the parts of its knowledge also, nor can it rest until it has 
 seen through that relation organically, because in this way 
 only can science harmonize with the organic unity of its own 
 thinking, as well as with the organic unity of the Kosmos. 
 
 15 
 
16 §8. THE FIEST APPEARANCE OF THIS IDEA [Dir. I 
 
 But the human mind does not subject this field of knowl- 
 edge to its greatness all at once. At best it is a process of 
 slow growth. A space of twenty-three centuries separates 
 Plato from Fichte's WissenscJiaftslehre and Hegel's Encyclo- 
 paedie, and Real-Encyclopedia still stands only at the very 
 beginning of its clearer development. If Diogenes Laertius 
 (IV. I, 5) can be believed, Plato already ventured upon a 
 somewhat systematic classification of the several parts of our 
 knowledge in a lost work, AtdXoyoi, tS)v irepl ttjv -Trpayfiareiav 
 ofioiMv. The same is said of Speusippus, Plato's kinsman, in 
 his "Opoi, and of Aristotle in his Hepl ivLarrjixav ; but since 
 these writings have not been preserved, it is not possible to 
 judge of the tendency of these studies. So much, however, 
 is certain, that in those circles serious thinking was already 
 begun upon the TraiSeia in general and the iincrTrifiai as such, 
 but it took at once a more practical course. Aristotle indeed 
 defined the boundary and the task of the several sciences. 
 And Varro and Pliny actually put together the contents of 
 different parts of knowledge. The organism itself of the 
 plant was not reached ; flowers were picked and tied to- 
 gether as bouquets, but in such a Avay that the relation was 
 found at first almost solely in the cord that was twined 
 about the stems, and a harmonious arrangement of flowers 
 after their kinds is scarcely yet suggested. Varro's Berum 
 humanarum et divinarum antiquitates and his Disciplinarum 
 lihri IX have both been lost, and Pliny's Historia naturalis 
 is the onljr treatise that enables us to form any idea of the 
 defectiveness of these first efforts. 
 
 With Hugo of St. Victor (tll41) and Vincent of Beau- 
 vais (11264) the eye is opened to this harmony in classifica- 
 tion. That which Marcianus Capella (1406) gives us in his 
 Satyricon, Cassiodorus (f562) in his Institutio divinarum 
 litterarum, Isidore of Seville (1636) in his Origines, and 
 Hrabanus ^Vlaurus (1856) in his De universo lihri XXII. 
 strives indeed after unity, as may be seen from Hraba- 
 nus' title, but succeeds only in the presentation of a dis- 
 tasteful and overdone bouquet. Hugo of St. Victor, on the 
 other hand, seems to have an eye for the inner relation of 
 
Chap. II] § 9. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANIC IDEA 17 
 
 the sciences when in his Eruditio didascalia he gives us a 
 descriptio et partitio artium, in which he endeavors to show 
 quomodo unaquaeque discipUna eontineat aliam et ah alia con- 
 tineatur. But even his systematic talent did not reach far. 
 He divides the disciplinae into three groups : (1) the theorica 
 contra ignorantiam (to wit: theology, physics and mathe- 
 matics); (2) the practiea contra vitium (to wit: ethics, 
 oeconomics and politics); and (3) the mechanica contra in- 
 firmitatem (to wit: mechanica, to which the trivium is added). 
 Vincent followed chiefly the division of Hugo, which (with 
 the exception of the change of mechanica into poetica) held 
 its ground till the seventeenth century, but he gave it a more 
 enduring phase by the division of his giant work into specu- 
 lum historiale, naturale and doctrinale, to which was added 
 at a later date a speculum morale by one of his followers. 
 The mutual relation of the sciences is grasped somewhat 
 more firmly already by Bonaventura (f 1274) and by Thomas 
 Aquinas (^1274). Excellent suggestions are given by Louis 
 de Vives (-j-1540) in his XX books de caus. corrupt, art. 
 de trad, discipl. et de ortihus ; but this relation was grasped 
 for the first time as organic by Bacon of Verulam (fl626), 
 who in his work de dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (Lond. 
 1624), and more yet in his organon scientiarum (1620), divided 
 the sciences organically, i.e. after a principle derived from 
 those sciences themselves. The development of this idea 
 could follow only when the task of collecting the contents 
 of ready knowledge gave place to reflection on the relations 
 of what had been collected. No doubt, only those who have 
 neyer looked into Alstedt's Encyclopedia can dispute the 
 fact that this gigantic systematician had the systematizing 
 talent ; but the material to be collected began to be too ex- 
 tensive for the handling of it all and the deeper study of its 
 relations to lie within the reach of a single scholar. 
 
 § 9. Development of the Organic Idea 
 
 Since from the days of Plato the human mind has been 
 dimly conscious of the fact that the several parts of our 
 knowledge form one body (^aoofia'); since it has been sought 
 
18 § 9. DEVELOPMENT OF THE OKGANIC IDEA [Div. I 
 
 in every way to give expression to this consciousness by the 
 actual collection of the several fragments of this one knowl- 
 edge in one work, or more correctly by reflecting it in one 
 speculum ; and since the arrangement of this crude mass of 
 itself demanded an account of the manner in which these 
 members of this one body were related, — the ever-increasing 
 burden of ready knowledge needed to be thrown from the 
 shoulder before the human mind could be sufficiently free, 
 with ever more definiteness of purpose, to choose this rela- 
 tion as the object of investigation. Two phenomena hastened 
 this process. On the one hand, the advent of the alphabetic!, 
 who, for the sake of making their books usable, purposely 
 abandoned the systematic track and at an early period sought 
 the Ariadne-thread for the labyrinth of their articles in the 
 a b c ; and on the other hand the revival of the philosophical 
 tendency that marks the second half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. When the alphabetici cast the systematic method over- 
 board, it was natural for others to fish it up. And when the 
 philosophical tendency everywhere went, by way of the trunk, 
 down to the root, the duty lay at hand of finding a principle 
 according to which the sciences themselves might be divided. 
 For a long time the remembrance of the word Encyclopedia 
 was altogether lost. Used to a material encyclopedia, men 
 thought that the encyclopedic domain was abandoned as soon 
 as they withdrew from the bazaar for the sake of the exclu- 
 sive study of the invoice of the goods on hand. The real- 
 lexicographers, who had abandoned the Encyclopedic idea, 
 were reputed the only persons still entitled to the name of 
 Encyclopedists, while the actual Encyclopedists, who gave 
 themselves to the study of the organism of the sciences, did 
 not dream of taking possession of their title. 
 
 Johann August Ernesti wrote under the title of Initia doe- 
 trinae solidioris (1736), and his friend J. M. Gessner treated 
 his subject as Primae lineae isagoges in eruditionem tmiver- 
 salem (1745), thus furnishing actual encyclopedia without a 
 single thought about the name of Encyclopedia. In his 
 Kurzer Inhegriff alter Wissensohaften (1756), which is fol- 
 lowed in the main by Reimarus, Kliigel, Biisch and Buhle, 
 
Chap. II] § 10. VICTORY OF THE ORGANIC IDEA 19 
 
 Sulzer and his followers no doubt furnished some system, but 
 with a brief resume of the content for every department of 
 science. With them formal Encyclopedia obtained no inde- 
 pendent position as it did with Ernesti and Gessner. Even 
 Eschenburg, who in his Lehrbuch der WissenschaftsJcunde, 
 1792, embodied Kant's idea, as well as his followers Hefter, 
 Burdach and Kraus, continued to look upon the formal as 
 the frame in which the material was arranged ; and it is 
 only in Erhard Schmid's Crrundriss der allgemeinen Eneyelo- 
 faedie und MetJiodologie (1810), in Schaller's Uncyclopaedie 
 und MetJiodologie der Wissenschaften (1812), and partly in 
 lasche's Architeetonik der Wissenschaften (1816), that the 
 suggestion of Ernesti and Gessner is worked out, and the 
 consciousness returns that this study of science as science 
 is Encyclopedia in its real sense. 
 
 § 10. Victory of the Organic Idea 
 
 And yet these men only stood in the vestibule ; Johann 
 Gottlieb Fichte was the first to unlock the temple itself 
 by his treatises on Die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794) 
 and Das Wesen des Gelehrten (1806); but especially by his 
 numerous monographs on the Wissenschaftslehre, which after 
 1804 he prepared for his classes in Berlin and which later he 
 explained and defended. This does not mean that in these 
 studies Fichte gave us a true Encyclopedia. On the con- 
 trary, in his Wissenschaftslehre no trace of this can be found. 
 But Fichte marked knowing itself as the object of an inde- 
 pendent science; and thus quickened the dim consciousness 
 that the encyclopedic insight into the organism of the sci- 
 ences was not merely an auxiliary aid by which to create 
 order in the chaos, nor simply tended to satisfy the sys- 
 tematic inclination and longing after order that is active in 
 the man of science, but that the insight into the nature and 
 into the organic relation of the sciences is an aim which 
 must be striven after per se as an indispensable part of our 
 knowledge. " Das Wissen vom Wissen," as Fichte preferred 
 to call it, is the root from which all fundamental Encyclo- 
 pedia germinates. By this watchword the truth had come 
 
20 § 11. THE BREAK IN THE PROCESS [Dir. 1 
 
 to light that the " knowledge " of man forms a world by 
 itself; that without unity of principle this world of our 
 knowledge remains unintelligible; and that the necessary 
 relation between (1) man who knows, (2) knowledge as such, 
 and (3) the known, or the thus far acquired science, must be 
 explained organically from this one principle. Only when this 
 was perceived with some measure of clearness was the science 
 of Encyclopedia born. Not that this is the only science that 
 is called to solve the problem in all its parts. One only of 
 these three parts is its appointed task. The Wissenschafts- 
 lehre has knowledge ( Wisseny itself for its object ; Logic 
 takes knowing man as its object of investigation; and Ency- 
 clopedia confines itself to the investigation of science as an 
 independent whole. But it is only by Fichte's radical for- 
 mulations in the domain of the Wissenschaftslehre that the in- 
 dependent character of Encyclopedia entered into the sense 
 of our times. Now, indeed, it was felt that the unit of 
 science formed a well-rounded whole ; that an inwardly 
 impelling power determined the circumference of its circle ; 
 and that the place for each of its parts is assigned by the 
 character of its organism. From technic, which it had thus 
 far been, Encyclopedia was changed into a philosophical 
 conception; and when animated by this thought Schelling 
 published his Vorlesungen ilber die Methode des Academischen 
 Studiums, and Tittmann and Beneke in like manner dis- 
 placed the mechanical interpretation of the study by the 
 organic, the process but awaited the intellectual powers of 
 a Hegel to give us the first encyclopedia in the higher sense, 
 if not of all, at least of philosophical, science. 
 
 § 11. The Break in the Process 
 This very advent of Encyclopedia, as a philosophical sci- 
 ence which has science itself for its object, rendered the 
 execution of an Encyclopedia of general science provision- 
 ally impossible, and necessitated seeking the development of 
 this new-born science first in the domain of the special sci- 
 ences. Here also progress was to be made from the special 
 to the general. Thus the second half especially of this cen- 
 
Chap. II] § 11. THE BREAK IN THE PROCESS 21 
 
 tury has witnessed the publication of a considerable number 
 of special Encyclopedias, which as a rule have followed the 
 division of the great field of science into a theological, 
 philological, juridical, medical and physical science. Two 
 factors have cooperated to further the course of this process. 
 First the difficulty presented itself that he only who himself 
 was well versed in a science is able to write its Encyclopedia 
 with any hope of success, and that in view of the vast 
 expanse of detailed knowledge and literature required for 
 every special science, it becomes more and more inconceiv- 
 able that one man should be able to command this sufficient 
 knowledge of all the departments of science. However 
 much, therefore. Encyclopedia is also an undoubted part 
 of philosophical science, yet it is entirely impossible that 
 one philosopher should be able to manipulate all the ma- 
 terial for the science of Encyclopedia. No other course, 
 therefore, was open but the one by which Theological 
 Encyclopedia is developed by theologians. Historical by 
 historians. Medical by physicians, etc., i.e. by each one for 
 his own department; and only when each of these separate 
 Encyclopedias has reached sufficient development can the 
 man arise who may unite the results of these subdivisions 
 into one philosophical whole. And on the other hand, the 
 writing of an Encyclopedia has scarcely ever been under- 
 taken without the practical aim of introducing students 
 of a given faculty into their science. A certain kvk\o'; 
 is necessary for every Encyclopedia, and this was given in 
 the historical division of the faculties. Because of the sub- 
 division of its task, the Philosophical faculty alone has de- 
 parted from this, and has divided itself into philosophical, 
 philological, historical and natural philosophy groups; and 
 where the natural philosophy and literary faculties are also 
 divided as faculties, as they are in the Netherlands, distinction 
 has still further been made between the philological and philo- 
 sophical task of the latter. This course of Encyclopedical 
 study has an undeniable disadvantage. In the first place, a 
 jurist, theologian, physician or philologian may readily fall 
 short of philosophical unity and power of thought. Secondly, 
 
22 § 12. PKOVISIONAL EESULT [DiT. I 
 
 instead of the principle of science itself, the historical divi- 
 sion of the faculties has become the motive of the division. 
 Thirdly, the practical purpose has tempted more frequently 
 to the production of a convenient manual than to the writ- 
 ing of a scientific Encyclopedia. And fourthly (an evil indi- 
 cated already by Fichte and Griiber), the former custom of 
 introducing the students into the universitas scientiarum 
 too, as well as into their own department, has been more 
 and more neglected. The academy has become an agglom- 
 erate of faculty-schools, and the university idea in its later 
 interpretation has lost something of its inner truth. 
 
 § 12. Provisional Result 
 
 This review of the development of the Encyclopedic idea, 
 in connection with the history of the name of Encyclopedia, 
 yields the following result. The Encyclopedic idea sprang 
 from the dim consciousness that the knowledge at our ser- 
 vice can be made the subject of thought, which study brings 
 about the classification of its material into groups. This dim 
 consciousness found at first only a practical expression, which 
 is evident from the choice of the name ijKVK\Lo<i, and from 
 the distinction that was made between a higher and lower, 
 a holy or profane, group of knowledge. Then the body, 
 or a(ofj,a, of this knowledge was objectified in large com- 
 pendia, which collected all disposable knowledge and so 
 presented it as a unity. The classification in these compen- 
 dia was at first entirely arbitrary or accidental, till gradu- 
 ally the need made itself felt of introducing system into this 
 arrangement. This systematizing became ever more difficult 
 as the material to be arranged constantly grew in volume, 
 till finally the two motives parted company, and the material 
 was arranged on the one hand alphabetically, exclusive of 
 all system, while on the other hand the arrangement and the 
 relation were studied independently. This latter study was 
 provisionally almost exclusively technical, till Fichte gave 
 the impetus to postulate the investigation of the organic 
 system of all science itself as a necessary and independent 
 science. The misunderstanding presented itself here, for a 
 
Chap. II] § 12. PEOVISIONAL RESULT 23 
 
 while, that the name of Encyclopedia was held by those who, 
 in the collection of the material, sacrificed every Encyclopedic 
 idea ; while the students of true Encyclopedia allowed the 
 name to be lost. But during the last decennials, Encyclo- 
 pedia, as name also, has returned to its proper study, and the 
 Real-Lexica as compendiums of the material and the Ency- 
 clopedias as studies of the organic relation of this material, 
 separate. Provisionally these Encyclopedic studies, in the 
 narrower sense, are still of a more special character ; and 
 only when these special studies shall have reached a resting- 
 point where they can take each other by the hand, will the 
 time come in which general Encyclopedia can again be suc- 
 cessfully studied. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 § 13. Forming of the Conception 
 
 The word, the idea, and the conception of Uncyclopedia 
 are genetically related. Hence in Encyclopedia also the old 
 feud can be renewed, whether the conception lies at the begin- 
 ning or at the end of the development of the encyclopedic 
 thought. To prevent misunderstanding, let it be stated that 
 this paragraph takes "conception" in the last-mentioned 
 sense. It is not difficult to account for this choice in the use 
 of the word. The process of thought that takes place in the 
 human spirit consists by no means merely in the linking 
 together of those series of thoughts which you have willed 
 to think, and by thinking have produced. This is but the 
 labor which as an arboriculturist you have performed in the 
 garden of your thoughts. But as the work of the gardener 
 is only possible because of the fertility of the garden, and 
 because this growth in his garden impels him to work, 
 which work he himself directs, so also in the human mind 
 there lives a world of thought, in which is growth and luxu- 
 riance of life independently of the human will and disposi- 
 tion; and from this living world of thought one receives the 
 impulse to think himself, and by this impulse mental effort 
 is directed and defined. When this is lost from sight, we 
 may have persons who think, but there is no development 
 of thought in the human mind. The common element is 
 then wanting from our thinking, by which alone the under- 
 standing of each other becomes possible. In this way all 
 thought becomes aphoristical dilettantism and human lan- 
 guage inconceivable. If we now apply this to the "con- 
 ception," it follows that the conception also is no form 
 
 24 
 
Chap. Ill] § 13. FORMING OF THE CONCEPTION 25 
 
 of thought which we ourselves cast, but that it germinates, 
 grows, and ripens independently of us, and is only plucked 
 by us. As the flower was already present in the seed, and 
 unfolded itself from it by a lawful development, so does 
 the clear conception spring slowly from a process in our 
 world of thought, which primarily at least went on alto- 
 gether outside our consciousness. And yet this unconscious 
 working produces its effect upon our act. The infant seeks 
 the mother-breast and drinks without having the least im- 
 pression of what the breast is, or the mother, or the milk. 
 From that unconscious substrata of our life germinates first 
 of all impression. This impression is first defined by tJie 
 word by which it is expressed. The idea which impels us 
 springs from it but gradually. And only when this idea 
 inspires us, and has impelled us to act, does the bud set 
 itself and by degrees unfold; till at length as fruit of 
 empirical knowledge our insight becomes possible into the 
 structure of the flower, and our conception forms itself. 
 
 Speaking, therefore, in the organic sense, this "concep- 
 tion " was already present in its germ in the first impulse 
 that worked in \rs from the unconscious world of thought ; 
 this conception germinated in the impression ; it matured into 
 the idea ; it directed us in our practical actions ; and finally 
 objectified itself in our forming of the conception. If, on 
 the other hand, you take the "conception" as you grasped 
 it in its completed form, then of course it became observable 
 only at the end of this process of thought, and to you it had 
 its birth at that moment only in which you plucked it. 
 
 Applying this to Encyclopedia, we find that the concep- 
 tion of Encyclopedia also was not cast by us arbitrarily, but 
 that it germinated of necessity and defined itself. This 
 conception is no product of our imagination, but it com- 
 pelled our thought to take it up into itself. As such the 
 germ was already prepared, when the first impulse began to 
 work in the human mind, from which sprang all Encyclopedic 
 study. But if you take this conception, as here it must 
 be taken, in distinction from the idea, the word, and the 
 impression, then it only began to exist for you at that mo- 
 
26 § 14. CRITICAL DEMAND [Dit. I 
 
 ment when with a clear insight you grasped the thought 
 that impelled you. Genetically, therefore, we stand before 
 this process: that originally in the human mind there 
 worked the need of bringing a certain order into the chaos of 
 its knowledge, not arbitrarily, but agreeably to a distin- 
 guishing principle that forced itself upon it. Further, that 
 this need quickened the impression that there is a certain 
 order in what presented itself to it as chaos, and that for this 
 impression also it sought a representation in the figure and 
 activity of the cyclos, and that in this way it formed the 
 word Encyclopedia. That under the impulse of this impres- 
 sion clarified by the word, it performed Encyclopedical labor. 
 That first with less and then with greater clearness the 
 Encyclopedic idea led it in this work. And that only after 
 this the Encyclopedical thought in turn was thought out by 
 it, till at length it was able to give itself an account of what 
 it accomplished and aimed at in this Encyclopedical labor. 
 In this way only it grasped the Encyclopedic thought with 
 entire clearness of consciousness, and thus formed its core- 
 ception. 
 
 § 14. Critical Demand 
 
 In forming this definition of the conception we must 
 work critically. Simply to construe the conception out of 
 all that presents itself as Encyclopedic work is already 
 impossible, because the great variety of matter exhibited 
 under this label allows of no unity of conception. Just 
 because Encyclopedic students were impelled for a long 
 time by the impression only, led by the word, or inspired by 
 the idea, but lacked the verification of the clear conception, 
 it could not but happen that many things allied more or less 
 distantly to Encyclopedia were ornamented with its name ; 
 that a good deal belonging to it was wrongly interpreted; 
 and that a large share of inseparable essentials was neg- 
 lected. The definition of the conception of Encyclopedia 
 demands, therefore, a critical discrimination of matter, and 
 while on the one hand the idea must be grasped from 
 what presents itself under this name, on the other hand also 
 the historical content must be marked out agreeably to the 
 
Chap. Ill] § 15. ENCYCLOPEDIC NECESSITY 27 
 
 demand of this idea. The lack of a pure definition of the con- 
 ception has created mtich confusion and error, and it is the 
 duty of the conception-definition to restore us from these paths 
 of error to the right track, and from this confusion to clear 
 distinctions. For this reason our investigation began with 
 the consideration of the tvord and its original significance, in 
 order to grasp the root-idea of Encyclopedia as such; after 
 this we traced the empirical use of this word under the 
 guidance of the idea; but now from this root-idea the con- 
 ception must be dialectically grasped and fixed. It is the 
 root-idea that the human mind brings about a certain dis- 
 tinction and order in the chaos of our human knowledge, 
 which is not done arbitrarily, but agreeably to a fixed order 
 assumed to be present there. Under the lead of the general 
 Encyclopedic idea this seeking after order in the chaos 
 took place practically in all sorts of ways. First there was 
 a classifying of this human knowledge by distinguishing 
 between certain groups belonging to a fixed sphere or circle 
 of life. Then order was sought by collecting the treasure of 
 accessible knowledge into proper arrangement. After that 
 the effort to establish order was made by placing the several 
 departments of knowledge in a certain logical relation. 
 And, finally, the attempt was made to penetrate to the 
 organism itself, which science taken as a whole presents. 
 It is not proper arbitrarily to mark one of these four mean- 
 ings as the conception of Encyclopedia. Hence we must 
 see along which of these lines the lawful development of the 
 Encyclopedic thought comes to its conception. 
 
 § 15. Encyclopedic Necessity 
 
 This investigation is governed by the antithesis of chaos 
 and order. If we ourselves bring order into the chaos of 
 our knowledge, after whatever manner we please, there is 
 no Encyclopedic conception possible, because in that case 
 every age and scholar is free to do this as he wills. But if 
 we have no such liberty, then there is a something that 
 binds us, and the question must be put as to what compels 
 us logically to take this order in this way and not in the 
 
28 § 16. SCIENTinC CHARACTER [Div. I 
 
 other, and with what right a succeeding generation disap- 
 proves in part of the interpretation of a bygone generation 
 and improves upon it. This compulsion springs in the first 
 instance from the logical necessity which dominates in our 
 thought. But this is not all. For then the question arises 
 whether this logical necessit}^ for our thinking has its ground 
 in our thinking itself alone, or Avhether it proceeds from 
 data outside of our thinking. Or, if you like to apply this 
 to Encyclopedia, we face the question whether the necessity 
 of bringing Encyclopedic order into this chaos of our knowl- 
 edge in one Avay and not in another, is born solely from the 
 fact that by our thinking itself we arrange this knowledge 
 in this order and not in the other, or whether this Encyclo- 
 pedic order is imposed upon that thinking by something that, 
 outside of the thinker, lies in the object itself. Upon what 
 ground the latter is assumed will be explained by the inves- 
 tigation of the conception of science. Here we merely state 
 that in our bringing about of Encyclopedic order in the 
 chaotic treasure of our knowledge, we are governed in two 
 respects by a compulsory order which is separable fi-om our 
 thinking. First, because the treasure of knowledge which 
 we obtain by our thinking does not originate first by our 
 thinking, but exists before we think ; and, on the other hand, 
 because the knowledge to be arranged in order stands in 
 relation to a world of phenomena which is independent of 
 our thought. Since now that world of our knowledge and 
 that world of phenomena are not chaotic but organic, our 
 thinking cannot rest till in the treasure of our knowledge it 
 has exhibited such an Encyclopedic order as will harmonize 
 with the organic relation both of that world of our knowl- 
 edge and of that world of phenomena. Thus our human 
 spirit is not to invent a certain order for our knowledge, but 
 to seek out and to indicate the order which is already there. 
 
 § 16. Scientific Character 
 This necessity alone imparts to Encyclopedic study its 
 scientific character. With every other interpretation it may 
 be a play of the imagination, it may be art, but no science. 
 
Chap. Ill] § 16. SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER 29 
 
 E'er a hiatus remains in our scientific consciousness as long 
 as the mind of man has not investigated with its thinking 
 not only the whole of the rest of the Koa-fio';, but also the 
 processes of its own thought upon this K6afio<;. If from this 
 the necessity arises for man to begin a scientific investiga- 
 tion of himself as a thinking being and of the laws which his 
 thinking obeys, then there follows from this at the same time 
 the demand that he shall make science itself an object of 
 investigation and exhibit to his consciousness the organism 
 of science. Man, indeed, with the first rise of the Encyclo- 
 pedic impulse, dealt with the mass of general knowledge, 
 which was at his disposal as a chaos, but now science itself 
 as object takes its place. Science is distinguished from 
 general knowledge by the fact that science puts the emphasis 
 upon the order in that knowledge. Science is systematic, 
 i.e. it is knowledge orderly arranged. The native physician 
 among the negroes in Africa deals only with flesh and bone, 
 while the scientific European or American physician deals 
 with a body, and his medical science is founded upon the 
 organic existence of the body. In the same way the dilettant- 
 Encyclopedist asks merely after the knowledge at hand, 
 while the Encyclopedist who is a man of science interprets 
 that knowledge as a system, and understands it consequently 
 as science. And this decides the question as to which one 
 of the four interpretations of Encyclopedic arrangement 
 mentioned in § 15 is scientifically correct. 
 
 Let a fairly complete collection of medicines be brought 
 together, all of which are well known to you, and let it be 
 your duty to arrange this chaos of medicines scientifically. 
 How will you do it ? Will you sort the medicines according 
 to the several patients, one of whom will require this, the 
 other that? Will you sort them according to the manner in 
 which they are put up, bottles with bottles, powders with 
 powders ? Or will you imitate the druggist, who gives them 
 places most conveniently at hand for sale ? By no means. 
 The first assortment, according to the patients, is proper for 
 the messenger who is to bring the medicines to the houses ; 
 the second assortment is convenient for transporting medi- 
 
30 § 16. SCIENTIFIC CHARACTEK [Di^- I 
 
 cines in large quantities ; and the third assortment is neces- 
 sary in part for the convenient arrangement of bottles and 
 pots on the drug-store shelves. But even though with these 
 three modes of sorting, the nature, effect, and use of the 
 medicines are measurably considered, these assortments are 
 not scientific. For a scientific arrangement of them the 
 physician must enter upon the organic relations of this 
 world of medicines, and from this derive a principle for 
 determining the arrangement. Applying this to the treas- 
 ures of accessible knowledge, we find that the Greeks sorted 
 originally according to the need of the patients, i.e. of those 
 who were to be aided by the iraL^eia ; that the compilers of 
 the great Compendia sorted according to the principle of 
 bottles with bottles and powders with powders, and only 
 paid attention to the necessities of packing; Alstedt and 
 his followers sorted just like the druggist, according to the 
 logical arrangement with regard to use in the schools ; while 
 scientific Encyclopedists alone have taken into account the 
 organism of science itself. Without doubt, a leading thought 
 predominated in the first three assortments, but that leading 
 thought was not inherent in the treasure of knowledge itself. 
 It could be taken in one way as well as in another, and 
 lacked the mark of necessity, while it did not take sufficient 
 account of the fact that there is an inherent order in our 
 knowledge itself. Just like the negro physician, they be- 
 held flesh and bone, but failed to discern the body in them, 
 and therefore could give no account of the skeleton, veins, 
 and systems of muscles and nerves by which the whole 
 was knit together. As soon, however, as it was seen that 
 we need not bring order into our knowledge, but must 
 merely trace out the order which is already in it. Encyclo- 
 pedia became scientific. From being investigation into a 
 mechanical arrangement, it now became the study of an 
 organic life-relation. We now deal with a dominant prin- 
 ciple, which of necessity, and according to a fixed law, has 
 effected the organic relation, and in this way only the effort 
 has been born not merely to indicate that relation, but also 
 to trace out both that principle and its working. 
 
Chap. Ill] §17. LIMITATION OF THE CONCEPTION 31 
 
 § 17. Limitation of the Conception 
 
 From this it follows that the compilation of the rich mass 
 of our knowledge into an alphabetical or systematic manual, 
 when arranged alphabetically, has nothing in common with 
 Encyclopedia ; and that even if this could be done system- 
 atically, it would be the application of Encyclopedia to the 
 exhibition of our knowledge, but could by no means be 
 Encyclopedia itself. It likewise follows that a resum^ of 
 the most important data of our knowledge must no doubt 
 deal with the results of Encyclopedia, but is not warranted in 
 a single instance in bearing the name of Encyclopedia itself. 
 And it also follows that the collection of the historia literaria 
 for any department, and the indication of its auxiliaries, by 
 itself has nothing in common with the science of Encyclo- 
 pedia. Encyclopedic science is undoubtedly productive of 
 fruits for such compendia and manuals, and is entitled to 
 the distinction that the writers of such books deal with its 
 results, but as a science it must be studied for its own sake. 
 Its aim must ever be to grasp the inner organism of science 
 as such. If indeed, as with other sciences, it was practical 
 interests which impelled to this study, so that only after- 
 wards the theory was discovered by which to reach the scien- 
 tific method, this does by no means warrant the attempt to 
 derive the conception of Encyclopedia from these first efforts. 
 Here also the conception ripens only when Encyclopedia 
 becomes conscious of the aim it has in view and has found 
 the way by which to reach it. Whatever, therefore, in the 
 several existing encyclopedias serves to provide material, or 
 to indicate auxiliaries, or to simplify the review by means of 
 summaries, does not belong to Encyclopedia proper. It is 
 superfluous and troublesome ballast, or it is the application 
 of a result of Encyclopedia, while Encyclopedia proper has 
 the floor only when science itself, in its organic existence, 
 is the object of investigation, the aim of which is not to 
 create order in the chaos, but to show that that which at first 
 made the impression upon us of existing chaotically, appears 
 on closer investigation to exist cosmically or organically. 
 
32 § 18. SUBDIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY [Div. I 
 
 § 18. Subdivision of Philosophy 
 So much is gained by this for the conception of Encyclo- 
 pedia, that now we understand by it that science which takes 
 the organism of science itself for the object of its investiga- 
 tion. This decides equally the question as to what place 
 this science itself occupies in the unit of sciences. From 
 this it appears that Medical Encyclopedia does not belong 
 to the medical sciences, that Theological Encyclopedia does 
 not belong to the theological sciences, etc., but that all 
 Encyclopedic study is philosophical, and forms a subdivision 
 of philosophy. As long as Encyclopedia was understood to 
 be a real-lexicon or a manual for early beginners, this idea 
 remained nebulous. In this sort of works the special 
 content of every department was the main interest, and the 
 Encyclopedic thought was seen only occasionally peering 
 from behind the scenes. Thus Theological Encyclopedia 
 was looked upon as a theological, and Juridical Ency- 
 clopedia as a juridical, department, and the real nature of 
 Encyclopedia was not grasped. But when it is once af- 
 firmed that the special material but serves to discover the 
 hidden relations in it, and is cast aside as soon as this is 
 found, in order to keep these relations themselves as the 
 object with which to deal, the philosophical character of 
 Encyclopedia is hereby defined. Encyclopedia belongs then 
 to those sciences hy which man as a thinking being seeks 
 to give himself an account of the world of his thoughts, and 
 is, as such, a subdivision of philosophy. This would have 
 been at once and clearly perceived if the Encyclopedic science 
 could immediately have busied itself with the whole field of 
 its investigation. No one would then have given general 
 Encyclopedia a place elsewhere. And only the accidental 
 circumstance that the study of this science had to begin with 
 the special departments obscured the outlook. It cannot be 
 denied that the subdivisions of every science belong to that 
 science itself, and that thus the undeniably philosophical 
 character of general Encyclopedia eo ipso asserts that all 
 special Encyclopedic study belongs to philosophy. 
 
Chai>. Ill] § 19. METHODOLOGY AND HODEGETICS 33 
 
 § 19. Methodology and Hodegetics 
 
 The conception of Encyclopedia is allied to those of 
 Methodology and Hodegetics, which, though often taken for 
 each other, are sharply distinguishable. Hodegetics points 
 out the way to him to whom the way is unknown. The 
 letter-carrier, who knows every inch of his way, takes no 
 notice in his daily rounds of the sign-post at the cross-road. 
 And the task of Hodegetics extends no further than showing 
 the way in any department to whose study a man begins to 
 devote himself. It acquaints him with the general features 
 of the domain, tells him of the helps he is in need of in 
 order to make advances, and points out to him the direction 
 in which to go. Thus there belongs to it a short resume of 
 the primitive data of every department; a reference to what 
 composes its chief literature ; a brief review of its history ; a 
 statement of its requirements; and an indication of the 
 course of study to be pursued. Hodegetics teaches the 
 theory of study to him who is not yet capable of study 
 himself. 
 
 Methodology, on the other hand, is something very differ- 
 ent. If Hodegetics serves the practical purpose of showing 
 the inexperienced traveller the way that has already been 
 discovered and cleared, Methodology, on the other hand, is 
 the theoretical science which gives an account of the reason 
 why this way was made thus and not otherwise, and decides 
 the question whether there is 'any reason to change the way 
 or its direction. This distinction is not always kept in 
 sight, but it is real. Hodegetics assumes that the way is 
 there, that it has been used, and points it out. Methodology, 
 on the other hand, is the science which decides how the way 
 is to be laid, and approves or disapproves of the way that has 
 been laid. By " way " two things can here be understood. 
 Either the way along which runs our thinking in this 
 formal sense, or the way along which our thoughts must 
 run in order to arrive at truth. In the first-mentioned 
 sense Methodology forms a subdivision of Logic. In the 
 last-mentioned sense it is an independent science which 
 
34 § 19. METHODOLOGY AND HODEGETICS [Div. I 
 
 places the results of Logic into relation with the ramifica- 
 tions of the several departments of science. He who de- 
 sires to use a steamboat in the exploration of an unknown 
 drainage system in Africa faces two questions of method: 
 (1) how to convey his steamer thither and put it together 
 again; and (2) how he will sail in the channels themselves 
 of this drainage system in order to reach the mountains from 
 which the stream descends. In scientific work our thinking 
 is that steamer which must carry us forward, and the course 
 of the drainage system indicates the method by which to 
 advance with our thoughts. Every science, indeed, is such 
 a dependent drainage system, which by the course of the 
 principal stream and its ramifications determines the way 
 along which knowledge of it is attained. 
 
 The idea of method, coinciding with that of fierepj(oij,ai, 
 i.e. to trace, assumes that what we seek to discover by our 
 thinking was thought before it originated, and that our 
 effort is to think over again this original thought. When a 
 Prussian general studies the fortification system of France's 
 capital, he starts out from the assumption that the French 
 soldiers who have built this system of fortifications have 
 first thought out this system, and have afterwards built it 
 agreeably to this studied plan. His aim, therefore, is to 
 discover this plan, and this is only reached when he clearly 
 grasps the original thought of the French engineer before 
 he began to build. Only when he understands this original 
 plan in its relations, does he know the Paris fortifications. 
 Hence two methods are here involved. First, the method 
 by which the French engineer built the fortifications, and 
 secondly, the method of the Prussian general in discover- 
 ing the fortifications' plan. The two are different. The 
 method of him who built the fortifications developed itself 
 from the principal thought he conceived in the drawing 
 of his plan. The method of the discoverer, on the other 
 hand, begins by viewing the forts and bulwarks of the 
 outer lines, from thence proceeds to the second and third 
 lines, and only from the relations of these several means 
 of defence does he penetrate to the plan of the fortifica- 
 
Chap. Ill] §19. METHODOLOGY AND H0DE6ETICS 35 
 
 tions. But when the discoverer has once grasped this plan, 
 he changes his method of thought to that of the engineer, 
 and now takes up the proof of the sum, whether the location, 
 the form, and the armament of the several bulwarks in each 
 of the lines can be explained from the principal thought dis- 
 covered. 
 
 Mutatis mutandis, this distinction between the method that 
 lies in the object of investigation and the method by which 
 we seek to obtain knowledge of this object, is applicable to 
 every scientific investigation. In every object we are to 
 grasp scientifically there must be a realized plan. Entirely 
 independently of our thought a thinking motive is active in 
 every object, and this motive impels the thought that lies 
 in this object to proceed in a fixed track. This is the method 
 that lies in the object itself, and with the knowledge of 
 which we are concerned. But inasmuch as we have yet to 
 penetrate from the circumference to the centre of this object, 
 we must seek a method first by which from what we see to 
 reach the hidden thought ; and only when this is found does 
 our thinking move from the centre to the circumference and 
 think indeed the thought over again which has embodied 
 itself in the object to be investigated (/^ere^^eTat). In the 
 main, therefore, we go first from without to within, and 
 then from within back again to without, and both times we 
 are bound to travel the way given in the object itself. 
 Thus Methodology lays out for us the way along which to 
 enter in upon the inner existence of the object, as well as 
 the way along which we can understand the origin of this 
 object. 
 
 If, now, there were no obstacles in the way along which 
 from phenomena we reach the inner existence of the object, 
 this twofold task of Methodology would amount to doing 
 the same thing twice, with the only difference of moving 
 one time in an opposite direction from the other. Since, 
 however, in the approach to the object all sorts of difficul- 
 ties present themselves in the way, which rise partly from 
 the observer and partly from the object to be observed, it is 
 the task of Methodology to indicate how we can overcome 
 
36 §20. " WISSENSCHAFTSLEHEE " [Div. I 
 
 these difficulties ; or, where they are insuperable, to show us 
 a side-road by which to reach our end. These difficulties, 
 which differ with the several objects, compel Methodology 
 to indicate a proper method for each of the several depart- 
 ments of study, by which in each department the end can be 
 reached. A general Methodology of sciences, therefore, is 
 not enough. Methodology also must specialize itself, and 
 since the special method for each department and each sub- 
 division of a department is wholly governed by the Encyclo- 
 pedic relation of the parts with the whole, Encyclopedia 
 takes up into itself this special Methodology. It can easily 
 be separated from this connection for the entire group of 
 departments, to serve as a department of general Method- 
 ology; but since the question of method returns with each 
 subdivision of every department, a special Methodology 
 would have to include the entire Encyclopedia of the depart- 
 ment, in order to be intelligible and to justify itself. In 
 one instance it would be an encyclopedic woof with a 
 methodological warp, and in the other instance Methodology 
 embroidered upon encyclopedic canvas. And, however real 
 the difference is between the two, this difference is too 
 insignificant to justify the trouble of a separate treatment. 
 
 § 20. " Wissenschaftslehre " 
 
 Encyclopedia has incorrectly been confused with allgemeine 
 Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte's title accounts for this. He 
 himself describes the "Wissenschaftslehre" as a "Wissen 
 vom Wissen,'' and consequently not "von der Wissenschaft.''' 
 "Allgemeine lehre vom Wissen" would have been the more 
 accurate name, and would have prevented misunderstanding. 
 "Knowledge " and "science " are different things. Knowl- 
 edge itself is a phenomenon in the human mind. Suppose 
 an entire population in a college town were massacred ; there 
 would be no more knowledge in that city; for all knowledge 
 assumes a living, thinking person who knows. But if the 
 library had been spared, there would still be science to be 
 found in that massacred town, because those books contain 
 a whole mass of science. It is a very different thing, 
 
Chap. Ill] § 21. ORGANIC CHARACTER 37 
 
 therefore, whether I investigate the formal phenomenon of 
 knowledge as such, or scan science itself, as it exists organi- 
 cally in all its ramifications, in its inner essence and articula- 
 tion. Up to this point general Encyclopedia and " allgemeiue 
 Wissenschaftslehre" have nothing in common. "What Fichte 
 aimed at was the study of a phenomenon in our consciousness ; 
 what Encyclopedia aims at is an analysis and synthesis of 
 all sciences together, taken as one organic whole. This, 
 however, is no warrant for overlooking the relation which 
 unites the two and lies in the general conception of sci- 
 ence that is fundamental to all special sciences. The body 
 is both something different and something more than its 
 members, and general Encyclopedia cannot be content with 
 the investigation of the separate members of the body of 
 science ; it must also deal with the science which finds its 
 ramifications in the several special sciences. And when 
 ready to undertake this, it of necessity touches "allgemeine 
 Wissenschaftslehre," since this teaches " knowledge " in its 
 most universal form, and thus offers it the means by whicli 
 to define the character of science in its universal sense. 
 
 § 21. Organic Character 
 
 If it is the task of Encyclopedia to furnish us knowledge 
 of science as an organic whole, a clear insight into the voca- 
 tion of Encyclopedia demands a distinction between the 
 threefold organic nature of science. Botany, for instance, 
 is an organic science: (1) because it introduces into the 
 mirror of our thoughts a group of phenomena, which as 
 "the vegetable kingdom" exists organically; (2) because it 
 reflects this "vegetable kingdom" in a world of thoughts, 
 which in its turn also classifies organically; and (3) because 
 it does not introduce this "organic vegetable kingdom" 
 absolutely into this organic "world of thought," but in 
 organic connection with the life of man and animal. Thus 
 every science has to do with a phenomenon which exists in 
 itself organically and is organically related with other phe- 
 nomena, while at the same time it must present the knowl- 
 edge of this phenomenon in organic relation. If in our 
 
38 § 21. ORGAJSriC CHAKACTEE [Dit. I 
 
 thought we place a series of departments of science side 
 by side, there is again a threefold relation among them: 
 (1) since the objects with whose study these departments are 
 concerned (Botany, Zoology, etc.) are organically related in 
 life itself; (2) since the reflections of these objects do not 
 lie loosely side by side in our mind, but also in the world 
 of our thinking maintain an organic relation with each 
 other; and (3) since the activities which go out from these 
 objects upon life, are organically involved with one another. 
 If now there were no unity in this threefold organic relation, 
 we should have a threefold organic interpretation of science : 
 the first according to the relation of phenomena, the second 
 according to the relation of our thoughts, and the third 
 according to the relation of the several ends at which our 
 studies aim: or, more briefly still, we should have a phe- 
 nomenal, a logical, and a practical interpretation. But this 
 is not so. The organic inter-relations of phenomena cannot 
 be grasped by us except as an outcome of an organic thought; 
 the organic relation of what is known in our thoughts can- 
 not assert its rights until it agrees with the organic inter- 
 relation of the phenomena; and the workings of this 
 knowledge upon our life stand in turn in relation both to 
 the inter-relations of the phenomena and to our knowledge 
 of those phenomena. History truly shows that the empiri- 
 cal division of study (the phenomenal), with which all 
 science began, and the theoretical (the logical), which only 
 came later on, even as that of the university (in faculties), 
 which, a few particulars excepted, kept equal step with the 
 last-named, have amounted mainly in the end to a similar 
 division of the sciences. 
 
 But with reference to this point also Encyclopedia should 
 reach self-consciousness, and give itself a clear account of 
 the question what it understands by the organism of science. 
 In which case it is self-evident that it cannot allow itself 
 to be governed by the practical university division of the 
 faculties, but that it must rather examine critically and 
 correct them. And it lies equally near at hand that the 
 phenomenon by itself should not be permitted to influence 
 
Chap. Ill] §22. STILL INCOMPLETE 39 
 
 this division, since this is the very science that exhibits for 
 the first time the organic relation of the phenomena. Hence 
 Encyclopedia is not at liberty to deal with anything else 
 save the organic relation in which the parts of the whole of 
 our knowledge stand to each other. Science, in its absolute 
 sense, is the pure and complete reflection of the cosmos in the 
 human consciousness. As the parts of all actually exist- 
 ing things lie in their relations, so must the parts of our 
 knowledge be related in our consciousness. As a country 
 is sketched on a chart, and we succeed ever better, as 
 Cartography advances, in sketching the country upon the 
 chart just as it is, so also must science convert the actually 
 existing cosmos into the logical form. The further science 
 advances, the easier it will be to reproduce the cosmos logi- 
 cally, and to make all its parts to be clearly seen, together 
 with their several relations. And thus science divides itself, 
 because in proportion as the logical reproduction becomes 
 more accurate, it will image in a more organic way whatever 
 exists organically. And so does science begin to show itself 
 to us as an immeasurable field, in which all sorts of divisions 
 and subdivisions must be distinguished, and upon which the 
 mutual relations among these divisions and life is ever more 
 clearly exhibited. It is this organic relation with which 
 Encyclopedia has to deal. The field of our knowledge itself 
 in its organic inter-relations appears as the object to be inves- 
 tigated by it. 
 
 § 22. Still Incomplete 
 
 From the fact that the object is still incomplete flows 
 of necessity the incompleteness of Encyclopedia. In the 
 field of knowledge some ground is not yet broken, and 
 other parts are but imperfectly known. And yet Encyclo- 
 pedia must not wait until its object is completely ready, 
 since science is in need of her assistance to get itself ready. 
 Hence it must overcome its false modesty and present itself 
 as it is, provided it but acknowledges its own imperfection 
 and makes no pretension of being already the Encyclopedia. 
 This involves the fact that every effort to furnish an Ency- 
 clopedia must provisionally bear an individual character. If 
 
40 § 22. STILL INCOMPLETE [Div. I 
 
 Encyclopedia could wait till every controversy concerning 
 psychology, the way of knowledge, knowledge as such, 
 were ended, and all contrasts of view in every special 
 department had fallen away, an Encyclopedia might be 
 spoken of which would compel every thinker to agree. 
 Since, however, the field of knowledge is only known in 
 part, and the psychological sciences are still at variance with 
 each other, and since in every department the tendencies and 
 schools are still in the heat of combat, no writer of Encyclo- 
 pedia can carry an argument save from the view-point which 
 he himself occupies and except he start out from the hypothe- 
 ses upon which his general presentation is founded. There 
 is no harm in this, since every other science actually goes to 
 work in the same way, provided the view-point be properly 
 defined and the end be held in sight of obtaining the Ency- 
 clopedia in its absolute form. Otherwise we may get an 
 Encyclopedic fantasy, but no contribution to the science of 
 Encyclopedia. 
 
 As long, however, as the logical sketch of the cosmos is 
 only a partial success, the organic relation traced by our 
 science will differ from the organic relation actually exist- 
 ing in the cosmos ; wherefore Encyclopedia cannot deal with 
 the latter, but is bound to turn its attention to the first. 
 For the same reason it cannot justify its demand that the , 
 university division of faculties shall reform itself at once in 
 obedience to its directions. This should certainly have to 
 be done if it were already Encyclopedia in the absolute sense, 
 but can not be demanded as long as it presents itself in a 
 form that is so imperfect and individually colored. In life 
 also lies a logic; and a logic lies equally in history; and 
 from these two has sprung the university division. If 
 Encyclopedia succeeds in effecting an influence upon life 
 itself, by which it will gradually be persuaded to regulate 
 its needs in a different way, the university division also will 
 thereby be indirectly influenced and corrected. But then 
 it will have stood the fire proof, and this will justify its 
 demands. If, on the other hand, an attempt were made to 
 influence directly by Encyclopedia the architect of the 
 
Chap. Ill] § 28. A THREEFOLD TASK 41 
 
 university and persuade him to cut the tie that binds the 
 university to life, it would result either in a pseudo-victory, 
 or the university would be turned into an abstract schema- 
 tism. This was the mistake committed by the Netherlands 
 government, when, in 1878, at the suggestion of a one-sided 
 Encyclopedia, it robbed the theological faculty in the State 
 Universities of its historical character, and actually changed 
 it into a school of the science of religion. Since from its 
 very nature such a faculty is of no practical use to life, and 
 as such has no susceptibility to life, the "officiousness of 
 practical life " compelled a reaction against the aim of the 
 lawgiver, and the demands of this one-sided Encyclopedia 
 could be only apparently satisfied. It triumphed in the letter 
 of the scheme, but actually and practically the right of his- 
 tory maintained the supremacy. 
 
 § 23. A Threefold Task 
 
 With this reservation it is the task of Encyclopedia to 
 investigate the organism of science physiologically, ana- 
 tomically and pathologically. Physiologically, in order to 
 enter into the nature of the life of every science and to trace 
 out and define the function of each member in the body 
 of sciences. Anatomically, in order to exhibit the exact 
 boundaries, divisions and relations of the several depart- 
 ments and subdivisions of departments. And pathologically, 
 in order to bring to light the imperfection in the functioning 
 of every science, to show its lack of accuracy in the fixing of 
 the several relations, and to watch lest by h3rpertrophy or by 
 atrophy the proper proportions should be lost between the 
 development of the parts. Physiologically it clarifies the 
 sense that must inspire every man in his own department, 
 and rectifies the universally scientific sense. Anatomically 
 it brings order into every study and defines the boundaries 
 between the several studies. And pathologic-medically it 
 arrests every error, inaccurate connection and unnatural 
 development which combats the demand of the organic 
 life of a science and of each of its parts. 
 
42 § 25. PURELY FORMAL [Div. I 
 
 § 24. Method of Encyclopedia 
 
 The only practicable method of general Encyclopedia is, 
 that it should begin with the study of the historical develop- 
 ment of the special sciences as they now are, and from this 
 should endeavor to form for itself an image of the develop- 
 ment of science in general. Then it should examine this 
 historical phenomenon in order to understand the motive of 
 science as such and the special motive of its several parts, and 
 when it has thus fixed the idea of science and of its separate 
 parts, it should investigate historically the ways by which it 
 has progressed and the causes that have retarded or corrupted 
 it. Having in this way succeeded historically in discovering 
 the essential nature of its object, and the law of this object's 
 life, Encyclopedia should then proceed to investigate in the 
 same way each of the parts and to determine the organic rela- 
 tion between them. And having in this way obtained a clear 
 representation of what the organism of science is, how its 
 functions operate and its parts cohere, with this result in 
 hand it should criticise the actual study of science. Its 
 point of departure must be historical. From what has been 
 historically discovered it must develop its idea. And with 
 this standard in hand it must prosecute its task both as critic 
 and physician. 
 
 § 25. Purely Formal 
 
 This answers of itself the question to what extent En- 
 cyclopedia is to concern itself with the material of each 
 science. It is not its task to furnish the body of science 
 itself, but to point out the organic relations in this body, to 
 demonstrate them, and, in case of error, to reestablish their 
 proper location. Encyclopedia does not build the body of 
 science, neither does it reproduce it, but it begins by view- 
 ing this body of science as given; and its task is merely 
 to show that it is a body, and how, as a body, it exists. 
 The Physiologist does not bring the blood into the body, 
 neither does he reproduce it, neither is it his calling 
 to investigate the whole quantity of blood. His calling 
 limits itself to the examination of blood as such, in its com- 
 
Chap. Ill] § 26. RESULT 43 
 
 position, origin, function and pathological deformation. 
 So far as there occur variations in this mass of blood, he is 
 bound to give himself an account of each one of these varia- 
 tions ; but so far as the similar is concerned, he is interested 
 only in the disposition of one of these similar phenomena. 
 And this is the case with the Encyclopedist. He assumes 
 that the material of science is known. He does not create 
 nor reproduce it, neither does he add to it. But in this 
 multitudinous material he looks for the network that binds 
 the groups of similar parts to each other. His study extends 
 all the way of this network in its length and in its breadth, 
 but where this network disappears in common material his 
 investigation ends. Hence no division or subdivision in all 
 the material of science can be so small but that, as long as 
 it forms a separate group or member in the organism, he 
 must study it out. The active working only of the organism 
 upon the material is to be investigated by him, and not the 
 result obtained by this organic function. Thus in scientific 
 Encyclopedia that shall be worthy of the name, there will be 
 no room for the content itself of the separate sciences, and 
 not even for a brief summary of their results. The material 
 must remain entirely excluded, and only the formal part of 
 each science must be exhibited. 
 
 § 26. Besult 
 
 The result of our investigation is, that by Encyclopedia we 
 understand that philosophical science which in the entire 
 thesaurus of our scientific knowledge thus far acquired 
 exhibits and interprets the organic existence of science and 
 of its several parts. This conception of Encyclopedia, which 
 has been arrived at historically, dialectically and by means 
 of distinction from the correlated conceptions, excludes 
 therefore all realistic treatment of the material, and con- 
 centrates Encyclopedia upon the formal side of science. 
 Eealistic Encyclopedia is no Encyclopedia. Formal Ency- 
 clopedia alone is entitled to bear this name in the scientific 
 sense. In this sense this acquired conception applies as 
 well to general Encyclopedia as to Encyclopedia of special 
 
44 § 26. RESULT [Div. I 
 
 departments, even though it lies in the nature of the case 
 that general Encyclopedia, because it is general, limits itself 
 to the principal ramifications of the organism of science, and 
 leaves the detailed ramifications of each group and its sub- 
 divisions to the study of special Encyclopedia. General 
 Botany has nothing to do with the variations of the species 
 rosa into tree roses, monthly roses, provincial roses, or tea 
 roses. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 
 § 27. Two Difficulties 
 
 And now, as we come to the conception of that special 
 Encyclopedia called Theological, the simple application to 
 Theology of what was obtained for the conception of General 
 Encyclopedia wiU not suffice. There would be no objection 
 to this in the cases of the Encyclopedias of the Juridical or 
 Philological sciences, but in the case of that of Theology 
 there is. The reason of this lies in the two circumstances : 
 first, that the scientific character of Theology is disputed by 
 many ; and, secondly, that they who do not dispute this are 
 disagreed as to what is to be understood by Theologj'. 
 Dr. Rabiger, who has referred to this difficulty in his 
 Theologik oder Una. der TheoL, Lpz. 1880, p. 94, incorrectly 
 inferred from it that for this reason, before its object can 
 be ready, the Encyclopedia of science must create for itself 
 from these several Theologies a general conception of The- 
 ology, in order that it may make this general conception 
 of Theology the subject of scientific study. This is not 
 possible, since then Encyclopedia would have the right of 
 judgment between the several Theologies ; it should have 
 to furnish a complete demonstration for the sake of sup- 
 porting this judgment ; and thus it would have to investi- 
 gate independently all the formal and material questions 
 which are variously solved in Theology. In this way it 
 would have to treat the leading departments of Theology 
 fundamentally, and, dissolving into dogmatics, apologetics, 
 church history, etc., would cease to be Encyclopedia. It 
 would then bring forth its own object, instead of studying a 
 given object. And, worse yet, he who would write such an 
 
 45 
 
46 § 28. THE FIRST DIFFICULTY [Div. I 
 
 Encyclopedia would not be able to escape from his own per- 
 sonality nor from the view-point held by himself. His criti- 
 cism, therefore, would amount to this : he who agreed with 
 him would be right, he who disagreed wrong, and the result 
 would be that he would award the honorary title of general 
 Theology to that particular Theology to which he had com- 
 mitted himself. A general Theology would then be exhib- 
 ited, and, back of this beautiful exterior, the subjective 
 view-point, which was said to be avoided, would govern the 
 entire exposition. 
 
 § 28. The First Difficulty 
 
 If both difficulties that here present themselves are 
 squarely looked in the face, it must at once be granted 
 that before Theological Encyclopedia can devote itself to 
 its real task, it must vindicate the scientific character of 
 Theology. This is not the creation of an object of its own, 
 but the simple demonstration of the fact that Theology is a 
 proper object of Encyclopedic investigation. If all Ency- 
 clopedia is the investigation of the whole or of a part of the 
 organism of science, no Encyclopedia of Theology can be 
 suggested as long as it is still uncertain whether Theology 
 forms a part of this organism. Since, now, the doubt con- 
 cerning the scientific character of Theology does not spring 
 from the still imperfect development of this science, but 
 finds its origin in the peculiar character it bears in distinc- 
 tion from all other sciences, it is the duty of the writer of 
 an Encyclopedia of this science to show upon what grounds 
 he disputes this doubt as to its right of existence. This 
 demonstration must be given in two ways. First, by such 
 definitions of the conception " science," and of the conception 
 " Theology," that it will be evident that the second is sub- 
 ordinate to the first. And, secondly, by showing that the 
 parts of Theology are mutually related organically, and that, 
 taken as a whole, it stands in organic relation to the rest of 
 the organism of science. This treatise also will venture the 
 effort to furnish this double proof. 
 
 The first only of these two proofs is demanded by the 
 
Chap. IV] § 29. THE SECOND DIFEICULTY 47 
 
 peculiar character of Theology. The second proof that the 
 parts of a special science mutnally cohere organically, and 
 together are related equally organically to the whole of 
 science, every special Encyclopedia of whatever science 
 undertakes to show. But the iirst proof that the conception 
 of this special science is subordinate to the conception of 
 general science does not occur in other special Encyclo- 
 pedias, because with the other sciences this subordination 
 is evident of itself and is by no one denied. 
 
 § 29. The Second Difficulty 
 
 The second difficulty should be considered somewhat more 
 at length. It presents itself in the fact that all sorts of 
 Theologies offer themselves as the object of investigation to 
 the writer of an Encyclopedic Theology. There is a Greek 
 Theology, and a Romish Theology, a Lutheran, Reformed, 
 and a Modern Theology, a " Vermittelungstheologie," and, 
 in an individual sense, we even hear a Schleiermachian, a 
 Ritschlian, etc.. Theology spoken of. Order, therefore, is 
 to be introduced into this chaos. Simply to make a choice 
 from among this number would be unscientific. Where 
 choice is made its necessity must be shown. Even the 
 Romish theologian, who looks upon every other Theology 
 save that of his own church as the exposition of error, can- 
 not escape from the duty of scientific proof of this position. 
 If it involved merely a difference between several " schools," 
 it might be proper to select out of these several interpreta- 
 tions what is common to them all, and thus to conclude the 
 existence of a general Theology. But this is not so. The 
 difference here springs not from a difference of method in the 
 investigation of one and the same object, but from a difference 
 concerning the question of what the object of Theology is. 
 One Theology investigates a different object from another. 
 One Theology denies the very existence of the object which 
 another Theology investigates. Even if we could agree 
 upon the methods of investigation it would be of no use, for 
 though the merits of your method were recognized, the 
 objection would still hold good that you apply your method 
 
48 § 29. THE SECOND DIFFICULTY [Div. I 
 
 to a pseudo-object, which has no existence outside of your 
 imagination. This springs from the fact that the object of 
 Theology lies closely interwoven with our subjectivity, and is 
 therefore incapable of being absolutely objectified. A blind 
 man is no more able to furnish a scientific study of the phe- 
 nomenon of color, or a deaf person to develop a theory of 
 music, than a scholar whose organ for the world of the 
 divine has become inactive or defective is capable of furnish- 
 ing a theological study, simply because he has none other 
 than a hearsay knowledge of the object Theology investi- 
 gates. Hence no escape is here possible from the refraction 
 of subjectivity. This should the more seriously be taken into 
 our account because this refraction springs not merely from 
 the circumference of our subjective existence, but is organi- 
 cally related to the deepest root of our life and to the very 
 foundation of our consciousness. Whether this impossibility 
 of completely objectifying the object of Theology does or does 
 not destroy the scientific character of Theology can only later 
 on be investigated ; here we do not deal with the object of 
 Theology but with Theology itself as object of Theological 
 Encyclopedia ; and of this it is evident that Theology itself 
 cannot be presented as an absolute and constant object, be- 
 cause its own object cannot escape from the refraction of 
 our subjectivity. If a scientific investigator, and in casu the 
 writer of an Encyclopedia, could investigate his object with- 
 out himself believing in the existence of his object, it might 
 be possible for the Encyclopedist at least to keep himself 
 outside of this difference. But this is out of the question. 
 Faith in the existence of the object to be investigated is the 
 conditio sine qua non of all scientific investigation. No theo- 
 logical Encyclopedist is conceivable except one to whom 
 Theology has existence, neither can Theology have existence 
 to him unless it also has an object in whose reality he equally 
 believes. As an actual fact it is seen that all writers of 
 Theological Encyclopedias take for their object of investiga- 
 tion that which they conceive to be Theology, and also that 
 every theologian assumes something as object of Theology 
 which to him has real existence. Thus one link locks into 
 
Chap. IV] § 30. NO ONE-SIDEDNESS 49 
 
 the other. To be able to write an Encyclopedia of Theology 
 it must be fixed beforehand what you conceive to be Theol- 
 ogy ; and in order to know which of the several theologies 
 that present themselves shall be your Theology, it must first 
 be determined what the object is which you give Theology to 
 investigate. It is evident therefore that the theological En- 
 cyclopedist cannot possibly furnish anything but an Ency- 
 clopedia of his Theology. For though this may be denied, 
 and it be made to appear that a Theological Encyclopedia 
 in the general sense is given, the outcome always shows 
 that in reality the writer claims universal validity for his 
 Theology. 
 
 § 30. iVb One-sidedness 
 
 This is a self-deception which nevertheless contains a germ 
 of truth. If in order to be a theologian one must believe in 
 the existence of the object of his Theology, the claim is of 
 itself implied that what he takes to be valid must also be 
 valid to every one else. This is no presumption, but only 
 the immediate result of the firmness of conviction which is 
 the motive for his scientific investigation. All scepticism 
 causes science to wither. But from this there flows an 
 obligation. Just this: to point out in the other theologies 
 what is untenable and inconsequent, to appreciate what is 
 relatively true, and to a certain extent to show the necessity 
 of their existence. No one Theology can claim to be all-sided 
 and completely developed. This is not possible, because 
 every Theology has to deal with an object that is not suscep- 
 tible to an abstract intellectual treatment, and which can 
 therefore only be known in connection with its historical 
 development in life. Aberrations very certainly occur which 
 furnish only negative or reactionary results for the knowl- 
 edge of the object of Theology, and these can only be 
 refuted. But there are also elements in this object of The- 
 ology, which do not find an equally good soil for their devel- 
 opment with every individual, with every nation, or in every 
 age. Every theologian, therefore, knows that neither he 
 himself, nor the stream of history in which he moves, are 
 
50 § 31. VIEW-POINT HERE TAKEN [Div. I 
 
 able to make an all-sided and a complete exhibition of the 
 object of his investigation. 
 
 Thus to him also there are theologies which are not simply 
 aberrations but merely one-sided developments, -w-hose rela- 
 tive validity he appreciates and with whose results he 
 enriches himself. But even that which is relatively true 
 and complementary in other theologies he is not allowed to 
 leave standing loosely by the side of his own theology, but 
 is bound to include it organically in his own theology, being 
 ever deeply convinced of the fact that in spite of their 
 relative right and complementary value these other theologies 
 interpret the essence of Theology one-sidedly and understand 
 it wrongly. Thus the aim is always to show in a scientific 
 way that the Theology that has the love of Ms heart is 
 entitled to the love of all hearts, wherefore he corrects and 
 enriches his own Theology with whatever acquisitions he can 
 borrow from the other theologies in order thereby to vindi- 
 cate the more effectively the universal validity of his object 
 of Theology. No reduction therefore is practised of the 
 several theologies to a common level, for the mere sake of 
 investigating encyclopedically what is common to them all ; 
 but on the contrary the start is taken from one's own con- 
 viction, with an open eye to one's own imperfections so as 
 sincerely to appreciate the labors and efforts of others, and 
 to be bent upon the assimilation of their results. 
 
 § 31. View-point here taken 
 
 This attempt to write a Theological Encyclopedia, too, 
 purposely avoids therefore every appearance of neutrality, 
 which is after all bound to be dishonest at heart ; and makes 
 no secret of what will appear from every page, that the Re- 
 formed Theology is here accepted as the Theology, in its very 
 purest form. By this we do not mean to imply that the Re- 
 formed theologians are to us the best theologians, but we 
 merely state, that Reformed Theology, 1, has interpreted the 
 object of Theology most accurately, and 2, has shown the way 
 most clearly by which to reach knowledge of this object. Let 
 no one take this statement to intend the least infringement 
 
Chap. IV] § 31. VIEW-POINT HERE TAKEN 51 
 
 upon the respect which the writer of this Encyclopedia is also 
 compelled to pay to the gigantic labors of Lutheran, Romish, 
 and other theologians. His declaration but intends to make 
 it clearly known, that he himself cannot stand indifferently 
 to his personal faith, and to his consequent confession con- 
 cerning the object of Theology, and therefore does not hesitate 
 to state it as his conviction that the Reformed Theology with 
 respect to this has grasped the truth most firmly. 
 
 Does this put a confessional stamp upon this Encyclo- 
 pedia ? By no means; since " confessional " and "scientific" 
 are heterogeneous conceptions. " Confessional " is the name 
 that belongs to the several streams in the historical life of 
 the Church, and is no distinguishing mark for your manner 
 of scientific treatment of the theological material. The 
 difference lies elsewhere. The fact is that until the middle 
 of the last century Theology received its impulse from the 
 Church, in consequence of which Theology divided itself into 
 groups which maintained their relation to the groupings of 
 the churches according to their confessions. Since that 
 time, however. Theology has not allowed itself to be gov- 
 erned by the life of the Church, but by the mighty develop- 
 ment of philosophy, and consequently we scarcely speak in 
 our days of a Lutheran, Romish, or Reformed Theology, but of 
 a rationalistic, a mediating, and an orthodox Theology. With 
 this custom this Encyclopedia does not sympathize, but takes 
 it as a matter of course that even as the medical, juridical, 
 and philological sciences, the theological science also is 
 bound to its object such as this shows itself in its own circle 
 in life; i.e. in casu the Church. Every other grouping of 
 theological schools rests upon a philosophical abstraction 
 which really ranks Theology under philosophy or under 
 history and ethnology, and in that way destroys it as an 
 independent science. Hence our aim is to seek the object 
 of Theology again in its native soil ; to examine no piece 
 of polished cedar in the wall, but the tree itself on Lebanon ; 
 and in this way also to study the object of Theology in the 
 history of the Church. 
 
 But even thus the choice of the Reformed stamp is not 
 
52 § 32. COMPASS OF ITS TASK [Div. 1 
 
 yet scientifically justified. The Encyclopedia obtains^ its 
 right to this only when it shows that the historical distinc- 
 tion between Romish, Reformed, etc.. Theology flows of 
 necessity from the very essence of Theology, and that the 
 current distinctions of our times are foreign to its essence 
 and are attached to it from without. And thus every 
 Encyclopedical writer is entitled and obliged in his Ency- 
 clopedia to honor as Theology whatever is Theology to him- 
 self, but this should be done in such a way that he shows 
 how with this interpretation the organic character of this 
 science is best exhibited. 
 
 § 32. Compass of its Task 
 
 On this condition it is the task of Theological Encyclo- 
 pedia : 1, to vindicate the scientific character of Theology; 
 2, to explain the relation between Theological science and 
 the other sciences ; 3, in its own choice of the object of 
 Theology to exhibit the error in the choice of others, and to 
 appreciate what is right in the efforts of others and to appro- 
 priate it ; and then, 4, to do for Theology what it is the 
 task of general Encyclopedia to do for science in general. 
 
 With reference to the first point. Dr. Rabiger goes too far 
 when (p. 95) he says : " The only problem of Theological En- 
 cyclopedia is to build up Theology as a science." It certainly 
 has more to do than this. It can even be said that only 
 after this task has been performed does its real Encyclopedic 
 task begin. If Encyclopedia is truly the science of science, 
 everything that is done to place the science as object before 
 oneself is only preparatory work. Only when Theology 
 lies before you as a science does your real Encyclopedic 
 study begin. His proposition therefore to give the name 
 of "Theologik" to Theological Encyclopedia will not do. 
 "Theologik" isolates Theology from the organism of the 
 sciences, and the very point in hand is to grasp the science 
 of Theology as an organic member of the body of sciences. 
 This is expressed by the word Encyclopedia alone, for which 
 reason the name of Theological Encyclopedia can under no 
 consideration be abandoned. From this follows also the 
 
Chap. IV] § 33. ITS RELATION TO METHODOLOGY 53 
 
 second point already indicated. Theological Encyclopedia 
 must insert Theology organically into the body of sciences ; 
 which duty has too largely been neglected not only in the 
 special Encyclopedias of Theology, but in those of almost all 
 the special sciences. The third point follows of itself from 
 § 31, and calls for no further explanation. And as regards 
 the fourth, this flows directly from the subordination of the 
 conception of Theological Encyclopedia to that of general 
 Encyclopedia. 
 
 § 33. Its Relation to Methodology 
 
 This task includes of itself the scientific description of the 
 method of Theology, and of its parts, and its insertion into 
 organic relation with its object. No general Methodology is 
 necessary, for this may be assumed to be known. But it must 
 show the paths of knowledge, mapped out by general Meth- 
 odology, which Theology is to travel in order to reach her end. 
 Then it must show what modifications are introduced into 
 this general method by the peculiar character of Theology. 
 And finally, what nearer method flows from this for the sub- 
 divisions of Theology. There is no cause for a separate 
 treatment of Theological Methodology. He who places it as 
 a separate study outside of his Encyclopedia, must invoke its 
 help in that Encyclopedia ; neither can he furnish his Meth- 
 odology without repeating the larger part of the content 
 of his Encyclopedia. Just because of the strongly subjec- 
 tive character which is inseparable from all Theology, it is 
 dangerous to separate the method too widely from the object, 
 neither can the object be sufficiently explained without deal- 
 ing at the same time with the method. Hence it should be 
 preferred to treat the method of Theology taken as a whole 
 in the general volume of the Encyclopedia, and then, so far 
 as this is necessary with each subdivision, the modifications 
 which this method undergoes for the sake of this subdivision. 
 
54 § 35. RESULT [Dit. I 
 
 § 34. Its Aim 
 
 The aim of Theological Encyclopedia is in itself purely 
 scientific. Since Theology belongs to the organism of sci- 
 ence, the Encyclopedic impulse itself compels the investi- 
 gation of this part also of the great organism of science, in 
 order that we may know it in its organic coherence and rela- 
 tion. This is its philosophical aim. But its aim is equally 
 strong to bring Theology itself to self-consciousness. No 
 more than any other science did Theology begin with know- 
 ing what it wanted. Practical interests, necessity and un- 
 conscious impulse brought it to its development. But with 
 this it cannot remain satisfied. For its own honor's sake, 
 Theology also must advance with steady steps to know itself, 
 and to give itself an account of its nature and its calling. 
 This is the more necessary since in our times Theology as a 
 whole is no longer studied by any one, and since the several 
 theologians choose for themselves but a part of the great task. 
 Thus every sense of relation is lost, and a writer in one 
 department infringes continually upon the rights of the 
 others, unless the sense of the general task of Theology 
 becomes and remains quickened. In the third place, the aim 
 of Encyclopedia of Theology is defensive or apologetic. 
 Much presents itself as Theology with the assumption of the 
 right to translate real Theology into that which is no Theol- 
 ogy- The conflict which arises from this may not be left to 
 chance, but must be decided scientifically, and this cannot 
 take place until Theology fixes its scientific standard. And 
 finally its aim in the fourth place is, for the sake of non- 
 theologians, who must nevertheless deal with Theology, to 
 declare, in scientifically connected terms, what Theology is. 
 
 § 35. Result 
 
 As the result of the above it is evident that the conception 
 of Theological Encyclopedia consists in the scientific investiga- 
 tion of the organic nature and relations of Theology in itself 
 and as an integral part of the organism of science. As such 
 it forms a subdivision of general Encyclopedia, and with it 
 
Chap. IV] § 35. EESULT 55 
 
 belongs to the science of philosopliy. As such it is formal, 
 not in the sense that it must furnish a mere scheme of de- 
 partments and of names, but in the sense that it is not 
 allowed to become material, as if it were its duty to collect 
 the theological content in a manual. It may enter into the 
 material only in so far as it is necessary for the sake of ex- 
 hibiting the formal nature and relations of Theology. Dis- 
 tinguished from Hodegetics and Historia litteraria, it is not 
 called upon to furnish a manual for beginners ; though noth- 
 ing forbids the addition to it of a brief historia litteraria, pro- 
 vided that this is not presented as a part of the Encyclopedia 
 itself. 
 
DIVISION II 
 
 THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 
 
 oj«;o 
 
 § 36. Introduction 
 
 It is the task of Theological Encyclopedia to investigate 
 the nature of Theology for the stated purposes of under-- 
 standing it, of passing criticism upon its progress, and of 
 assisting its healthful development. It is not sufficient that 
 it answer the question, What Theology is ; it must also 
 critically examine the studies that have thus far been be- 
 stowed upon Theology, and mark out the course henceforth 
 to be pursued. This investigation would bear no scientific 
 character, and consequently would not be Encyclopedic, if 
 Theology were merely a private pursuit of individuals. 
 Now, however, it is both, because Theology presents an 
 interest that engages the human mind as such. We face 
 a phenomenon that extends across the ages, and has engaged 
 many persons, and therefore cannot be the outcome of a 
 whim or notion, nor yet of an agreement or common contract, 
 but is governed by a motive of its own, which has worked 
 upon these persons in all ages. This motive cannot lie 
 elsewhere than in the human mind; and if a certain regu- 
 larity, order and perceptible development are clearly mani- 
 fest in these theological studies, as prosecuted in whatever 
 period and by whatever persons, it follows that this motive, 
 by which the human mind is impelled to theological investi- 
 gation, not only formally demands such an investigation, but 
 is bound to govern the content and the tendency of these 
 studies. Distinction therefore must be made between the 
 theological study of individual theologians and the impulse 
 
 56 
 
Div. II] § 36. INTRODUCTION 57 
 
 of Theology whicli they obeyed consciously or unconsciously, 
 entirely or in part. This theological impulse is the general 
 phenomenon, which is certainly exhibited in special theologi- 
 cal studies, but never exhausts itself in them. This general 
 phenomenon lies behind and above its temporal and individ- 
 ual revelations. It is not the excogitation of an individual 
 man, but men have found it in the human mind. Neither 
 v^as it found as an indifferent something, but as something 
 definite in essence and tendency ; in virtue of which it can 
 and must be included in the investigation of science as 
 a whole. This very distinction, however, between the 
 theological motive in general and the effect of this motive 
 upon the individual theologian, presents both the danger and 
 the probability that the study of Theology will encounter 
 influences that are antagonistic to this motive ; which diver- 
 gence will of necessity cause it to become bastardized and 
 the mutual relation of these studies to suffer loss. With this 
 motive itself, therefore, the impulse of criticism is given, and 
 the scientific investigation into the essence of Theology 
 would never be finished, if it did not inquire as to how far 
 this motive had been allowed to exert itself, and in what 
 way it is to continue its task. 
 
 Technically, therefore, encyclopedical investigation would 
 be prosecuted most accurately if the essence of Theology 
 could first be determined thetically ; if, after that, empirical 
 Theology could be compared with this ; and if the means could 
 be indicated therapeutically by which to make and maintain 
 the healthful development of Theology. But to follow out 
 this scheme would be unwise for three reasons. In the first 
 place, the thetic result cannot be found except in consulta- 
 tion with empiricism, and this calls in the aid of the devia- 
 tions as antitheses for the definition of the conception. In 
 the second place, with Theology in general, and afterwards 
 with each of its parts, a continuous repetition of consonant 
 criticism could not be avoided. And in the third place, the 
 thetical, critical and therapeutical or dietetical treatment of 
 each department would be torn altogether out of relation 
 and come in order at three entirely different places. This 
 
58 § 36. INTRODUCTION [Div. H 
 
 necessitates the sacrifice of technical accuracy to the de- 
 mands of a practical treatment ; and the arrangement of the 
 division of the investigation in the order of importance. 
 Hence in this Encyclopedia also the real investigation divides 
 itself into two parts, the first of which deals with Theology 
 as such, while the second reviews her subdivisions. And 
 the end of each aim is : to understand Theology as such, and 
 her parts, organically. Encyclopedia may not rest until it 
 has grasped Theology as an organic part of general science, 
 and has examined the departments of exegesis, church history, 
 etc., as organic parts of the science of Theology. 
 
 If all investigators were fully agreed among themselves as 
 to the nature and the conception of science, we could at once 
 start out from this fixed datum and indicate what place 
 Theology occupies in the sphere of science, and press the 
 claims she ought to satisfy. But this is not the case. Not 
 only is the conception of science very uncertain, but the very 
 relation sustained by the several thinkers to Theology and 
 its object exercises frequently a preponderating influence 
 upon the definition of the conception of science. There can 
 be no clearness, therefore, in an encyclopedical exposition 
 until it is definitely stated what the writer understands by 
 science and by its prosecution in general. And for this 
 reason this investigation into the nature of Theology begins 
 with a summary treatment of science and its prosecution. 
 The organism of science itself must be clearly outlined, 
 before the place which Theology occupies in it can be deter- 
 mined. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE 
 
 § 37. Etymology and Accepted Use of the Word 
 
 The plan of a Theological Encyclopedia does not admit an 
 exposition of the principles of the " doctrine of science " ; 
 but neither will it do to describe the nature of Theology as 
 a science, until the conception of " science " is determined. 
 In view of the very prevalent confusion with reference to 
 this conception, the writer of a Theological Encyclopedia 
 should clearly define what he understands by it. 
 
 Etymologically it is fairly certain that to know''- as an intel- 
 lectual conception is derived from the sensual conception to 
 see ; and more particularly from seeing something one was 
 looking for in the sense of finding. This may the more fully 
 be emphasized, because not only the Indo-Germanic but also 
 the Semitic family of languages point to this origin of the 
 conception to know. The Sanscrit has vid, to know ; vindami, 
 to find; the Greek pcB in eiSov, to see, alongside of olBa, to 
 know ; the Latin vid-ere, to see, alongside of visa, to visit ; 
 the Gothic vait, to know, alongside of vit-an, to keep what 
 one has found ; and the Old Slavic vid-e-ti, to see, alongside 
 of ved-e-ti, to know. This development of the conception 
 runs almost parallel with that of the Semitic root vadd (Sni) 
 which, just as in the so-called Pelasgic vid stands alongside 
 of id, shows the double form of vadd and iadd (3J"I^). This 
 vadd or iada' also is the common word for to know, but witk 
 the root-meaning of to see. In 1 Sam. x. 11 and in Job xxviii^ 
 
 ^ [That is, the Dutch weten, whioh runs hack to a base wit, = originally 
 'to see.' The English representatives of the root are such as 'wit,' 'wot,' 
 'witness'; and also such words as 'wise,' 'guise,' 'vision,' ' visible,' 'idea,' 
 etc.] 
 
 59 
 
60 § 37. ETYMOLOGY AND [Diy. II 
 
 13 the LXX translated it by the word ISelv, to see. Along- 
 side of SlatZ^ (to hear) as perception through the ear, stands 
 V1^ (to see) as perception through the eye. UV'p HXn in 
 Gen. xxxvii. 14 and Dlbu^ :JT in Esther ii. 11 are in mean- 
 ing one. The entirely different meaning attributed to 2?T by 
 Fiirst and others in Ezek. xxxviii. 14, as if the idea to separate, 
 split or disband were prominent, might yet originally have 
 coincided with the meaning of the verb to see, even as cernere 
 in its connection with KpCveiv. But if on this ground the con- 
 nection between the conceptions to know and to see can scarcely 
 be denied, the verb to know cannot be said to be of the same 
 origin with all the forms of the idea to see. To see is a finely 
 differentiated conception. 'Opdv, ^Xeiretv, 6-\\rofiaL, 6edofj,ai, 
 BeBopKevai, -spicere, dKeir- (in aKeiTTea-Oai), etc., all express a 
 certain perception through the eye, but in different ways. An 
 object can present itself to us in such a way, that we perceive 
 it and thus see it, while our eye did not look for it. At 
 another time our eyes may look without desiring to discover 
 any one object. And lastly there is a looking, by which we 
 employ our powers of vision in seeking and investigating a 
 definite object, until we find and understand it. The con- 
 ception of the verb to see, included in the root of the verb to 
 know, is definitely this last kind of seeing : premeditatively 
 to look for something, in order to find it. Herein lies of 
 itself the transition to the conceptions of investigation and 
 of trying to know, as result of which we have the seeing or 
 knowing. Revelation in holy Scripture throws further light 
 upon this relation by placing before us the •yvojcri,'; as a lower 
 form of knowing, and as a j^Xejrea-Oai but only in part, in a 
 glass darkly, and over against this making the completed 
 'yvSxTi'; to appear as a dedaffai, a seeing close at hand, in full 
 reality, irpocrwirov trpo'i Trpouwjrov (1 Cor. xiii. 8-12). 
 
 If in the second place we consult the accepted use of the 
 word, we find the conceptions of knowing and understanding 
 separated from each other by a clearly perceptible boundary. 
 The accepted use of the word to know has both a general 
 and a limited sense. In the question, Do you know that the 
 mail-boat has suffered shipwreck ? is only meant. Have you 
 
Chap. I] ACCEPTED USE OF THE WORD 61 
 
 heard it ? Is this fact taken up into your consciousness ? If, 
 on the other hand, I say, Do you know that it is so ? then to 
 know is taken in a stricter sense, and means : Can you vouch 
 for it ? In both cases, however, there lies in this knowing not 
 so much the thought of an analysis of the content of an affair or 
 fact, as the thought of the existence of it ; viz. the antithesis 
 between its leing and not being. Understanding, on the other 
 hand, does not refer to the leing or not being, but assumes it 
 as a fact, and analyzes it for the sake of introducing it into 
 the world of our conceptions. To have knowledge of a 
 thing is almost synonymous with having certainty of it, 
 which of itself implies that such a presentation of the matter 
 or fact has been obtained that it can be taken up into our 
 consciousness. And further it is knowledge only when be- 
 sides this presentation in my consciousness I also have the 
 sense that this representation corresponds to existing reality ; 
 Avhich is entirely different from understanding, by which I 
 investigate this representation, in order to comprehend it 
 in its nature and necessity. 
 
 If we compare this with the common acceptation of the 
 word science, we encounter the apparent contradiction that 
 what is commonly called " science " seems to lie almost 
 exclusively in the domain of the understanding, and that 
 when the question is asked whether there is a reality cor- 
 responding to a certain representation, it is met with the 
 answer, It is not clear (non liquef) ; even with a fundamental 
 non liquet, when the general relation of the phenomena to 
 the noumena is in order. This, however, is only in appear- 
 ance. For many centuries the conception of science and its 
 corresponding forms in other languages was entirely free 
 from sceptical infusion, and carried no other impression 
 than of studies which were able to impart real knowledge 
 of all sorts of things, so that by it one knew what before 
 one did not know. The "language-making people" ad- 
 hered, therefore, strenuously to the root-meaning of the 
 verbs to see and to know, even in the derived conception of 
 "science," and marked this more clearly still by the an- 
 tithesis between "science" and "learning." The law of 
 
62 § 37. ETYMOLOGY AND [dv- H 
 
 language requires that " science " shall make us know what 
 there is, that it is there, and how it is there. That the men 
 of " science " themselves have adopted this name, and have 
 preferred to drop all other names, especially that of Philoso- 
 phy, only shows that they were not so much impelled by the 
 desire to investigate, as by the desire to hnow for them- 
 selves and to make real knowledge possible for others; 
 and that indeed a knowledge so clear and transparent 
 that the scafColdings, which at first were indispensable, can 
 at last be entirely removed, and the figure be unveiled and 
 seen. However keenly it may be felt that under present 
 conditions this result, in its highest significance, lies beyond 
 our reach, the ideal should not be abandoned, least of aU in 
 common parlance. There is in us a thirst after a knowledge 
 of things which shall be the outcome of immediate sight, 
 even if this sight takes place without the bodily eye. And 
 since we are denied this satisfaction in our present dispensa- 
 tion, God's word opens the outlook before us in which this 
 immediate seeing of the heart of things, this deaaOat, this see- 
 ing of face to face, shall be the characteristic of our knowl- 
 edge in another sphere of reality. The accepted use of the 
 word which holds on to the conception of sight in knowledge 
 agrees entirely with Revelation, which points us to a science 
 that shall consist in sight. 
 
 The objection that, when interpreted in relation to its 
 etymology and accepted use of the word, "science" is syn- 
 onymous with " truth," ^ stands no test. In the first place, 
 the root of this word, ver-, which also occurs in ver-um, in 
 ver-hum, in word, in fepelv, etc., does not point to what is 
 seen or known, but to what is spoken. This derivation dis- 
 courages, at the same time, the growing habit of relating 
 truth to a condition or to a moral disposition, and of speak- 
 ing of a thing or of a person as " being real. " Truth, more- 
 over, is always an antithetical conception, which science 
 never is. The thirst after knowledge has its rise in our 
 desire to reflect in our consciousness everything that exists, 
 while the thirst after truth originates from the desire to 
 1 [That is ^ waarheid,' the Dutch word for ' truth.' — Translator.} 
 
Chap. I] ACCEPTED USE OF THE WORD 63 
 
 banish from our consciousness whatever represents existing 
 things as other than they are. In a pregnant sense, as will 
 be shown more at length in another place, truth stands over 
 against falsehood. Even when truth is sought in order to 
 avoid or to combat an unintentional mistake, or an illusion 
 arisen in good faith or an inaccuracy which is the result of 
 an insufficient investigation, there always is an antithesis 
 which belongs to the nature of this conception. If there 
 were no falsehood conceivable, or mistake, illusion or inaccu- 
 racy, there would be no thirst after truth. The facts that 
 science seeks after truth, and that truth is of supremest 
 importance to it, do not state its fundamental thought, — 
 which is and always will be, the knowledge of what is, that 
 it is, and how it is. And this effort assumes the form of 
 "seeking after truth" only as far as, for the sake of dis- 
 covering what is, it has to dismiss all sorts of false repre- 
 sentations. In such a state of things as is pictured by Reve- 
 lation in the realm of glory, the desire to see and to know is 
 equally active ; there, of course, through immediate percep- 
 tion ; while the antithesis between falsehood, mistake, illusion, 
 inaccuracy and truth shall fall entirely away. 
 
 § 38. Subject and Object 
 
 In the conception of science the root-idea of to know must 
 be sharply maintained. And the question arises: Who is 
 the subject of this knowledge, and what is the object? Each 
 of us knows innumerable things which lie entirely outside 
 of the realm of science. You know where you live and who 
 your neighbors are. You know the names of your children 
 and the persons in your employ. You know how much 
 money you spend in a week. All this, however, as such, is 
 no part of what science knows or teaches. Science is not 
 the sum-total of what A knows, neither is it the aggregate , 
 of what A, B and C know. The subject of science cannot 
 be this man or that, but must be ma.nhind at large, or, if 
 you please, the human consciousness. And the content of 
 knowledge already known by this human consciousness is 
 so immeasurably great, that the most learned and the most 
 
64 § 38, SUBJECT AND OBJECT [Div. II 
 
 richly endowed mind can never know but a very small part 
 of it. Consequently you cannot attain unto a conception of 
 "science" in the higher sense, until you take humanity as 
 an organic whole. Science does not operate atomistically, 
 as if the grand aggregate of individuals commissioned a few 
 persons to satisfy this general thirst after knowledge, and as 
 if these commissioners went to work after a mutually agreed- 
 upon plan. No, science works organically, i.e. in the sense 
 that the thirst for knowledge lies in human nature; that 
 within certain bounds human nature can obtain knowledge; 
 that the impulse to devote oneself to this task, together with 
 the gifts which enable one to work at it, become apparent 
 of themselves ; and that in the realm of intellectual pursuits 
 these coryphaei of our race, without perceiving it and almost 
 unconsciously, go to work according to a plan by which hu- 
 manity at large advances. 
 
 Hence there is no working here of the will of an indi- 
 vidual, and it is equally improbable that chance should 
 produce such an organically inter-related result. A higher 
 factor must here be at play, which, for all time and among 
 all peoples, maintains the unity of our race in the interests of 
 the life of our human consciousness ; which impels people to 
 obtain knowledge; which endows us with the faculties to 
 know ; which superintends this entire work ; and as far as 
 the results of this labor lead to knowledge builds them up 
 into one whole after a hidden plan. If impersonation were 
 in order, this higher factor, this animating and illumining 
 power, itself might be called "Science." Or if this is 
 called poetry which properly belongs to pagan practice 
 only, we may understand by "science" thus far acquired, 
 that measure of light which has arisen in the darkness of 
 the human consciousness by reason of the inworking of this 
 higher power, —this light, of course, being interpreted not 
 only as a result, but as possessed of the virtue of all light, 
 viz. to rule and to ignite new light. With this interpreta- 
 tion only everything accidental and individual falls away, 
 and science as such obtains a necessary and universal char- 
 acter. Taken in that sense, science makes the "mind of 
 
CiiAi'. I] § 38. SUBJECT AND OBJECT 65 
 
 man " to have knowledge ; and every one receives a share of 
 it according to the measure of his disposition and station in 
 life. Moreover, it is only with this interpretation that 
 science obtains its divine consecration, because that higher 
 factor, which was seen to be the active agent in science, 
 cannot be conceived otherwise than self-conscious ; for there 
 can be no science for the human consciousness as such with- 
 out a God to impel man to pursue science, to give it, and 
 to maintain its organic relation. With the human individ- 
 iials, therefore, you do not advance a step, and even if the 
 Gremeingeist of our human nature should be personified it 
 would not do, since this higher factor must be self-conscious, 
 and this Gemeingeist is brought to self-consciousness by sci- 
 ence alone. This higher factor, who is to lead our human 
 consciousness up to science, must himself know what he will 
 have us know. 
 
 If the subject of science, i.e. the subject that wants to know 
 and that acquires knowledge, lies in the consciousness of 
 humanity, the object of science must be all existing things, as 
 far as they have discovered their existence to our human con- 
 sciousness, and will hereafter discover it or leave it to be in- 
 ferred. This unit divides itself at once into three parts, as 
 not only what lies outside of the thinking subject, but also the 
 subject itself, and the consciousness of this subject, become 
 the object of scientific investigation. This object, as such, 
 could never constitute the material of science for man, if it 
 existed purely atomistically, or if it could only be atomis- 
 tically known. It is known that Peruvian bark reacts 
 against a feverish excitement in the blood, and it is also 
 known that catarrh may occasion this feverish excitement. 
 But as long as these particulars of cold, fever, and Peruvian 
 bark lie atomistically side by side, I may know them indeed, 
 but I have no science yet of these data. For the idea of 
 science implies, that from the manifold things I know a 
 connected knowledge is born, which would not be possible if 
 there were no relation among the several parts of the 
 object. The necessity of organic inter-relations, which was 
 
66 § 38. SUBJECT AND OBJECT [Div. n 
 
 found to be indispensable in the subject, repeats itself in 
 the object. The apparently accidental discovery or inven- 
 tion is as a rule much more important to atomistic knowl- 
 edge than scientific investigation. But as long as something 
 is merely discovered, it is taken up into our knowledge but 
 not into our science. Only when the inference and the sub- 
 sequent insight that the parts of the object are organically 
 related prove themselves correct, is that distinction born 
 between the special and the general which learns to recognize 
 in the general the uniting factor of the special. In this way 
 we arrive at the knowledge that there is order in the object, 
 and it is by this entering into this order and into this cos- 
 mical character of the object that science celebrates her 
 triumphs. 
 
 This is the more necessary because the subject of science 
 is not a given individual in a given period of time, but 
 thinking man in the course of centuries. If this organic 
 relation were wanting in the object, thinking man in one 
 age and land would have an entirely different object before 
 him than in a following century and in another country. 
 The object would lack all constancy of character. It would 
 not be the same object, even though in varying forms, but 
 each time it would be another group of objects without 
 connection with the formerly considered group. Former 
 knowledge would stand in no relation to our own, and the 
 conception of science as a connected and as an ever-self- 
 developing phenomenon in our human life would fall away. 
 
 If to make science possible, the organic connection is in- 
 dispensable between the parts of the object, as far as they 
 have been observed in different countries and at different 
 times, the same applies to the several parts of the object 
 when they are classified according to the difference of their 
 content. If the observation of the starry heavens, of min- 
 erals, of plants and animals, of man and everything that 
 belongs in and to him, leads merely to the discovery of 
 entirely different objects, which as in so many compartments 
 are shut off from one another and stand outside of all rela- 
 tion to each other, a series of sciences is possible, but no 
 
Chap. I] § 39. RELATION BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 67 
 
 science, while the unity of these sciences could only lie in 
 the observing subject or in the formal unity of the manner 
 of observation. But our impulse after science aims higher. 
 As long as there is a Chinese wall between one realm of the 
 object and the other, that wall allows us no rest. We want 
 it away, in order that we may know the natural boundaries 
 across which to step from one realm into the other. Dar- 
 winism owes its uncommon success more to this impulse of 
 science than to the merits of its results. Hence our ideal of 
 science will in the end prove an illusion, unless the object 
 is grasped as existing organically. 
 
 § 39. Organic Relation between Subject and Object 
 
 Even yet enough has not been said. It is not sufficient 
 that the subject of science, i.e. the human consciousness, 
 lives organically in thinking individuals, and that the 
 object, about which thinking man wants to know every- 
 thing he can, exists organically in its parts ; but there must 
 also be an organic relation between this subject and this 
 object. This follows already from what was said above, 
 viz. that the subject itself, as well as the thinking of the 
 subject, become objects of science. If there were no organic 
 relation between everything that exists outside of us and 
 ourselves, our consciousness included, the relation in the 
 object would be wanting. But this organic relation be- 
 tween our person and the object of science is much more 
 necessary, in order to render the science of the object possible 
 for us. 
 
 We have purposely said that there must be an organic 
 relation between the object and our person. The relation 
 between the object and our thinking would not be sufficient, 
 since the thinking cannot be taken apart from the thinking 
 subject. Even when thinking itself is made the object of 
 investigation, and generalization is made, it is separated 
 from the individual subject, but it remains bound to the 
 general subject of our human nature. Thus for all science 
 a threefold organic relation between subject and object is 
 necessary. There must be an organic relation between that 
 
68 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. II 
 
 object and our nature, between that object and our conscious- 
 ness, and between that object and our world of thought. 
 
 The first also lies pregnantly expressed in viewing man 
 as a microcosm. The human soul stands in organic relation 
 to the human body, and that body stands in every way 
 organically related to the several kingdoms of nature round 
 about us. Chemically analyzed, the elements of our body 
 appear to be the same as those of the world which surround 
 us. Vegetable life finds its analogies in our body. And as 
 concerns the body, we are not merely organically allied to 
 the animal world, but an entire world of animalcula crowd in 
 upon us in all sorts of ways and feed upon our bodies. The 
 magnetic powers which are at work about us are likewise at 
 work within us. Our lungs are organically adapted to our 
 atmosphere, our ear to sound, and our eye to light. Indeed, 
 wherever a thing presents itself to us as an object of science, 
 even when for a moment we exclude the spiritual, it stands 
 in organic relation to our body, and through our body to our 
 soul. And as far as the spiritual objects are concerned, i.e. 
 the religious, ethic, intellectual and aesthetic life, it would 
 be utterly impossible for us to obtain any scientific knowl- 
 edge of these, if all organic relation were wanting between 
 these spheres of life and our own soul. The undeniable fact 
 that a blind person can form no idea for himself of the visible 
 beautiful, and the deaf no idea of music, does by no means 
 militate against this position. Suppose that a Raphael had 
 been afflicted in his youth with blindness, or a Bach with 
 deafness, this would have made us poorer by so much as one 
 coryphseus among the artists of the pencil and one virtuoso 
 among the artists of sound ; but the disposition of his genius 
 to the world of the beautiful would have been no whit less 
 either in Raphael or in Bach. The normal sense merely 
 would have been wanting with them, to develop this dispo- 
 sition of genius. For the organic relation in which our soul 
 stands to these several spheres of spiritual life does not lie 
 exclusively in the organ of sense, but in the organization 
 of our spiritual ego. 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 69 
 
 Meanwhile this organic relation between our nature and 
 the object is not enough. If the object is to be the object 
 of our science, there must in the second place be an organic 
 relation between this object and our consciousness. Though 
 the elements of all known stars may not have been determined 
 adequately, the heavenly bodies constitute objects of science, 
 as far at least as they radiate light, exhibit certain form, and 
 are computable with reference to their distance and motion. 
 Even if, at some later date, similar data are discovered in or 
 upon stars which thus far have not been observed, as long as 
 these observations have not been taken they do not count for 
 our consciousness. However close the organic relation may 
 be between ourselves and the animal world, the inner nature 
 of animals remains a mystery to us, as long as the organic 
 relation between their inner nature and our human conscious- 
 ness remains a secret, and therefore cannot operate. We 
 see a spider weave its web, and there is nothing in the 
 spider or in the web that does not stand in numberless ways 
 organically related to our own being, and yet our science 
 cannot penetrate what goes on in the spider during the spin- 
 ning of the web, simply because our consciousness lacks 
 every organic relation to its inner nature. Even in the 
 opinions which we form of our fellow-men, we face insolu- 
 ble riddles, because we only penetrate those parts of their 
 inner nature the analogies of which are present in our own 
 consciousness, but we are not able to see through that par- 
 ticular part of their nature which is solely their own and 
 which therefore excludes every organic relation with our 
 consciousness. By saying that our consciousness stands in 
 the desired organic relation to the object of our science, we 
 simply aifirm that it is possible for man to have an apprehen- 
 sion, a perception, and an impression of the existence and 
 of the method of existence of the object. In itself it makes 
 no difference whether this entering in of the object into our 
 consciousness is the result of an action that goes out from 
 the object, under which we remain passive, or of our active 
 observation. Perception and observation are simply impos- 
 sible when all organic relation is wanting between any 
 
70 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. II 
 
 object and our consciousness. As soon, however, as this 
 organic relation is established, for external reasons the per- 
 ception and the observation may be retarded or prevented, 
 but the possibility is still present of having the object enter 
 into our consciousness. 
 
 This organic relation has mistakenly been sought in the so- 
 called "faculty of feeling." But there is no room for this 
 third faculty in coordination with the faculties of the under- 
 standing and the will (facultas intelligendi and volendi). 
 A capacity taken in the sense oi facultas is of its own nature 
 always active, while in the case of the entering in of objects 
 into our consciousness we may be passive. Oftentimes we 
 fail entirely in withdrawing ourselves from what we do not 
 want to hear or see or smell. This objection is not set 
 aside by distinguishing perception and observation from 
 each other as two heterogeneous facts. If I examine a thing 
 purposely, or see it involuntarily, in each case the entirely 
 self-same organic relation exists, with this difference 
 only, that with intentional observation our intellect and 
 our will coijperate in this relation. In which instance 
 it is our ego which knows the possibility of the relation to 
 the object; which desires this relation to exist in a given 
 case; and which realizes the relation by the exercise of the 
 will. Hence there can be no question of an active faculty 
 that shall operate independently of the intellect and the 
 will. The fact is simply this. There are lines of com- 
 munication that can bring the object outside of us in relation 
 to our ego. And these lines of communication are of an 
 organic nature, for the reason that with our physical growth 
 they develop of themselves, and with a finer forming of our 
 personality they assume of themselves a finer character. 
 The nature of these organic relations depends of course 
 entirely upon the nature of the object with which they are 
 to bring us into communion. If this object belongs to the 
 material world, these conductors must be partly material, 
 such as, for instance, in sight the waves of light and our 
 nerves. If the object, on the other hand, is entirely imma- 
 terial, these relations must exhibit a directly spiritual nature. 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 71 
 
 This is actually the case, since the perceptions of right and 
 wrong, of true and false, etc., force themselves upon our ego 
 immediately from out the spiritual world. In both cases, 
 however, the relations that bring us in communion with the 
 object must ever be sharply distinguished from that which, 
 by means of these relations, takes place in our consciousness. 
 By themselves these relations do not furnish the required 
 organic relation. If I am in telegraphical communication 
 with Bangkok, it does me no good so long as I do not under- 
 stand the language in which the telegraph operator wires me. 
 Ifl understand his language, I am equally in the dark as long 
 as I do not understand the subject-matter of his message, of 
 which I can form no idea because I am not acquainted with 
 the circumstances or because similar affairs do not occur 
 with us. In the same way the object must remain unknown 
 to me, even though I am in contact with it by numberless 
 relations, as long as in my consciousness the possibility is 
 not given of apperceiving it in relation to my personal self. 
 Of course we take the human consciousness here in its abso- 
 lute sense, and do not detain ourselves to consider those 
 lower grades of development which may stand in the way of 
 assimilation of a very complicated object. We merely refer 
 to those fundamental forms by w^hich the consciousness 
 operates. And it is self-evident that vrhat is signalled 
 along the several lines of communication to our conscious- 
 ness, can only effect a result in our consciousness when this 
 consciousness is fitted to take up into itself what was 
 signalled. He who is born color-blind is ^ot affected one 
 way or another by the most beautiful exhibition of colors. 
 In the same way it would do us no good to scan the purest 
 tints with keenest eye, if, before this variety of color dis- 
 covered itself to us, there were no ability in our conscious- 
 ness to distinguish color from color. There is, therefore, 
 no perception or observation possible, unless there is a re- 
 ceptivity for the object in our hiiman consciousness, which 
 enables our consciousness to grasp it after its nature and 
 form. Numberless combinations may later enrich this, but 
 these combinations of themselves would be inconceivable, if 
 
72 § 39. ORGANIC EELATION [Div. II 
 
 their component parts did not appear beforehand as funda- 
 mental types in our consciousness. Neither can these fun- 
 damental types be grasped in our consciousness unless this 
 consciousness is fitted to them. The figure of the mirror 
 should not mislead us. Every image can truly be reflected 
 in it, even though the glass itself be entirely indifferent and 
 neutral. But it does not reflect anything except in relation 
 to our eye. In our consciousness, on the other hand, it does 
 not only depend upon the reflecting glass, but also upon the 
 seeing eye. In our consciousness the two coincide. And 
 no single object can be grasped by our consciousness, unless 
 the receptivity for this object is already present there. Per- 
 ception and observation, therefore, can only be effected by this 
 original relation between the object outside of us and the 
 receptivity for this object, which prior to everything else is 
 present in our consciousness because created in it. The 
 microscopic nature of our consciousness asserts itself espe- 
 cially in this. And it is only when this microscopic 
 peculiarity in the receptivity of our consciousness lends its 
 effect to the telegraphical relation to the object, that, in 
 virtue of the union of these two factors, the required organic 
 relation operates which brings the object in contact with 
 our consciousness. 
 
 By this, however, this object has not yet been introduced 
 into the world of our thought, and without further aid it 
 would still lie outside of our "science." In the infinite 
 divisibility of its parts the odor of incense finds its means 
 to affect our olfactory nerves. By these nerves it is carried 
 over into our consciousness, and there finds the capacity to 
 distinguish this odor from the odor of roses, for instance, as 
 well as the receptivity to enjoy this odor. But although in 
 this way a full relation has been established between the 
 incense as object and the consciousness in our subject, the 
 scientific explanation of the odor of incense is still wanting. 
 To the two above-named claims, therefore, we now add the 
 third; viz. that the object must also enter into an organic 
 relation to our world of thought. For it is plain that think- 
 
CiiAp. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 73 
 
 ing is but one of the forms through which our consciousness 
 operates. When an infant is pricked by a pin, there is no 
 single conception, in the consciousness of the child, either 
 of a pin, of pricking, or of pain, and yet the pricking has 
 been carried over to its consciousness, for the child cries. 
 On the other hand, we see that, with an operation under 
 chloroform, all relation between our consciousness and 
 a member of our own body can be cut off, so that only 
 later on, by external observation, we learn that a foot 
 or an arm has been amputated. Which fact took place 
 in our own body entirely outside of the consciousness of 
 our ego. And so there are a number of emotions, im- 
 pressions, and perceptions which, entirely independently 
 of our thinking and the world of our thought, come into 
 or remain outside of our consciousness, simply in propor- 
 tion as the receptivity of our ego corresponding therewith 
 stands or does not stand in relation to the object. All 
 the emotions of pain or pleasure, of feeling well or not 
 well, of color and sound, of what is exalted or low, good or 
 bad, pious or godless, beautiful or ugly, tasty or sickening, 
 etc., arouse something in our consciousness and enter into 
 relation with our ego through our consciousness, so that it 
 is we who suffer pain or joy, are delighted or indignant, 
 have taste for something or are disgusted with it; but how- 
 ever strong these emotions of our consciousness may be, they 
 as such have nothing to do with the thought-action of our 
 consciousness. If we smell the odor of a rose, the remem- 
 brance of the odor may recall in us the image of the rose, 
 and this representation may quicken the action of thought; 
 but this takes place entirely outside of the odor. For when 
 some one makes us smell the odor of a plant entirely un- 
 known to us, so that we can form no representation of it, 
 nor do any thinking about it, the stimulus received by our 
 consciousness is entirely similar, and as the odor is equally 
 delicate and fragrant, our pleasure in it is equally great. The 
 same phenomenon occurs when for the first time we taste 
 fine wines whose vintage is unknown to us. The simple 
 entrance, therefore, of something into our consciousness does 
 
74 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. H 
 
 by no means effect its adoption into our world of thought. 
 Wherefore this third relation of our ego to the object 
 demands also a separate consideration. 
 
 If the object that enters into relation with our con- 
 sciousness consisted exclusively of those elements which 
 are perceptible to the senses; if all relation were lacking 
 between these elements; if no change took place in these 
 elements themselves; and if there were but one organ of 
 sense at our disposal, — ^our human consciousness would 
 never have used and developed its power of thought. No 
 capacity would have been exercised but sensation, i.e. per- 
 ception, and, in consequence of this, imagination and repre- 
 sentation. The object would have photographed itself on 
 our consciousness ; this received image would have become 
 a representation in us, and our imagination would have 
 busied itself with these representations. But such is not the 
 case, because we have received more than one organ of sense 
 to bring us in contact with the selfsame object; because the 
 objects are not constant but changeable ; because the several 
 elements in the object are organically related to each other; 
 and because there are qualities belonging to the object which 
 lie beyond the reach of the organs of sense, and therefore 
 refuse all representation of themselves. In many ways the 
 fact has forced itself upon us, that there is also what we call 
 relation in the object. The object does not appear to be 
 simple, but complex, and numberless relations appear among 
 its component parts. And these relations bear very dif- 
 ferent characters corresponding to the difference of cate- 
 gories; they lead to endless variations in each part of the 
 object ; they exhibit themselves now between part and part, 
 and again among groups of parts ; they change according as 
 they are perceived by different organs of sense, and then cause 
 a new relation to assert itself among these several relations. 
 These relations also present themselves between us and the 
 object, partly as far as we as subject observe, and partly as 
 far as we ourselves belong to the object to be observed; and 
 they finally, with the constant change that presents itself, 
 unite what was to what is, and what is to what is to come. 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 75 
 
 In this way there is a whole world of relations; these rela- 
 tions appear equally real and important as the parts of the 
 object that enter into relation to each other. "We frequently 
 receive the impression that these relations dominate the 
 component elements of the object more than those elements 
 the relations ; with the simplest antithesis of these two, as, 
 for instance, with that of force and matter, the impression 
 of the relation becomes so overwhelming, that one is fairly 
 inclined to deny the reality of matter, and accept the rela- 
 tion only as actually existing. Since by reason of its micro- 
 cosmical character our human consciousness is also disposed 
 to the observation of these relations, and since these relations 
 cannot be photographed nor represented, but can only be 
 thought^ apart from the elements among which they exist, 
 from these infinite series of organically connected relations 
 the whole world of our thinking is born. If science means 
 that our human consciousness shall take up into itself what 
 exists as an organic whole, it goes without saying that she 
 makes no progress whatever by the simple presentation of the 
 elements ; and that she can achieve her purpose only when, 
 in addition to a fairly complete presentation of the elements, 
 she also comes to a fairly complete study of their relations.^ 
 That morphine quiets pain is a component part of our 
 knowledge, in so far as it has been discovered that there is a 
 certain relation between this poppy-juice and our nerves. 
 But this empirical knowledge will have led to a scientific 
 insight only when this relation itself shall be understood in 
 its workings, and when it shall be demonstrable how mor- 
 phine acts upon the nerves so as to neutralize the action of 
 
 1 The distinction lietween elements (moments) and relations in the object 
 has purposely been employed, because it is the most general one. By ele- 
 ment we understand neither the substantia as substratum of the phenomena, 
 nor the " Ding an sich " as object minus subject. Both of these are abstrac- 
 tions of thought, and might therefore mislead us. It needs scarcely a re- 
 minder, moreover, that there can be complication and association in these 
 elements as well as in our presentations of them. And also that they can be 
 reproduced from memory as well as be freshly perceived. But I cannot 
 detain myself with all this now. My purpose was but to indicate the two 
 distinctions in the object, one of which corresponds to our capacity to form 
 representations, and the other to our capacity to think. 
 
76 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. II 
 
 a certain stimulus upon them. That these relations can be 
 grasped by thought alone and not by presentation lies in 
 their nature. If these relations were like our nerves, that 
 ramify through our body, or like telephone lines, that stretch 
 across our cities, they should themselves be elements and 
 not relations. But this is not so. Nerves and lines of 
 communications may be the vehicles for the working of the 
 relations, but they are not the relations themselves. The rela- 
 tions themselves are not only entirely immaterial, and there- 
 fore formless, but they are also void of entity in themselves. 
 For this reason they can be grasped by our thoughts alone, 
 and all our thinking consists of the knowledge of these rela- 
 tions. Whether we form a conception of a tree, lion, star, 
 etc. , apart from every representation of them, this conception 
 can never bring us anything but the knowledge of the 
 relations in which such a tree, lion, or star stand to other 
 objects, or the knowledge of the relations in which the com- 
 ponent parts of such a tree, lion, or star stand to each other. 
 To a certain extent it can be said, therefore, that the relations 
 are phenomena as well as the elements which we perceive, 
 and which either by our organs of sense or in some other 
 way occasion a certain stimulus in our consciousness, and 
 in this way place our consciousness in relation to these 
 elements. Without other aids, therefore, science would 
 enter into our consciousness in two ways only. First, as 
 the science of the elements, and, secondly, as the science 
 of the relations which appear between these elements. The 
 astronomer would obtain science of the starry heavens by 
 looking at the stars that reveal themselves to his eye, and 
 the science of their mutual relations and of the relations 
 between their parts by entering into those relations with his 
 thoughts. But the activity of our consciousness with ref- 
 erence to the relations is not confined to this. 
 
 Our thinking does not confine itself exclusively to plaj'- 
 ing the part of the observer of relations, which is always 
 more or less passive, but also carries in itself an active power. 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 77 
 
 This active power roots in the fact, if we may put it so, that 
 before we become aware of these relations outside of us, the 
 setting for them is present in our own consciousness. This 
 would not be so if these relations were accidental and if they 
 were not organically related. But to be organically related 
 is part of their very nature. It is for this reason that the 
 object is no chaos, but cosmos ; that a universality prevails 
 in the special; and that there appear in these relations an 
 order and a regularity which warrant their continuity and 
 constancy. There is system in these relations. These 
 several relations also stand in relation to each other, and 
 our affinity to the object proves itself by the fact that our 
 capacity of thought is so constructed as to enable it to see 
 through these last relations. If correctly understood, we 
 may say that when human thought is completed it shall be 
 like the completed organism of these relations. Our think- 
 ing is entirely and exclusively disposed to these relations, 
 and these relations are the objectification of our thinking. 
 And this carries itself so unerringly that it is easily under- 
 stood why some philosophers have denied the objectivity of 
 these relations, and have viewed them as being merely the 
 reproductions of our thinking. This question could not be 
 settled, were it not for the fact that among the numerous 
 relations there were also those of a regular and orderly 
 transition of condition to condition. And since the result 
 of these relations is also found in places where for ages nat- 
 ure has not been seen by human eyes, such as on the tops 
 of mountains reached for the first time, or in far out-of-the- 
 way corners of the world, or in newly examined layers of 
 the earth-crust, this subjectivism appears untenable. This 
 identity of our thinking consciousness with the world of 
 relations must be emphasized, however, in so far as these rela- 
 tions have no existence except for an original Subject, who 
 has thought them out, and is able to let this product of his 
 thoughts govern the whole cosmos. Just because these 
 relations have no substance of their own, they cannot work 
 organically unless they are organically thought, i.e. from a 
 first principle. When we study these relations, we merely 
 
78 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. II 
 
 think the thought over again, by which the Subject defined 
 these relations when he called them into being. If there 
 were no thought embedded in the object, it could not be 
 digestible to our thinking. As little as our ear is able to 
 perceive color, is our thinking able to form for itself a 
 conception of the object. And it is this very sense, in- 
 separable from our consciousness, from which springs the 
 invincible impulse, seen in all science, to understand the 
 cosmos. Not in the sense that the cosmos exists only 
 logically. This would amount to a cosmos that consists 
 purely of relations. And since relations are unthinkable 
 unless elements are given between which these relations form 
 the connection, the inexorable claim lies in the relations 
 themselves, and in our thinking as such, that there must also 
 be elements that do not allow themselves to be converted 
 into relations, and therefore lie outside of the field of our 
 thinking. All we say is, that nothing exists without rela- 
 tions; that these relations are never accidental, but always 
 organic; and that the cosmos, as cosmos, in its collective 
 elements exists logically, and in this logical existence is 
 susceptible to being taken up into our world of thought. 
 The result of all science, born from our observation and 
 from our study of the relations of what has been observed, 
 is always certain beforehand. He who aims at anything 
 but the study of the organic world of thought that lies in 
 the cosmos, until his own world of thought entirely cor- 
 responds to it, is no man of science but a scientifical ad- 
 venturer; a franc-tireur not incorporated in the hosts of 
 thinkers. 
 
 The fact that it is possible for us to study the world of 
 thought lying objectively before us, proves that there is an 
 immediate relation between our consciousness and objective 
 thinking by which the cosmos is cosmos. If in our con- 
 sciousness we had the receptivity only for empirical impres- 
 sions of the visible and invisible world, we could not hope 
 for a logical understanding of the cosmos, i.e. of the world 
 as cosmos. This, however, is not so. Aside from the sus- 
 ceptibility to impressions of all kinds, our consciousness is 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 79 
 
 also able to think logically. This capacity cannot be imita- 
 tive only. This would be conceivable if the whole organism 
 of the relations of the cosmos were discovered to us. Then 
 we should be able to acquire this as we acquire a foreign 
 language, that reveals no single relation to our own tongue. 
 As, for instance, when a Netherlander learns the language 
 of the Zulus. But this is not the case. The relations 
 lie hidden in the cosmos, and they cannot be known in 
 their deeper connection, unless we approach this logically 
 existing cosmos as logical thinkers. The science of the 
 cosmos is only possible for us upon the supposition that 
 in our thinking the logical germ of a world of thought is 
 lodged, which, if properly developed, will cover entirely 
 the logical world of thought lodged in the cosmos. And 
 this provides the possibility of our thinking showing itself 
 actively. As soon as we have learned to know the universal 
 relations that govern the special, or have discovered in these 
 several relations the germ of a self-developing thought, the 
 identity between our subjective and the objective world of 
 thought enables us to perform our active part, both by call- 
 ing the desired relations into being, and by anticipating the 
 relations which must reveal themselves, or shall afterward 
 develop themselves. In this way only does human science 
 attain unto that high, dominant and prophetical character 
 by which it not only liberates itself from the cosmos, but 
 also understands it, enables its devotees to take active part 
 in it, and partially to foresee its future development. 
 
 We have not been disappointed, therefore, in our supposi- 
 tion, that what was meant by "science" is genetically re- 
 lated to the etymological root meaning of the verb to Jcnoio. 
 It was seen that in the object of science, distinction must be 
 made between elements and their relations because of the 
 organic existence of this object. Corresponding to this, it 
 was seen that our human consciousness (i.e. the subject of 
 science) has a double receptivity: on the one hand a power 
 of perception for the elements in the object, and on the other 
 
80 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. H 
 
 hand a power of perception for the relations in the object. 
 By these two together the act of understanding (actio intel- 
 ligendi, as the Romans used to call it) becomes complete. 
 If the taking-up of the elements into our consciousness be 
 called the perception (perceptio), and the taking-up of the 
 relations into our consciousness the thinking (cogitatio), 
 it is by these two that the object is reflected in our con- 
 sciousness. What has been frequently placed alongside of 
 the faculties of the understanding and of the will as the fac- 
 ulty of feeling or the faculty of perception is only a subdivi- 
 sion of the faculty of the understanding. To think (cogitare) 
 and to understand (intelligere) are not the same. I can 
 think something that does not exist, while the understand- 
 ing takes place only with reference to an existing object, 
 which as such never consists of pure relations, but always of 
 elements as well among which these relations exist. And 
 though it is a matter of regret that a mistaken parlance has 
 more and more interpreted the intellect as the faculty of 
 thought, and that intellectualism has come to be the accepted 
 term by which to stigmatize gymnastical exercises of abstract 
 thought, we should not abandon the chaste and rich expres- 
 sion of facultas intelligendi, which must be interpreted as 
 consisting of a double action : on the one side of the percep- 
 tion, and on the other side of the comprehension of what was 
 perceived. This distinction in turn finds its ground in 
 our dichotomic existence, we being partly somatical and 
 partly psychical ; since the representation is more somatical 
 and the conception more psychical. 
 
 Of course it makes no difference whether the object to be 
 investigated lies outside of me or in me. If I feel a pain in 
 my head, my attention is directed to my head, while at the 
 same time my thinking is stimulated to search out the cause 
 of that pain and to discover the means by which to relieve 
 it. In the same way it does not matter whether this per- 
 ception comes to me through the senses or the nerves, from 
 a tangible and visible object, or whether this perception is 
 an immediate emotion that affects mj spiritual being from 
 the world of justice, the beautiful, good and true. Thought 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 81 
 
 taken by itself can be made the object of investigation, in 
 which case the element always lies in the subject that 
 thinks, entirely independently of the fact whether this 
 subject is any A or B, or the general subject man, angel, 
 or God. But in whatever way they work, the purpose 
 of both actions in my consciousness, that of perception 
 and of thinking, is always to make me know something, or, 
 after the original meaning of piBelv, to make me see some- 
 thing. The perception makes me know the element, the 
 thinking makes me know the relations of this element. 
 And by the united actions of these two I know what the 
 object, and the manner of its existence, is. 
 
 To prevent misunderstanding we should say, moreover, 
 that this critical analysis, both of the elements and their rela- 
 tions, and of the perception and the thinking, is only valid 
 when the object in hand is absolutely elementary. As soon 
 as we proceed from entirely elementary to complicated phe- 
 nomena, the elements and relations are found constantlj^ 
 interwoven, in consequence of which the perception and the 
 thinking work in unison. The difference between the ele- 
 ment and the relation is clearly indicated by an atom and 
 its motion. For though I think that I clearly perceive the 
 motion of the atom, I see, in fact, nothing but the same 
 atom, but constantly in a different relation. If, on the other 
 hand, I examine a drop of Avater, I deal with a very compli- 
 cated object, in which numberless elements and relations 
 intermingle. The glitter, form and peripheral atoms can 
 be perceived, but I cannot know that this morphological 
 phenomenon is a drop of water until, not by my perception, 
 but by my thinking (cogitatio), I obtain the knowledge of 
 the relations. Through its perception a child notices some- 
 thing glisten and a certain form, by which it knows that 
 something is near, but it does not know that it is water. 
 When it sees fire, it puts out its hands towards it. But 
 when, by means of thinking, the knowledge of relations de- 
 velops itself, the child knows by sight that the drop of water 
 is wet and that fire burns. This complicated state of the 
 phenomena gives rise to the morphological elements of a 
 
82 § 39. ORGANIC RELATION [Div. H 
 
 tree, an animal, etc. And because they are complicated, 
 tlieir simple observation demands the combined activity of 
 our perception and thought. One reason the more for 
 including both under the faculty of the understanding. 
 
 Undoubtedly a similar consciousness is active in the more 
 highly organized animals. When a tiger sees fire in the 
 distance, he knows that it hurts, though he may never have 
 felt it. Hence he has not only the knowledge of certain ele- 
 ments, but also a limited knowledge of their relations, and in 
 a sense much more accurate and immediate than man's. But 
 it will not do to transfer the idea of understanding to ani- 
 mals on this ground. First, we do not know how this ele- 
 mentary knowledge is effected in the animal. Secondly, this 
 knowledge in the animal is susceptible of only a very limited 
 development. And in the third place, in the animal it bears 
 mostly an instinctive character, which suggests another man- 
 ner of perception. A certain preformation of what operates 
 in our human consciousness must be admitted in the animal. 
 But if to a certain extent the activity in man and animal 
 seems similar, no conclusion can be drawn from one activity 
 to the other. We know absolutely nothing of the way in 
 which animals perceive the forms and relations of phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 On the other hand, we are justified in concluding that in 
 our human consciousness, since the conciousness of elements 
 and relations in the object must be microscopically present, 
 without this consciousness the emotions received could 
 never produce what we know as smell, taste, enjoyment of 
 color, sound, etc. It must be granted that these emotions 
 in us could simply correspond to certain sensations which 
 we call smell, taste, etc. ; but in the first place this corre- 
 spondence would have to be constant, and thereby have a 
 certain objectivity; and, again, this objective character is 
 lifted above all doubt by what we call imagination and 
 abstract thought. From these two activities of the human 
 mind it appears that our human consciousness can be 
 affected by the elements and can not only take up their re- 
 lations in us, but from this taking-up into itself, which is 
 
Chap. I] BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT 83 
 
 always passive in part, is also able to become active. As 
 far as the perception is concerned, this action exerts itself 
 in our imagination^ and as far as the thinking is concerned 
 it exerts itself in our abstract thought. By the imagina- 
 tion we create phenomena for our consciousness, and by 
 our higher thinking we form relations. If these products 
 of our imagination and of our higher thinking were without 
 reality, we would have every reason to think that there is 
 but one subjective process, which refuses to be more closely 
 defined. But this is not so. The artist creates harmonies 
 of tints, which presently are seen to be real in flowers that 
 were unknown to him. And more striking than this, by 
 our abstract thinking we constantly form conclusions, which 
 presently are seen to agree entirely with actual relations. In 
 this way object and subject stand over against each other as 
 wholly allied, and the more deeply our human consciousness 
 penetrates into the cosmos, the closer this alliance is seen to 
 be, both as concerns the substance and morphology of the 
 object, and the thovights that lie expressed in the relations 
 of the object. And since the object does not produce the 
 subject, nor the subject the object, the power that binds the 
 two organically together must of necessity be sought outside 
 of each. And however much we may speculate and ponder, 
 no explanation can ever suggest itself to our sense, of the 
 all-sufficient ground for this admirable correspondence and 
 affinity between object and subject, on which the possibility 
 and development of science wholly rests, until at the hand 
 of Holy Scripture we confess that the Author of the cosmos 
 created man in the cosmos as microcosmos " after his image 
 and likeness." 
 
 Thus understood, science presents itself to us as a neces- 
 sary and ever-continued impulse in the human mind to reflect 
 within itself the cosmos, plastically as to its elements, and to 
 thinh it through logically as to its relations ; always loith the 
 understanding that the human mind is capable of this by reason 
 of its organic affinity to its object. 
 
84 §40. LANGUAGE [Dit. II 
 
 § 40. Language 
 
 If a single man could perform this gigantic task in one 
 moment of time, and if there were no difficulties to encounter, 
 immediate and complete knowledge would be conceivable 
 without memory and without spoken language. But since this 
 intellectual task laps across the ages, is divided among many 
 thousands of thinkers, and amid all sorts of difficulties can 
 make but very slow progress — science is not conceivable with- 
 out memory and language. With the flight of time neither 
 science by representation nor science by conception can be 
 retained with any permanency, unless we have some means 
 by which to retain these representations and conceptions. 
 Whether this retention is accomplished immediately by what 
 we call memory, or mediately by signs, pictures, or writing, 
 which recall to us at any moment like representations and 
 conceptions, is immaterial as far as the result is concerned. 
 In either case the action goes out from our human mind. The 
 fact that representations and conceptions are recognized from 
 the page shows that our mind has maintained its relation to 
 them, although in a different way from common "remem- 
 brance." If we had become estranged from them, we would 
 not recognize what had been chronicled. Although then our 
 mind is more active in what we call "memory," and more 
 passive in the recognition of what has been recorded, it is in 
 both cases the action of the same faculty of our mind which, 
 either with or without the help of means, retains the represen- 
 tation or conception and holds it permanently as accumulated 
 capital. Observe, however, that in our present state at 
 least, this stored treasure is sure to corrode when kept in 
 the memory without aids for retention. This is shown 
 by the fact that we find it easier to retain a representation 
 than a conception ; and that our memory encounters the 
 greatest difficulties in retaining names and signs, which 
 give neither a complete representation nor a complete con- 
 ception, but which in relation to each are always more or 
 less arbitrarily chosen. Finally, as to the record of the 
 contents of our consciousness outside of us, representations 
 
Chap. I] §40. LANGUAGE 85 
 
 and conceptions follow each a way of their own. The 
 representation expresses itself by art in the image, the con- 
 ception by language in the word. This distinction main- 
 tains its full force, even though by writing the word acquires 
 in part the nature of the image, and by description the image 
 acquires in part the nature of the word. The word is writ- 
 ten in figures, even if these are but signs, and the figure can 
 also be pictured by the poet in words. From this inter- 
 mingling of the two domains it is seen once more how close 
 the alliance is between representation and conception, in 
 consequence of the oneness of the action by which the 
 understanding (facultas intelligendi) directs itself in turn 
 to the elements in the cosmos and to the relations between 
 these elements. 
 
 This, however, does not imply that language serves no 
 higher purpose than to aid the memory in securing the capi- 
 tal once acquired by our consciousness against the destructive 
 inroads of time. Much higher stands the function of lan- 
 guage to make the fund of our representations and concep- 
 tions the common property of man, and thus to raise his 
 individual condition to the common possession of the gen- 
 eral consciousness of humanity. Without language the 
 human race falls atomistically apart, and it is only by lan- 
 guage that the organic communion, in which the members 
 of the human race stand to each other, expresses itself. 
 Language is here used in its most general sense. Though 
 ordinarily we use the word language almost exclusively as 
 expressing a conception conveyed by sound, we also use it 
 to express communications conveyed by the eyes, by signs, 
 by flowers, etc. ; and even if we take language in the nar- 
 rower sense, as consisting of words, the imitation of sounds 
 and the several series of exclamations plainly show that 
 language is by no means confined to the world of concep- 
 tions. The consciousness of one actually imparts to the con- 
 sciousness of the other what it has observed and thought out ; 
 of its representations therefore, as well as of its conceptions; 
 and corresponding to this, language has the two fundamen- 
 tal forms of image and word; it being quite immaterial 
 
86 § 40. LANGUAGE [Div. II 
 
 whether the image is a mere indication, a rough sign or a 
 finely wrought form. A motion of the hand, a sign, a look 
 of the eyes, a facial expression, are parts of human language 
 as well as words. Nor should it be overlooked that, at least 
 in our present state, language without words has a broad 
 advantage over language in words. "While language in 
 words serves your purpose as far as the knowledge of your 
 own language extends, the language of symbol is univer- 
 sally intelligible, even to the deaf and dumb, with only the 
 blind excepted. The old custom, which is reviving itself of 
 late, of publishing books with pictures, is from this view- 
 point entirely justified. Since our consciousness has a two- 
 fold manner of existence, that of representation and of 
 conception, the union of image and word will ever be the 
 most perfect means of communication between the con- 
 sciousness of one and of another. And communion can 
 become so complete that a given content may be perfectly 
 transmitted from the consciousness of one into that of 
 another. The real difficulty arises only when instead of 
 being borrowed from the morphological part of the cosmos, 
 the content of your communication is taken from the 
 amorphic or asomatic part of the cosmos ; such as when 
 you try to convey to others your impressions and percep- 
 tions of the world of the true, the good, and the beautiful. 
 We have no proper means at command by which to reproduce 
 the elements of this amorphic cosmos, so that by the aid of 
 symbolism we must resort to analogies and other utterances 
 of mind which are forever incomplete. This renders the 
 relations among these elements continually uncertain, so 
 that our conceptions of these relations are never entirely 
 clear, while nevertheless a tendency arises to interpret this 
 amorphic cosmos as consisting purely of conceptions. As 
 this, however, will be considered more fully later on, it is 
 sufficient to state here that for all science, language in its 
 widest sense is the indispensable means both of communica- 
 tion between the consciousness of one and that of another, 
 and for the generalization of the human consciousness in 
 which all science roots. 
 
Chap. I] §40. LANGUAGE 87 
 
 But language by itself would only accomplish this task 
 within the bounds of a very limited circle and for a brief 
 period of time, if it had not received the means of perpetu- 
 ating itself in writing and in printing. Not the spoken but 
 only the written and printed word surmounts the difficulty 
 of distance between places and times. No doubt language 
 possessed in tradition a means by which it could pass on 
 from mouth to mouth, and from age to age ; especially 
 in the fixed tradition of song ; but this was ever extremely 
 defective. Carving or painting on stone, wood, or canvas 
 was undoubtedly a more enduring form ; but the full, rich 
 content of what the human consciousness had grasped, ex- 
 perienced and thought out could only be made oecumenic 
 and perpetual with any degree of accuracy and complete- 
 ness, when wondrous writing provided the means by which 
 to objectify the content of the consciousness outside of self 
 and to fix it. This writing naturally began with the repre- 
 sentation and only gradually learned to reproduce concep- 
 tions by the indication of sounds. Thus image and word 
 were ever more sharply distinguished, till at length with 
 civilized nations the hieroglyphic language of images and 
 the sound-indicating language of words have become two. 
 And no finer and higher development than this is con- 
 ceivable. The two actions of our consciousness, that of 
 observing the elements and of thinking out their relations, 
 Avhich at first were commingled in their reproduction, are 
 now clearly distinguished, and while art is bent upon an 
 ever-completer reproduction of our representations, writing 
 and printing offer us an entirely sufficient means for the 
 reproduction of our conceptions. 
 
 But even this does not exhibit the highest function of lan- 
 guage for human life in general and for science in particu- 
 lar. Language does not derive its highest significance from 
 the fact that it enables us to retain and to collect the repre- 
 sentations and conceptions of our consciousness; nor yet 
 from the fact that in this way it serves as the means of com- 
 munication between the consciousness of one and the con- 
 sciousness of another; but much more from the fact that 
 
88 § 40. LANGUAGE [Div. II 
 
 language makes the content of our consciousness our property. 
 It is one thing in the first stage of development to know 
 that there are all sorts of sensations, perceptions, impressions, 
 and distinctions in our consciousness, which we have neither 
 assimilated nor classified. And it is quite another thing 
 to have entered upon that second stage of our development, 
 in which we have transposed this content of our conscious- 
 ness into representations and conceptions. And it is by 
 language only that our consciousness effects this mighty 
 transformation, by which the way is paved for the real progress 
 of all science ; and this is done partly already by the lan- 
 guage of images ; but more especially by the language of 
 words ; and thus by the combined action of the imagination 
 and thought. In this connection we also refer to the action 
 of the imagination, for though ordinarily we attach a crea- 
 tive meaning to the imagination, so that it imagines some- 
 thing that does not exist, the figurative representation of 
 something we have perceived belongs to this selfsame action 
 of our mind. Representation surpasses the mere perception, 
 in that it presents the image as a unit and in some external 
 relation, and is in so far always in part a product also of our 
 thought, but only in so far as our thought is susceptible of 
 plastic objectification. Hence in the representation our ego 
 sees a morphological something that belongs to the content 
 of our consciousness. But whatever clearness may arise 
 from this, and however necessary this representation may be 
 for the clearness of our consciousness, the representation by 
 itself is not sufficient for our ego; we must also logically 
 understand the object ; and this is not conceivable without 
 the forming of the conception. And this very forming of 
 the conceptions, and the whole work which our mind then 
 undertakes with these conceptions, would be absolutely 
 inconceivable, if the language of words did not offer us the 
 means to objectify for oiirselves what is present in our 
 consciousness as the result of thought. Being used to the 
 manipulation of language, we may well be able to follow up 
 a series of thoughts and partly arrange them in order, with- 
 out whispering or writing a word, but this is merely the 
 
Chap. I] § 41. FALLACIOUS THEORIES 89 
 
 outcome of mental power acquired by the use of language. 
 When the content of our logical consciousness is objectified 
 in language, this objectification reflects itself in our con- 
 sciousness, which enables us to think without words ; but 
 by itself we cannot do without the word. Since we are 
 partly psychic and partly somatic, it is by virtue of our two- 
 fold nature that psychic though^; seeks a hody for itself in 
 the word, and only in this finest commingling of our psychic 
 and somatic being does our ego grasp with clearness the 
 content of our logical consciousness. The development of 
 thinking and speaking keeps equal pace with the growing 
 child, and only a people with a richly developed language 
 can produce deep thinkers. We readily grant that there are 
 persons whose speech is both fluent and meaningless, and 
 that on the other hand there are those who think deeply 
 and find great difficulty in expressing themselves clearly ; 
 but this phenomenon presents no objection to our assertion, 
 since language is the product of the nation as a whole, and 
 during the period of his educational development the in- 
 dividual merely grows into the language and thereby into 
 the world of thought peculiar to his people. No reckon- 
 ings therefore can be made with what is peculiar to the few. 
 The relation between language and thought bears a general 
 character, and only after generalization can it be critically 
 examined. 
 
 § 41. Fallacious Theories 
 
 Suppose that no disturbance by sin had taken place in the 
 subject or object, we should arrive by way of recapitulation 
 at the following conclusion : The subject of science is the 
 universal ego in the universal human consciousness ; the 
 object is the cosmos. This subject and object each exists 
 organically., and an organic relation exists between the two. 
 Because the ego exists dichotomically, i.e. psychically as well 
 as somatically, our consciousness has two fundamental forms, 
 which lead to representations and to conceptions; while in 
 the object we find the corresponding distinction between ele- 
 tnents and relations. And it is in virtue of this correspond- 
 
90 § 41. FALLACIOUS THEORIES [Div. II 
 
 ence that science leads to an understanding of the cosmos, 
 both as to its elements and relations. The subject is able 
 to assimilate the cosmos as object, because it bears in itself 
 microcosmically both the types of these elements and the 
 frame into which these relations naturally fit. And finally 
 the possibility of obtaining not merely an aggregate but an 
 organically connected knowledge of the cosmos, by which also 
 to exercise authority over it, arises from the fact that there 
 is a necessary order dominant in this cosmos, springing logi- 
 cally from the same principle which also works ectypically 
 in our own microcosmically disposed consciousness. 
 
 Thus, taken apart from all disturbances by sin and curse, 
 our human consciousness should, of necessity, have entered 
 more and more deeply into the entire cosmos, by representa- 
 tion as well as by conception-forming thought. The cosmos 
 would have been before us as an open book. And foras- 
 much as we ourselves are a part of that cosmos, we should 
 have, with an ever-increasing clearness of consciousness, lived 
 the life of that cosmos along with it, and by our life itself 
 we should have ruled it. 
 
 In this state of things, the universality and necessity, 
 which are the indispensable characteristics of our knowledge 
 of the cosmos if it is to bear the scientific stamp, would 
 not have clashed with our subjectivism. Though it is in- 
 conceivable that in a smless development of our race aU 
 individuals would have been uniform repetitions of the self- 
 same model ; and though it must be maintained, that only 
 in the multiform individualization of the members of our 
 race lies the mark of its organic character ; yet in the ab- 
 sence of a disturbance, this multiformity would have been as 
 harmonious, as now it works unJiarmoniously . With mutual 
 supplementation there would have been no conflict. And 
 there would have been no desire on the part of one indi- 
 vidual subject to push other subjects aside, or to trans- 
 form the object after itself. That this disturbance, alas, did 
 occur, from which subjectivism sprang as a cancer to poison 
 our science, comes under consideration later. Only let it here 
 be observed how entirely natural it is for thinkers who deny 
 
Chap. I] §41. FALLACIOUS THEORIES 91 
 
 the disturbance by sin, to represent science to this day as an 
 absolute power, and are thereby forced either to limit science 
 to the " sciences exactes," or to interpret it as a philosophic 
 system, after whose standards reality must be distorted. 
 
 The first tendency has prevailed in England, the second in 
 Germany. The first tendency, no doubt, arose also in France, 
 but the name of " sciences exactes,'' as appears from the added 
 term exactes, lays no claim to science as a whole. In England, 
 however, science, in its absolute sense, is more and more the 
 exclusive name for the natural sciences ; while the honorary 
 title of " scientific " is withheld from psychological inves- 
 tigations. Herein lies an honest intention, which deserves 
 appreciation. It implies the confession that only that 
 which can be weighed and measured sufficiently escapes 
 the hiirtful influence of subjectivism to bear an absolute, i.e. 
 an universal and necessary character; even in the sense that 
 the bare data obtained by such investigations, by repeated 
 experiments, are raised to infallibility, and as such are com- 
 pulsory in their nature. And such — we by no means deny 
 — all science ought to be. But however honestly this theory 
 may be intentioned, it is nevertheless untenable. First in so 
 far as even the most assiduous students of these sciences 
 never confine themselves to mere weighing and measuring, 
 but, for the sake of communicating their thoughts and of 
 exerting an influence upon reality and common opinion, 
 formulate all manner of conclusions and hypothetical propo- 
 sitions tainted by subjectivism, wliich are at heart a denial 
 of their own theory. Only remember Darwinism ; the fun- 
 damental opposition which it meets with from men of repute 
 shows that it has no compulsory character, and hence does 
 not comply with the demands of the sciences. But also in 
 the second place this theory is untenable, because it either 
 ignores the spiritual, in order to maintain the ponderable, 
 world, and thus ends in pure materialism, or it ignores every 
 organic relation between the ponderable and the spiritual 
 world and thereby abandons the science of the cosmos as 
 such. 
 
 The second tendency stands much higher, and, by reason of 
 
92 § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Div. II 
 
 the power of German thought, has ever led the van, and vigor- 
 ously maintained the demand that science should lead to an 
 organic knowledge of the entire cosmos, derived from one 
 principle. Unfortunately, however, this theory, which with 
 a sinless development would have been entirely correct, 
 and is still correct in an ideal sense, no longer meets 
 the actual state of things, partly because the investigating 
 subjects stand inharmoniously opposed to one another, and 
 partly because all sorts of anomalies have gained an entrance 
 into the object. Only think of human language and of the 
 conflict that has been waged about analogies and anomalies 
 since the days of the Sophists and Alexandrians ! If, from 
 this point of view, the disturbance of the harmony in the 
 subject as well as in the object fails to be taken into ac- 
 count, and the effort is persisted in logically to explain the 
 discord from one principle, one ends in speculation which 
 does not impart an understanding of the cosmos, but either 
 imagines a cosmos which does not exist, or pantheistically 
 destroys every boundary line, till finally the very difference 
 between good and evU is made to disappear. 
 
 Truly the entire interpretation of science, applied to the 
 cosmos as it presents itself to us now, and is studied by the 
 subject " man " as he now exists, is in an absolute sense gov- 
 erned by the question whether or no a disturbance has been 
 brought about by sin either in the object or in the subject of 
 science. 
 
 This all-determining point wiU therefore claim our atten- 
 tion in a special section, after the character of the spiritual 
 sciences shall have been separately examined. 
 
 § 42. The Spiritual Sciences 
 
 If the cosmos, man included, consisted exclusively of pon- 
 derable things, the study of the cosmos would be much 
 simpler than it is now, but there would be no subject to 
 appropriate this knowledge. Hence science has no right to 
 complain that the cosmos does not consist of mere matter. 
 It is to this very fact that science owes its existence. Mean- 
 while we cannot overestimate the difliculty of obtaining a 
 
Chap. I] §42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES 93 
 
 science, worthy of the name, of the spiritual side of the 
 cosmos. This difficulty is threefold. 
 
 In the first place all the psychic, taken in the ordinary 
 sense, is amorphic, from which it follows that the morpho- 
 logic capacity of our consciousness, by which we form an 
 image of the object and place it before us, must here remain 
 inactive. Thus while, in the tracing of relations in all that 
 is ponderable, our understanding finds a point of support 
 in the representation of the elements among which these 
 relations exist, here this point of support is altogether want- 
 ing. This does not imply that the object of these sciences 
 is unreal; for even with the sciences of ponderable objects 
 your understanding never penetrates to the essence. In 
 your representation you see the form (^iJi,op(^ri) ; you follow 
 the relations (avajiopaC) with your thinking ; but the essence 
 (ovala) lies beyond your reach. This does not imply that 
 the spiritual objects may not have something similar among 
 themselves, to what in the non-spiritual we understand by 
 /xo/ac^Tj ; the forma in the world of thought rather suggests 
 the contrary ; but in either case these forms are a secret to 
 us, and our consciousness is not able to take them up aiad 
 communicate them to our ego. And since as somatic-psychic 
 beings we are naturally inclined to assimilate every object 
 both plastically and logically, we certainly feel a want with 
 respect to this in the spiritual domain. This want induces 
 us all too easily to interpret this entire realm logically only, 
 and so to promote a false intellectualism or a dangerous 
 speculation. 
 
 The second difficulty under which the spiritual sciences 
 labor is the instability of their object. You can classify 
 minerals, plants and animals, and though in these classi- 
 fications you must ever be prepared for variations and 
 anomalies, nevertheless certain fixed marks can be deter- 
 mined to distinguish class from class. But with the 
 spiritual sciences, which constantly bring you in touch 
 with man, this rule evades you. Even the classification 
 according to sex frequently suffers shipwreck upon effemi- 
 nate men and mannish women. In " man " only does there 
 
94 § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Div. II 
 
 assert itself to its fullest extent that individuality which 
 principle resists every effort to generalize, and thus obstructs 
 the way to the universal and necessary character of your 
 science. You find a certain number of phenomena in 
 common, but even these common properties are endlessly 
 modified. And the worst is that in proportion as an indi- 
 vidual is a richer object, and thus would offer the more 
 abundant material for observation, the development of his 
 individuality is the stronger, and by so much the less does 
 such an individual lend himself to comparison. From a 
 sharply defined character there are almost no conclusions 
 to be drawn. 
 
 And along with this amorphic and unstable characteristic a 
 third difficulty is that in most of the spiritual sciences you are 
 dependent upon the self -communication of your object. It 
 is true, you can study man in his actions and habits. His 
 face tells you something ; his eye still more. But if it is 
 your desire to obtain a somewhat more accurate knowledge 
 of the spiritual phenomena in him, in order to become ac- 
 quainted with him, there must be in him : (1) a certain 
 knowledge of himself, and (2) the power and will to reveal 
 himself to you. If, then, as a result of all such self-communi- 
 cation you desire to form some opinion on the spiritual phe- 
 nomenon which you investigate, especially in connection 
 with what has been said above, such self-communication 
 must be made by a great number of persons and amid all 
 sorts of circumstances. Moreover, many difficulties arise 
 in connection with this self-communication of your object. 
 (1) Most people lack sufficient self-knowledge. (2) So 
 many people lack the ability to impart to you their self- 
 knowledge. (3) Much is told as though it were the result 
 of self-knowledge, which is in reality only the repetition 
 of what others have said. (4) Many do not want to 
 reveal themselves, or purposely make statements that mis- 
 lead. (5) Self-knowledge is frequently connected with inti- 
 mate considerations or facts which are not communicable. 
 (6) With the same individual this self-communication will 
 be wholly diflFerent at one time from another. And (7) a right 
 
Chap. I] § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES 95 
 
 understanding of what one tells you requires generally- 
 such a knowledge of his past, character, and manner of life 
 as is only obtained from a very few persons. It is most 
 natural, therefore, that in recent times the young child has 
 been taken as the object of observation, for the reason that 
 with the child these difficulties are materially lessened ; but 
 this is balanced again by the fact that, because of its im- 
 maturity, the child expresses so little. 
 
 Thus we find that the difficulty in the way of the spiritual 
 sciences does not lie in the mystery of the essence of their 
 object. With the exact sciences the essence is equally mys- 
 terious. Neither does the difficulty of these sciences lie 
 simply in the amorphic character of their object, or, if you 
 please, in the lack of tangible elements. But the knowledge 
 of the relations of the object of these sciences is so difficult 
 to be obtained, because these relations are so uncertain in 
 their manifestation and are therefore almost always bound to 
 the self-communication of the object. It is noteworthy how 
 slow the progress of these sciences is, especially when com- 
 pared with the rapid progress of the exact sciences ; and the 
 more so since the effort has been made to apply to them the 
 method of the natural sciences. 
 
 Symbolism, mythology, personification, and also poetry, 
 music and almost all the fine arts render us invaluable ser- 
 vice as interpretations of what is enacted within the spiritual 
 realm, but by themselves they offer us no scientific knowl- 
 edge. Symbolism is founded upon the analogy and the 
 inner affinity, which exist between the visible and invisible 
 creation. Hence, it is not only an imperfect help, of which 
 we may avail ourselves since our forms of thought are bor- 
 rowed from the visible, but it represents a reality which is 
 confirmed in our own human personality by the inner and 
 close union of our somatic-psychic existence. Without 
 that analogy and that inner affinity there would be no 
 unity of perception possible, nor unity of expression for 
 our two-sided being as man. Your eye does not see ; your 
 ego sees, but through your eye ; and this use of your eye 
 could not effect the act of your seeing, if in the reflection 
 
96 § 42, THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Uiv. II 
 
 of light in your eye there were no actual analogy to that 
 which your ego does when you see something through 
 your eye. And though this analogy may weaken when ap- 
 plied to the other parts of the cosmos, in proportion as their 
 affinity to man becomes more limited, we cannot escape 
 from the impression that this analogy is everywhere present. 
 With the aid of this symbolical tendency mythology seeks to 
 represent the spiritual powers as expressions of mysterious 
 persons. And though with us the life of the imagination is 
 subjected too greatly to the verification of our thinking, for 
 us to appreciate such a representation, we constantly feel the 
 need of finding in personification useful terms for our utter- 
 ances and for the interpretation of our feelings. In fact, our 
 entire language for the psychic world is founded upon this 
 symbolism. Although in later days, without remembrance 
 of this symbolism, many words have purposely been formed 
 for psychical phenomena, the onomatopepoiemena excepted, aU 
 words used to express psychical perception or phenomena are 
 originally derived by the way of symbolism from the visible 
 world. And where poetry, music, or whatever art comes in to 
 cause us to see or hear, not merely the beautiful in the form, 
 but also the interpretation of the psychic, it is again on the 
 ground of a similar analogy between the visible and invisible, 
 that they cause us to hear something in verse or in musical 
 rhythm, or to see something by means of the chisel or the 
 pencil which affects our psychical life or teaches it to under- 
 stand itself. Indeed, in the affinity between the visible 
 and invisible part of the cosmos, and in the analogy founded 
 on it, there lies an invaluable means of affecting the psychi- 
 cal life and of bringing it to utterance ; but however richly 
 and beautifully the world of sounds may be able to inter- 
 pret and inspire our inner life, it offers no building material 
 for scientific knowledge. Moreover, with aU these expressions 
 of art you must always reckon with the individuality of the 
 artist who enchants your eye or ear, which sometimes expresses 
 itself very strongly, so that with all the products of art, inde- 
 pendent of sin and falsehood, which have invaded this realm 
 also, the above-mentioned objection of individuality returns. 
 
Chap. I] §42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES 97 
 
 If the empiricism of symbolism is of very limited service 
 to us, the empiricism of the more general expressions of the 
 psychic life is equally unhelpful. The method of tracing the 
 expressions of the intellectual, ethic, social, juridic, sesthetic 
 and religious life among the different nations through the 
 course of time is justifiable, and it must be granted that the 
 similarity and the similar process of these phenomena among 
 different nations warrant certain conclusions concerning the 
 character of these life-utterances ; but by itself this historic- 
 comparative study offers no sufficiently scientific knowledge 
 of the psychical life itself. Because you know that water 
 descends upon the mountains mostly in the form of snow ; 
 that there it forms glaciers ; that these glaciers melt ; and 
 that first as foaming torrents, and then as a navigable 
 stream, the water pushes forward to the ocean, your scien- 
 tific knowledge of water is not yet complete. And really 
 this historic-comparative study of the moral, social and re- 
 ligious life of the nations teaches us not much more. Hence 
 though we would not question for a single moment the rela- 
 tive right and usefulness of these studies, we emphatically 
 deny that these studies constitute the real prosecution of the 
 spiritual sciences. You may excel in all these studies, and 
 not know the least thing about your own soul, which subject- 
 ively forms the centre of all psychic investigation. And 
 what is more serious still, in this way you run a great risk 
 of, unknown to yourself, falsifying the object of your sci- 
 ence, if not of denaturalizing it. Apply, for instance, this 
 method to the science of law, and you must form the conclu- 
 sion that existing law only is law. Since this existing law 
 constantly modifies itself according to the ideas of law 
 that are commonly accepted, all antithesis between lawful 
 and unlawful becomes at last a floating conception, and 
 law degenerates into an official stipulation of the tempora- 
 rily predominating ideas concerning mutual relationships. 
 Thus you deprive law of its eternal principles ; you falsify 
 the sense of law, which by nature still speaks in us ; and 
 your so-called study of law degenerates into a study of 
 certain phenomena, which you mark with the stamp of 
 
98 § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Div. II 
 
 law. For though it is asserted that the idea of law de- 
 velops itself with an inner impulse in the process of these 
 phenomena; yet this may never be taken naturalistically, in 
 the form of a physiological process; and you should know 
 the idea of law, which is entirely different from these phe- 
 nomena, before you will be able critically to analyze the 
 phenomenon of law. And thus we see in fact the simplest 
 principles of law pass more and more into discredit, and the 
 rise of two factions which, each in turn, call lawful what 
 the other condemns as unlawful. This antithesis is especially 
 prominent in its application to the conceptions of personal 
 property and capital punishment. One wants violated law to 
 be revenged on the murderer, while to the other he is simply 
 an object of pity, as a victim of atavism. Every existing law 
 (jus constitutum) declares, that property must be protected 
 by law, but the anarchist declares that in the ideal law 
 (jus constituendum) all property must be avenged as theft. 
 Though, therefore, without hesitation we concede that the 
 dominion of symbolism points to a strong analogy between 
 things " seen " and " unseen " ; and though we readily grant 
 that the naturalistic method, by historic comparative study, 
 is productive of rich results also for the spiritual sciences; we 
 emphatically deny that the study of the spiritual sciences 
 can be entirely bound to the method of the natural sciences. 
 The cause of this difference is that the science of things 
 " seen " is built up (1) from the sensuous perception or ob- 
 servation of the elements by our senses, and (2) from the 
 logical knowledge of the relations which exist among these 
 elements by our thinking. This, however, is impossible 
 with the spiritual sciences. In the object of this science 
 the same distinction must be made between the real ele- 
 ments and their relations. But, fitted to bring us in con- 
 nection with the elements of the things " seen," our senses 
 refuse to render this service with reference to the elements 
 of the things "unseen." Moreover, it is self-evident that 
 the logical knowledge of the relations, which by itself 
 would be insufficient, becomes floating, while the elements 
 among which they exist are not known. The plastic ca- 
 
Chap. I] §42. THE SPIRITUAX SCIENCES 99 
 
 pacity of our mind, which, by means of the senses, is able 
 to take up into itself the elements of the things "seen," 
 remains here inactive, and the logical capacity is insuf- 
 ficient by itself to form conceptions and judgments. If, 
 nevertheless, the effort is made to treat these spiritual 
 sciences after the method of things "seen," a double 
 self-deception is committed : unknowingly one changes the 
 object and unconsciously one chooses his point of support in 
 something not included in this method. The object is 
 changed when, as in Theology for instance, not God but 
 religion is made the object of investigation, and religion only 
 in its expressions. And something is chosen as point of de- 
 parture which this method does not warrant, when the notion 
 or the idea of religion is borrowed from one's own subject. 
 
 The question therefore is, what renders the service in 
 the spiritual sciences, which the representation-capacity 
 in connection with the senses effects in things " seen." 
 Since the object of the spiritual sciences is itself spiritual, 
 and therefore amorphic, our senses not only, but the repre- 
 sentation-capacity as well, render here no service. If no 
 other means is substituted, the spiritual object remains be- 
 yond the reach of our scientific research, and spiritual phe- 
 nomena must either be interpreted materialistically as the 
 product of material causes, or remain agnostically outside of 
 our science, even as the present English use of the word science 
 prescribes. This result, however, would directly conflict 
 with what experience teaches. Again and again it appears 
 that there are all sorts of spiritual things which we know 
 with far greater certainty than the facts which are brought 
 us by the observation of things " seen." The sense of right, 
 the sense of love, the feeling of hatred, etc., appear again and 
 again to have a much more real existence in our consciousness 
 than many a member of our own body. And though the 
 idealism of Fichte in its own one-sidedness may have outrun 
 itself, you nevertheless cease to be man when the reality of 
 spiritual things is not more certain to you than what by in- 
 
100 § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Div. H 
 
 vestigatioii you kuov/ of plant and animal. If we maintain 
 the etymological root-idea of science, in the sense that what 
 is known forms its content, you maim your science when you 
 deny it access to spiritual objects. 
 
 There is no other course therefore than to construct the 
 spiritual sciences from the subject itself; provided you do not 
 overlook that the subject of science is not this inquirer or 
 that, but the human consciousness in general. It was seen 
 that with visible things all distinguishing knowledge would 
 be inconceivable, if the arcbetypic receptivity for these 
 objects were not present, microcosmically, in the human 
 consciousness. And with reference to spiritual objects it 
 may in a like sense be postulated, that the presence of such 
 an archetypic receptivity for right, love, etc., is also found 
 in our consciousness. Otherwise, these would simply have 
 no existence for us. But with this receptivity by itself the 
 task is not ended. An action must be exerted by the object 
 of your science upon this receptivity. It is indifferent for the 
 present whether this action comes to you mediately or im- 
 mediately. "We do not become aware of right, for instance, 
 as a poetic product of our own spirit, but as a power which 
 dominates us. We perceive the working of that power even 
 when our feeling for right is not aroused, as in a concrete 
 case by an occurrence outside of us. Entirely independently 
 of the revelation, violation or application of right in given 
 circumstances, we know that we must do right; and this 
 sense cannot be in us, except that power of right, to which 
 we feel ourselves subjected, moves and touches us in our 
 inner being. This becomes possible since we possess the re- 
 ceptivity for right, but is only established when right itself, 
 as a power which dominates us, works upon that receptivity, 
 and by it enters into our consciousness. The question lying 
 back of this, whether right itself exists as universal, or is 
 simply an expression for what exists in God, need not detain 
 us. It is enough as long as we but know that in the 
 taking-up of the object of the spiritual sciences as well as 
 in the perception of the object of the natural sciences, we 
 must distinguish in the object between the element and its 
 
Chap. I] §42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES 101 
 
 relations, and in our consciousness between the correspond- 
 ing perception of the element and examination of its rela- 
 tions. Always with this difference in view, that in the 
 world of matter the element works upon our consciousness 
 through the senses, which provokes the action of the power 
 of representation ; while with the spiritual sciences the 
 element does not work upon the senses, neither through the 
 I'epresentation, but in keeping with its spiritual nature 
 affects our consciousness subjectively, and finds a recep- 
 tivity in our subject which renders this emotion possible. 
 And this emotion may be constant, and thus result in a 
 permanent sense, or it may be accidental, in which case it 
 falls under the conception of inspiration. In the trans- 
 mission of the object of the spiritual sciences into our 
 consciousness the same process takes place as in the dis- 
 covery of our consciousness to the object of the natural 
 sciences. In each case we take up into ourselves the element 
 and the relations differently. In each case the receptivity 
 must be present in us for the elements and for the relations. 
 And in each case it is our thinking that makes us know the 
 relations, while the perception of the element comes to us 
 from the object itself. But these two sciences differ, in that 
 the element of the visible world enters into our conscious- 
 ness by a different way than the element of the spiritual 
 world ; the elements of the visible world working upon our 
 powers of representation through the senses, while in entire 
 independence of our senses and of any middle link known to 
 us, the elements of the spiritual world affect our subject 
 spiritually, and thus to our apprehension appear to enter 
 immediately into our consciousness. 
 
 Thus the science of the spiritual object is derived from the 
 subjectivity in man ; but always in such a way, that here also 
 our individual subject may never be taken independently 
 of its organic relation to the general subject of the human 
 race. The individual investigator who seeks to construct 
 the spiritual sciences exclusively from his own subjective 
 perceptions, virtually destroys thereby the very conception 
 of science, and he will have no place for Philology, History, 
 
102 § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Bit. H 
 
 Political and Social sciences, etc. And though it might 
 seem that this would destroy the subjective character of by 
 far the greater part of the investigations within the domain 
 of the spiritual sciences, it is not so. All study of law, for 
 instance, would be inconceivable by a scholar who did not 
 have the sense of right, however imperfectly, in himself. The 
 study of language is only possible because we know the rela- 
 tions between the soul, thought and sound, from our own 
 subject. Statesmanship can only be studied, because by 
 nature man is an active partner in all public affairs. The 
 starting-point and the condition for the prosecution of these 
 sciences consequently always lie in our own subjective sense. 
 In the vestibule of Psychology the psychic phenomena of 
 animal life receive ever greater attention, which study offers 
 no mean contribution to the knowledge of simple percep- 
 tions ; but the leading scientists unanimously protest against 
 the conclusions drawn from this for the knowledge of the 
 social life of animals, such as those for instance of Sir John 
 Lubbock for the world of ants. If the possibility might be 
 born at any time to determine by analogy that there are 
 psychological and sociological relations in the world of ani- 
 mals, it could not affect our position. Even then it would 
 not be the world of animals that interprets to us the world of 
 man, but on the contrary it would still be our own subject- 
 ive sense, from which by analogy a world is concluded analo- 
 gous to ours ; just as Theologians have set us the example 
 with respect to the world of angels. 
 
 Neither should we be misled by the fact that the objective 
 character predominates in by far the larger part of the labor 
 expended upon spiritual studies. If it is true that with 
 Psychology for instance the physico-psychic experiment, and 
 the comparative study of psychic expression and ethnological- 
 historic investigations offer very considerable contributions to 
 this department of science, it must not be forgotten that all 
 these preliminary studies are impelled and directed by the 
 psychic sense itself, and that after these preliminary studies 
 the real construction of Psychology only commences. The 
 more objective side of these studies has a twofold cause. 
 
Chap. I] § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES 103 
 
 First the relation wliicli exists in the entire domain of this 
 study between our soul and our body, and between the 
 expression of our soul and the visible cosmos. And secondly 
 the necessity of examining our own psychical life not by 
 itself, but in organic relation to the psychical life of our 
 human race. Here, however, appearance should not deceive 
 us. Whatever we observe physically in this respect, or 
 observe in cosmic expressions of the psychical life, does not 
 really belong as such to the psychical sciences. And where 
 out of our own individual subject we try to find a bridge by 
 which to reach the subjective life of humanity, that bridge 
 is never anything but a bridge, and it is not the bridge, 
 but the psychical world which we reach by it, that claims 
 our attention. 
 
 Distinction, therefore, must be made between pure and 
 mixed spiritual sciences. Language, for instance, is a mixed 
 spiritual science, because everything that pertains to the 
 modulation of sounds, and the influence exerted on them 
 by the general build of the body, and especially by the 
 organs of breathing, articulation, and of hearing, is somatic; 
 and the real psychical study is only begun when in this 
 body of language the logos as its psychic element is reached. 
 Thus also in history the building of cities, the waging of 
 war, etc., is the body of history, and its psychical study 
 only begins when we seek to reach the motives of human 
 action which hide behind this somatic exterior, and to in- 
 terpret the mysterious power which, partly by and partly 
 without these motives, caused hundreds of persons, and 
 whole nations, to run a course which, if marked by retro- 
 gression, suggests, nevertheless, the unwinding of a ball 
 of yarn. And whether you trace these motives, or whether 
 you study the mysterious succession of generations, your 
 own subjective-psychical life is ever shown to be your 
 starting-point, and empiricism leaves you in the lurch. This 
 is most forcibly illustrated by Philosophy in the narrower 
 sense, which, just because it tries logically to interpret, if 
 not the cosmos itself, at least the image received of it by 
 us, ever bears a strongly subjective character, and with 
 
104 § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES [Div. H 
 
 its coryphifii, least of all, is able to escape this individual 
 stamp. The philosophical premises thus obtained by indi- 
 vidual heroes among thinkers, according to the impulse 
 of their own subjectivity, are then borrowed by the lesser 
 gods (dii minores), in virtue of spiritual " elective affinity " 
 (Wahlverwandtschaft), and equally in accordance with their 
 subjective predilection. And these premises will dominate 
 the entire study of spiritual sciences in given circles, as far 
 as these, with the empiric data as building material, devote 
 themselves architecturally to the erection of the building. 
 Let no one, therefore, be blinded by the appearance of 
 objectivity, brought about by the exhibition of these em- 
 piric data. It is sheer self-deception to think that we 
 can ever succeed in making the spiritual sciences fit the 
 same last as the natural sciences. Even with the latter, 
 simple empiricism can never suffice. Everything that is 
 material and can consequently be counted, weighed and 
 measured, no doubt offers us, at least as far as these rela- 
 tions are concerned, a universally compulsory certainty, 
 which, if observation be correct, bears an absolutely object- 
 ive character. As soon, however, as you venture one step 
 farther in this physical, domain, and from these empiric 
 data try to obtain a construction by which to discover 
 among these scattered data a unity of thought, the process 
 of an idea, or the progression from a first phenomenon to 
 a result, you have at once crossed over from the physical 
 into the psychical, the universally compulsory certainty 
 leaves you, and you glide back into subjective knowledge, 
 since you are already within the domain of the spiritual 
 sciences. Thus to make it still appear that these philo- 
 sophical interpretations and constructions, such as, for in- 
 stance, the Descendenz-theorie, are merely logical deduc- 
 tions from empiric data, is deception. And this deception 
 continues itself within the domain of the spiritual sciences, 
 since here, also, one thinks that he starts out from empiric 
 data, when these empiric data at best can only serve as 
 means to enrich your investigation and verify it, but are 
 never able to reveal or to interpret to you the psychic self, 
 
Chap. I] § 42. THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCES 105 
 
 which, after all, is the real object of these sciences. The 
 result of this dangerous self-deception is, that in all these 
 departments detail and preliminary studies greatly flourish, 
 while for the greater part the real study of these sci- 
 ences lies fallow. For instance, uncommon energy is spent 
 in the study of the expressions and phenomena of religious 
 life in different ages and among different peoples, by which 
 to formulate them with utmost accuracy, while religion 
 itself, which is the real object in hand, is neglected. In 
 the same way the manifestations of the moral life of nations 
 are studied in their several periods and localities, but cer- 
 tainty about the power which determines the norm of moral 
 life, and knowledge of the means of causing moral life to 
 flourish, are more and more lost, — an atrophy, which ap- 
 plies as well to the study of psychology, of history, of 
 law, etc., and which can only be understood from a false 
 desire to materialize the psychical, as if matter could be 
 treated on an equal footing with the psychic. This desire, 
 in itself, is readily understood, since an outwardly compul- 
 sory certainty in this domain would be still more desirable 
 to many people than in the domain of the natural sciences ; 
 and it is even measurably just, since the empiric data, 
 which with the spiritual sciences also are at our service, 
 were formerly all too grossly neglected. But, as soon as 
 it tries to exalt itself into a method, it meets an inex- 
 orable obstacle in the nature and character of the psychic ; 
 on the one hand, because the psychical image assumes no 
 form for us except in its subjective individualization ; and, 
 on the other hand, because the psychic can never be grasped 
 in any other way than by our own psychic sense. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SCIENCE IMPAIEED BY SIN 
 
 § 43. Science and Sin 
 
 The subjective character which is inseparable from all 
 spiritual science, in itself would have nothing objectionable 
 in it, if it had not been given a most dangerous exponent 
 by sin. If there were no sin, nor any of its results, the 
 subjectivity of A would merely be a variation of the sub- 
 jectivity in B. In virtue of the organic affinity between 
 the two, their subjectivity would not be mutually antago- 
 nistic, and the sense of one would harmoniously support and 
 confirm the sense of the other. In the days of the Reforma- 
 tion, the impulse that impelled so many thousands to reform 
 was preponderantly subjective. But the fact that in all 
 these subjects a common conviction aimed at a common end, 
 accounts for the irresistible force that was born from the 
 cooperation of these many subjectivities. But, alas, such 
 is not the case in the domain of science. It is all too often 
 evident, that in this domain the natural harmony of subjec- 
 tive expression is hopelessly broken ; and for the feeding of 
 scepticism this want of harmony has no equal. By an 
 investigation of self and of the cosmos you have obtained a 
 well-founded scientific conviction, but when you state it, it 
 meets with no response from those who, in their way, have 
 investigated with equally painstaking efforts ; and not only 
 is the unity of science broken, but you are shaken in the 
 assurance of your conviction. For when you spoke j^our con- 
 viction, you did not mean simply to give expression to the 
 insight of your own ego, but to the universal human insight; 
 which, indeed, it ought to be, if it were wholly accurate. 
 
 But of necessity we must accept this hard reality, and in 
 every theory of knowledge which is not to deceive itself, 
 
 106 
 
Chap. II] §43. SCIENCE ANB SIN 107 
 
 the fact of sin must henceforth claim a more serious con- 
 sideration. Naturally the terrible phenomenon of sin in its 
 entirety can have no place in these introductory sections. 
 This belongs in Theology to the section on sin (locus 
 de peccato). But it is in place here to state definitely 
 that sin works its fatal effects also in the domain of our 
 science, and is by no means restricted to what is thelematic 
 (i.e. to the sphere of volition). What the Holy Scripture 
 calls, in Eph. iv. 17, 18, the "vanity of the mind," the 
 "having the understanding darkened, because of the igno- 
 rance that is in them," even precedes the being "alienated 
 from the life of God because of the hardening of their heart." 
 Even without entering too deeply into the theological con- 
 struction of this phenomenon, it may fearlessly be stated, 
 (1) that falsehood in every sense and form is now in the 
 world. And since more than one spiritual science hangs al- 
 most exclusively upon personal communications, and since in 
 consequence of "falsehood" all absolute warrant for the trust- 
 worthiness of these data be wanting, it is sufficiently evident 
 how greatly the certainty of these sciences suffers loss in con- 
 sequence of sin. This will be more fully shown in our study 
 of the conception of "truth." For the present this single 
 suggestion must suffice. (2) Alongside of this actual 
 falsehood we have the unintentional mistake, in observa- 
 tion and in memory, as well as in the processes of thought. 
 These mistakes may be reduced by manifold verifications 
 to a minimum in the material sciences, but can never be 
 absolutely avoided, while in the spiritual sciences they 
 practise such usury that escape from their influence is 
 impossible. (3) Self-delusion and self-deception are no less 
 important factors in this process, which renders nothing so 
 rare as a scientific self-knowledge, a knowledge of your own 
 person and character in more than a hypothetical form. 
 Since almost all deeper studies of the spiritual sciences start 
 out from the subjective image which we reflect of ourselves 
 in our own consciousness, it needs no further proof how 
 injuriously with the students of these sciences this self- 
 delusion and self-deception must affect their studies and 
 
108 § 43. SCIENCE AND SIN [Div. II 
 
 the final results. (4) A fourth evil resides in our 
 imagination. In a normal condition the self-consciousness 
 would be able at once accurately to indicate the boundary 
 line between what enters into our consciousness from the 
 real world without, and what is wrought in our conscious- 
 ness by our imagination. But this boundary line is not 
 only uncertain because of sin, but in strongly impassioned 
 natures it is sometimes absolutely undiscoverable, so that 
 phantasy and reality frequently pass into one another. The 
 difficulty does not consist merely in the uncertainty or in 
 the destruction of this boundary line ; the imagination itself 
 is in an abnormal condition. In one it works too weakly, 
 in another it is over-excited. When it is over-excited, it 
 retains its imperfect images, subjects our minds to the 
 dominion of these images, falsifies thereby our self-con- 
 sciousness, so that the deliverance of our inner selves is 
 lost in this imagery. This imaginary world will then assert 
 its dominion over us, and weaken the susceptibility in us 
 for knowledge of ourselves and of the cosmos. (5) Equally 
 injurious are the influences which this abnormal element 
 in the condition of other minds exerts upon us, since this 
 evil, which by itself is already enough of a hindrance, is 
 thereby given a coefficient. Not only are we subject to 
 these influences from infancy, but our education frequently 
 tends intentionally to give them domination over us. Lan- 
 guage also adds its contribution. All kinds of untruths have 
 entered into our every-day speech, and the names and words 
 we use unconsciously mould our self-consciousness. The 
 proverbs and common sayings (Schlagworter) which from 
 our youth up we have adopted as a sort of axioms affect us no 
 less strongly. " Truth defends itself " is what the ancients 
 said, and theologians of the ethical color take up the refrain, 
 but do not perceive that by this very thing our outlook upon 
 history is blurred and our sense of duty weakened. Even 
 in theological interests such an adage is bound to effect its 
 fallacious influence, in causing the transcendence of God to 
 be lost to our sense in a mere pantheistic consideration. 
 Add to this the several ideas and current expressions 
 
Chap. II] § 43. SCIENCE AND SIN 109 
 
 approved by the spirit of the times and inculcated in us, in 
 the face of the fact that they are fallacious, and it becomes 
 clear that our mind, which of itself lies ensnared in all 
 manner of deceptions, is threatened to be entirely misled. 
 (6) The effects worked by sin through the body claim here 
 an equal consideration. In consequence of sin there is 
 really no one in a normal bodily condition. All sorts of 
 wrong and sickly commotions bestir themselves in our body 
 and work their effect in our spiritual dispositions. They 
 make one to tend strongly to the material, and another too 
 strongly to the acosmic. They will make A a pessimist, 
 and B a light-hearted optimist. They also modify the judg- 
 ment upon history, for instance, according to the influences 
 which we see at work upon persons. (7) Stronger still, 
 perhaps, is the influence of the sin-disorganized relations- 
 ships of life, — an influence which makes itself especially felt 
 with the pedagogic and the social sciences. He who has had 
 his bringing-up in the midst of want and neglect will enter- 
 tain entirely different views of jural relationships and social 
 regulations from him who from his youth has been bathed 
 in prosperity. Thus, also, your view of civil right would 
 be altogether different, if you had grown up under a des- 
 potism, than if you had spent the years of early man- 
 hood under the excesses of anarchism. To which (8) this 
 is yet to be added, that the different parts of the content 
 of our consciousness affect each other, and no one exists 
 atomistically in his consciousness. This entails the result 
 that the inaccuracies and false representations which you 
 have gleaned from one realm of life, affect injuriously again 
 the similarly mixed ideas which you have made your own 
 from another domain. And so this evil indefinitely multi- 
 plies. Especially the leading thought which we have formed 
 in that realm of life that holds our chiefest interests, exer- 
 cises a mighty dominion upon the whole content of our 
 consciousness, viz. our religious or political views, — what 
 used to be called one's life- and world-view, by which the 
 fundamental lines lie marked out in our consciousness. If, 
 then, we make a mistake, or a single inaccurate move, how 
 
110 § 43. SCIENCE AND SIN [Div. II 
 
 can it fail but communicate itself disastrously to our entire 
 scientific study? 
 
 All this refers merely to the formal working of sin upon our 
 mind. But this is not all. Sin also works upon our conscious- 
 ness through an endless variety of moral motives. " Every- 
 body preaches for his own parish" {chaoun priche pour sa 
 paroisse) is the simple expression of the undeniable truth 
 that our outlook upon things is also governed by numerous 
 personal interests. An Englishman will look upon the his- 
 tory of the Dutch naval battles with the British fleet very 
 differently from a Netherlandish historian ; not because each 
 purposely desires to falsify the truth, but because both are 
 unconsciously governed by national interests. A merchant 
 will naturally hold different views concerning free trade, fair 
 trade and protection, from the manufacturer, simply because 
 self-interests and trade-interests unconsciously affect his 
 views. A Roman Catholic has an entirely different idea of 
 the history of the Reformation from a Protestant's, not because 
 he purposely violates the truth, but simply because without 
 his knowing it his church interests lead him away from the 
 right path. Thus our physicians will readily be inclined to 
 think differently from the patients about the free practice of 
 medicine ; the jurist will judge the jury differently from the 
 free citizen; a man of noble birth will maintain a different 
 attitude toward democratic movements from that of a man 
 of the people. These are all moral differences, which are 
 governed by self-interests, and which sometimes work con- 
 sciously and lead to the violation of conscience, but which 
 generally govern the result of our studies unconsciously and 
 unknown to us. 
 
 No word has yet been said of that third class of influences 
 which are essentially sinful because they result from the 
 injurious effect worked by sin immediately upon our nature. 
 The Christian Church confesses this to be the darkening of 
 the understanding ; which does not mean that we have lost 
 the capacity of thinking logically, for as far as the impulse 
 of its law of life is concerned, the logica has not been 
 impaired by sin. When this takes place, a condition of 
 
Chap. II] § 43. SCIENCE AND SIN 111 
 
 insanity ensues. It must be granted that sin has weakened 
 the energy of thought, so that in all the fulness of its glories 
 this wondrous gift manifests itself only now and then in 
 a rare athlete; and it must be acknowledged that sin all 
 too often makes us the victims of a false and an apparently 
 logical, but in reality very unlogical, reasoning; but man 
 as man, or, if you please, the universal human conscious- 
 ness, is always able to overcome this sluggishness and to 
 correct these mistakes in reasoning. No, the darkening of 
 the understanding consists in something else, and would be 
 better understood if we called it the darkening of our con- 
 sciousness. Over against sin stands love, the sympathy of 
 existence, and even in our present sinful conditions the 
 fact is noteworthy, that where this sympathy is active you 
 understand much better and more accurately than where 
 this sympathy is wanting. A friend of children under- 
 stands the child and the child life. A lover of animals 
 understands the life of the animal. In order to study 
 nature in its material operations, you must love her. With- 
 out this inclination and this desire toward the object of your 
 study, you do not advance an inch. Hence there is nothing 
 problematic in the fact that the Holy Scripture presents man 
 in his original state before he fell as having both by sympathy 
 and affinity a knowledge of nature, which is entirely lost by 
 us. And this is significant in every department of study. Sin 
 is the opposite of love. It has robbed us, speaking generally, 
 of all seeking sympathy, only to leave us this seeking love 
 within some single domain, and that in a very defective 
 form. But, taken as a whole, standing over against the 
 cosmos as its object, our mind feels itself isolated; the object 
 lies outside of it, and the bond of love is wanting by which 
 to enter into and learn to understand it. This fatal effect 
 of sin must naturally find its deeper reason in the fact that 
 the life harmony between us and the object has been dis- 
 turbed. What once existed organically, exists now conse- 
 quently as foreign to each other, and this estrangement from 
 the object of our knowledge is the greatest obstacle in the 
 way to our knowledge of it. 
 
112 § 43. SCIENCE AND SIN [Div. II 
 
 But there is more. The disorganization which is the 
 result of sin consists not merely in the break in the natural 
 life-harmony between us and the cosmos, but also in a 
 break in the life-harmony in our own selves. More than one 
 string has been strung upon the instrument of our heart, 
 and each string has more than one tone. And its condition 
 is normal only when the different motives and tones of 
 our heart harmoniously affect one another. But such is no 
 longer the case. Disharmony rules in our innermost parts. 
 The different senses, in the utterances of our inner selves, 
 affect each other no longer in pure accord, but continually 
 block the way before each other. Thus discord arises in our 
 innermost selves. Everything has become disconnected. 
 And since the one no longer supports the other, but 
 antagonizes it, both the whole and its parts have lost their 
 purity. Our sense of the good, the true, the beautiful, of 
 what is right, of what is holy, has ceased to operate with ac- 
 curacy. In themselves these senses are weakened, and in 
 their effect upon each other they have become mixed. And 
 since it is impossible, in the spiritual sciences, to take one 
 forward step unless these senses serve us as guides, it readily 
 appears how greatly science is obstructed by sin. 
 
 And finally, the chiefest harm is the ruin, worked by sin, 
 in those data, which were at our command, for obtaining 
 the knowledge of God, and thus for forming the conception 
 of the whole. Without the sense of God in the heart no 
 one shall ever attain unto a knowledge of God, and with- 
 out love, or, if you please, a holy sympathy for God, that 
 knowledge shall never be rich in content. Every effort to 
 prove the existence of God by so-called evidences must 
 fail and has failed. By this we do not mean that the 
 knowledge of God must be mystic; for as soon as this knowl- 
 edge of God is to be scientifically unfolded, it must be repro- 
 duced from our thinking consciousness. But as our science in 
 no single instance can take one forward step, except a bridge 
 is built between the subject and the object, it cannot do so 
 here. If thus in our sense of self there is no sense of the 
 existence of God, and if in our spiritual existence there is 
 
Chap. II] § 43. SCIENCE AND SIN 113 
 
 no bond which draws us to God, and causes us in love to go 
 out unto him, all science is here impossible. If, now, experi- 
 ence shows that this sense has not worn away entirely, and that 
 this impulse has not ceased altogether, but that, in virtue of 
 its own motive, sin has weakened this sense to such an extent 
 as to render it oftentimes unrecognizable, and has so falsi- 
 fied this impulse, that all kinds of religious emotions go 
 hand in hand with hatred of God, it is plain that every 
 scientific reproduction of the knowledge of God must fail, 
 as long as this sense remains weakened and this impulse 
 falsified in its direction. From which it follows at the same 
 time that the knowledge of the cosmos as a whole, or, if you 
 please, philosophy in a restricted sense, is equally bound to 
 founder upon this obstruction wrought by sin. Suppose that 
 you had succeeded in attaining an adequate knowledge of all 
 the parts of the cosmos, the product of these results would 
 not yet give you the adequate knowledge of the whole. 
 The whole is always something different from the combina- 
 tion of its parts. First because of the organic relation which 
 holds the parts together ; but much more because of the 
 entirely new questions which the combination of the whole 
 presents : questions as to the origin and end of the whole ; 
 questions as to the categories which govern the object in 
 its reflection in your consciousness; questions as to absolute 
 being, and as to what wow-cosmos is. In order to answer 
 these questions, you must subject the whole cosmos to your- 
 self, your own self included; in order to do this in your 
 consciousness you must step out from the cosmos, and you 
 must have a starting-point (So? /not ttoO aTo) in the wow- 
 cosmos; and this is altogether impossible as long as sin 
 confines you with your consciousness to the cosmos. 
 
 From which it by no means follows, that you should 
 sceptically doubt all science, but simply that it will not do 
 to omit the fact of sin from your theory of knowledge. 
 This would not be warranted if sin were only a tlielematic 
 conception and therefore purely ethic ; how much less, now, 
 since immediately as well as mediately, sin modifies so 
 largely all those data with which you have to deal in the 
 
114 §44. TRUTH [Div. II 
 
 intellectual domain and in the building-np of your science. 
 Ignorance wrought by sin is the most difficult obstacle m 
 the way of all true science. 
 
 § 44. Truth 
 In a preceding section reference has already been made to 
 the grave significance to scientific investigation of the con- 
 ception which one forms of "truth." This significance can 
 now be considered more closely in relation to the fact of sin. 
 It will not do to say that seeking after truth is directed ex- 
 clusively against the possibility of mistake. He who in good 
 faith has made a mistake, has been inaccurate but not untrue. 
 Falsehood is merely a milder expression for the lie, and the 
 search after truth has no other end in view than escape from 
 the fatal power of what Christ called the lie (to yp-evBoi). 
 This does not imply that " the mistake " does not stand 
 equally related to sin. The former section tried to prove the 
 contrary. But if the unconscious mistake stands in causal 
 relation to sin, this relation is entirely different from what it 
 is with the lie. The Holy Scripture teaches us to recognize 
 an unholy principle in the lie, from which a caricature 
 (Zerrbild) of all things is born, and the fatherhood of this 
 lie is pointed out to us in Satan. In John viii. 44, we 
 read : "The devil speaketh a lie — for he is a liar and the 
 father thereof." This theological explanation need not detain 
 us now, but it cannot be denied that a false representation 
 of the real has made its way into almost every department 
 of life ; that with a closer investigation these several false 
 representations appear to stand in an organic relation ; and 
 that a hidden impelling power is at work within this entire 
 domain of the false and the untrue, which arouses our right- 
 eous indignation and bears a sinful character for our conscious- 
 ness. The form of this spuriousness is not constant. It often 
 happens that certain general ideas govern public opinion for 
 a long time and then become discredited ; that they maintain 
 themselves a little longer with the less educated masses ; 
 and finally pass away altogether, so that he who still holds 
 them is out of date. But with this shedding of its skin the 
 
Chap. II] § 44. TRUTH 115 
 
 serpent does not die. And Proteus-like, the false and untrue 
 reappear in a new form, and the battle of life and death 
 between truth and falsehood begins anew. Obviously, there- 
 fore, the lie is no mistake, nor a temporary dominating 
 imtruth, but a power, which affects injuriously the conscious- 
 ness of man, and not merely puts into his hands phantasy 
 for reality, and fiction for history, but intentionally brings 
 into our mind a representation of existing things which 
 proscribes reality, with the avowed aim of estranging us 
 from it. 
 
 In this condition of affairs a holy interest is at stake in 
 this struggle for the truth. This conflict does not aim at 
 the correction of simple mistakes in the representation, 
 neither does it combat prejudice, nor rectify inaccuracies ; 
 but it arrays itself against a power, which ever in a new form 
 entangles our human consciousness in that which is false, 
 makes us servants to falsehood, and blinds us to reality. 
 Thus the saying of Christ, " I am the truth," has a deep 
 significance ; since he alone possessed such spiritual power 
 of resistance that he was able to withdraw himself abso- 
 lutely from the dominion of the false. The word " lie " it- 
 self confirms this interpretation. In our daily life this evil 
 word is almost never used in circles where the lie is contra- 
 band ; while on the other hand, in circles which, alas, admit 
 the lie as a common weapon of defence, the contention for 
 true or untrue is constantly in order with the reproachful 
 epithet of " you lie." If you think of life in heaven, you 
 perceive at once that every effort to establish truth falls 
 away. Who would enter the arena in behalf of truth, in a 
 place where the lie is not conceivable ? Neither can truth have 
 had a place among the conceptions which were originally 
 common to man in the state of his innocence. As long as 
 sin had not entered the heart, there could be no impulse 
 to defend truth against the lie which had as yet no exist- 
 ence. In entire accordance with this the Scriptural narra- 
 tive of the fall presents Satan as the first to whisper the lie, 
 that what God had said was not true, and that moment 
 marks the beginning of the conflict for the truth. 
 
116 § a. TRUTH [Div. II 
 
 Hence it is none too strongly said, that the struggle for 
 "truth" is legitimately only a result of sin. Science is 
 entirely different from truth. If you imagine our human 
 development without sin, the impulse to know and understand 
 the cosmos, and by this knowledge to govern it, would have 
 been the same ; but there would have been no search after 
 truth, simply because there could have been no danger of re- 
 lying upon falsehood as a result of investigation. In our 
 sinful condition, however, while the human consciousness is 
 constantly ensnared in falsehood, from the very nature of 
 the case science has the twofold calling, not only to investi- 
 gate and understand the object, but also to banish the false 
 representations of it. 
 
 But this is easier said than done, and as soon as you leave 
 the material domain you see different men, who from their 
 point of view are honest in their purposes, and whose talents 
 for investigation are fairly equal, arrive at as many diiferent 
 and sometimes directly opposite results. This is less to be 
 feared in the domain of pure matter, at least as long as one 
 confines himself to the mere statement of what has been ob- 
 served, and draws no inferences from his observations. As 
 soon, however, as investigations reach the point where the 
 reinforced eye and ear are no longer able to observe with abso- 
 lute certainty, disputes may arise, though this has nothing 
 to do Avith falsehood ; and when, after all the applause that 
 hailed Dr. Koch's preparation for tuberculosis, it was shown 
 that this preparation not only failed of its purpose, but even 
 caused injurious effects, he had to acknowledge it. When 
 facts spoke, illusion was ended. It is entirelj^ different, how- 
 ever, when one comes in contact with the wow-material domain 
 of life. The science of statistics, on which it was thought we 
 could so safely build, is shown to be largely untrustworthy. 
 And when we enter the domain of the real spiritual sciences, 
 the most objective observation, such as the examination of 
 documents, and the statement of a few tangible facts, are 
 scarcely ended, but ideas everywhere separate, and there is no 
 more objective certainty to compel universal homage, which 
 can bring about a unity of settled result. This is not found 
 
Chap. II] § 44. TKUTH 117 
 
 in the domain of psychology; or of philosophy in the narrower 
 sense ; or of history ; or of law ; or in any spiritual doiliain 
 whatever. Because here the subjective factor becomes pre- 
 ponderant ; and this subjective factor is dependent upon the 
 antithesis between falsehood and truth ; so that both the 
 insight into the facts and the structure which one builds 
 upon this insight must differ, and at length become, first 
 contrary and then contradictory. 
 
 The fatality of the antithesis between falsehood and truth 
 consists in this, that every man from his point of view claims 
 the truth for himself, and applies the epithet of "untrue" to 
 everything that opposes this. Satan began by making God 
 the liar and by presenting himself as the speaker of truth. 
 And for our demonstration this applies more emphatically 
 still to the custom among men ; especially since in this section 
 we speak exclusively of those persons who devote themselves 
 to scientific research. Though we grant that in science also 
 wilful mutilation of facts is not altogether wanting, it must be 
 accepted, as a rule, that he who announces himself as a man 
 of science is disposed to take things as they are, and to deal 
 with them accordingly. Nobody writes a scientific thesis 
 with the purpose of propagating falsehood; the purpose of 
 all scientific labor is to champion the truth. And from this 
 very fact it follows that where two scientific men arrive at 
 directly opposite results, each will see the truth in his own 
 result, and falsehood in the result of his opponent, and both 
 will deem it their duty to fight in the defence of what 
 seems to them the truth, and to struggle against what seems 
 to them the lie. If this concerns a mere point of detail, it 
 has no further results ; but if this antithesis assumes a more 
 universal and radical character, school will form itself against 
 school, system against system, world-view against world- 
 view, and two entirely different and mutually exclusive 
 representations of the object, each in organic relation, will 
 come at length to dominate whole series of subjects. From 
 both sides it is said: "Truth is with us, and falsehood with 
 you." And the notion that science can settle this dispute is 
 of course entirely vain, for we speak of two all-embracing 
 
118 § 44. TKUTH [Div. U 
 
 representations of the object, both of which have been ob- 
 tained as the result of very serious scientific study. 
 
 If the objection be raised that science has cleared away 
 whole series of fallacious representations, we repeat that 
 this concerned the forms only in which the lie for a time 
 lay concealed, but that that same lie, and therefore the same 
 antithesis against truth, is bound to raise its head in new 
 forms with indestructible power. All sorts of views, which 
 for centuries have been considered dead, are seen to rise 
 again resuscitated in our age. As far as principle is con- 
 cerned and the hidden impulse of these antitheses, there is 
 nothing new under the sun ; and he who knows history and 
 men, sees the representatives of long-antiquated world-views 
 walk our streets to-day, and hears them lecture from the 
 platform. The older and newer philosophers, the older and 
 newer heresies, are as like each other, if you will pardon the 
 homely allusion, as two drops of water. To believe that an 
 absolute science in the above-given sense can ever decide 
 the question between truth and falsehood is nothing but a 
 criminal self-deception. He who affirms this, always takes 
 science as it proceeds from his own subjective premises and 
 as it appears to him, and therefore eo ipso stigmatizes every 
 scientific development which goes out from other premises 
 as pseudo-science, serviceable to the lie. The antithesis of 
 principles among Theism, Pantheism, and Atheism domi- 
 nates all the spiritual sciences in their higher parts, and as 
 soon as the students of these sciences come to defend what 
 is true and combat what is false, their struggle and its 
 result are entirely governed by their subjective starting- 
 point. 
 
 In connection with the fact of sin, from which the whole 
 antithesis between truth and f alseliood is born, this phenome- 
 non presents itself in such a form that one recognizes the 
 fact of sin, and that the other denies it or does not reckon 
 with it. Thus what is normal to one is absolutely abnormal 
 to the other. This establishes for each an entirely different 
 standard. And where both go to work from such subjective 
 standards, the science of each must become entirely different. 
 
Chap. II] § 45. WISDOM 119 
 
 and the unity of science is gone. The one cannot be forced 
 to accept what the other holds as truth, and what according 
 to his view he has found to be truth. 
 
 Thus, taken by itself, the triumph of Scepticism ought to 
 result from this, and Pilate's exclamation, "What is truth," 
 should be the motto of highest wisdom. But the process of 
 history is a protest against this. However often Scepticism 
 has lifted up its head, it has never been able to maintain a 
 standing for itself, and with unbroken courage and indefati- 
 gable power of will thinking humanity has ever started out 
 anew upon the search after truth. And this fact claims an 
 explanation. 
 
 § 45. Wisdom 
 
 The threatening and of itself almost necessary dominion 
 of Scepticism, stranded first upon the ever more or less prob- 
 lematical phenomenon which is called Wisdom. In order to 
 appreciate the meaning of this phenomenon, the combina- 
 tion " philo-sophia " should not claim our first attention, 
 since it identifies " wisdom " too greatly with " science," and 
 the leading characteristic of " wisdom " is that it is not the 
 result of discursive thought. An uneducated and even an 
 illiterate man may convey in large measure the impression of 
 being a wise man ; while, on the other hand, scientifically 
 developed persons often fall short in wisdom of sense. The 
 etymology of the words, by which the conception of " wis- 
 dom " is expressed in different languages, makes this dis- 
 tinction between a scientific disposition and a disposition for 
 wisdom to be clearly seen. Wisdom (sapientia) and science 
 (scientia) are not the same. Sapere means to taste, to try, 
 and in its metaphoric use points to a knowledge of things 
 which expresses itself not theoretically, but practically, and 
 works intuitively. The Greek word a6^o<: (wisdom), in con- 
 nection with cra^rj';, aaivpo';, and perhaps with otto'?, belongs 
 evidently to the same root, and points also to a radical-word 
 which indicated the action of smelling or tasting. The Ger- 
 manic word "wise" takes no account with the origin of this 
 peculiar knowledge, but with its outcome. Wisel is the well- 
 known name of the queen of the bees, who, taking the lead. 
 
120 § 45. WISDOM [Div. II 
 
 by this superiority governs the entire swarm. Here also the 
 practical element of knowledge appears in the foreground. 
 He is wise who knows and sees how things must go, and 
 who for this reason is followed by others. With the limited 
 development of Semitic etymology, the Hebrew expression 
 DDH is less clear, but from the description which the Chok- 
 matic writings give us of this " wisdom," it appears the more 
 convincingly that the Hebrew understood this wisdom to 
 be something entirely different from what we call scientific 
 development, and in this conception thought rather of a 
 practical-intuitive understanding. The derivation of nsn, 
 which means to cleave to something, would agree very well 
 with this, as an indication of the spirit's sympathy with 
 the object from which this Chokmatic knowledge is born. 
 Phrases which are in common use with us, also, such as, for 
 instance : " You have wisely left it alone," " When the wine 
 is in the man, wisdom is in the can " ; " He is a wise man" ; 
 or the Bible-text : " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask 
 of God"; all agree entirely with this etymological result. 
 The root-idea always appears to be, that one possesses a 
 certain natural understanding of the nature and process of 
 things, and understands the art of accommodating himself 
 to them in practical life. Wisdom has nothing to do, 
 therefore, with intellectual abstraction, but clings immedi- 
 ately to the reality, proceeds from it and works out an effect 
 upon it. But again, it is not artistic skill, nor what is called 
 talent, for it is not the action which proceeds from the 
 insight but the insight itself which stands in the fore- 
 ground. Wisdom is the quiet possession of insight which 
 imparts power, and is at the disposal of the subject, even 
 when this subject is not called to action. Wisdom is also 
 distinguished from artistic skill and talent, in that it bears 
 an universal character. He who excels in a certain depart- 
 ment of science is not ivise, neither is he wise who excels 
 in a certain trade. Such an one-sided development of skill 
 is rather opposed to the root-idea of wisdom. He who is 
 wise, is centrally wise, i.e. he has a general disposition of 
 mind which, whatever comes, enables him to have an accu- 
 
Chap. II] §45. WISDOM 121 
 
 rate view of things, in conformity with which to choose and 
 act with tact and with discretion. As the result, therefore, 
 it may be stated that entirely apart from the development 
 of science, there is in certain persons an aprioristic, not 
 acquired, general insight, which in its efficient, practical 
 excellence shows itself in harmony with the reality of things. 
 But if among your acquaintances you meet with but few 
 persons who have this insight to such an extent as to entitle 
 them to the epithet of "wise folk," all the others are not 
 fools ; and yet only this antithetical conception of foolish- 
 ness elucidates sufficiently the exact conception of wisdom. 
 A fool and a lunatic are not the same. An insane man is he 
 whose consciousness works in the wrong way, so that all 
 normal insight has become impossible for him. A fool, on 
 the other hand, is he whose consciousness worts normally, 
 but who himself stands so crookedly over against the reality 
 of things, that he makes mistake upon mistake and con- 
 stantly makes the wrong move on the chess-board of life. 
 He acts foolishly who makes an evident mistake in his 
 representation of reality, and who in consequence of his 
 noticeable lack of accurate insight, chooses the very thing 
 that will serve him a wrong end. He lacks the proper 
 relation to the reality, and this accounts for his mistakes. 
 Between these " wise folk " and these " fools " stands the 
 great mass of humanity, who in all possible gradations 
 form the transition from the wise to the foolish; while 
 among these general masses is found what used to be called 
 a sound mind, common sense, le sens commun. This implies 
 something that does not scale the heights of wisdom, but 
 which, nevertheless, maintains a relation to it and offers a gen- 
 eral basis for it. We grant that, more especially since the close 
 of the last century, this expression "common sense" has 
 been used synonymously with that analogous " public opin- 
 ion " in which the weakened form of, Rationalism reflected 
 itself, and that this spectre has repeatedly been evoked to 
 banish idealism, to mock the faith, and to hush every nobler 
 feeling; but this was simple abuse. Originally, "common 
 sense " meant by no means the iteration of the program of 
 
122 § 45. WISDOM [Div. U 
 
 a particular school, but, on the contrary, a certain accuracy 
 of tact, by which, in utter disregard of the pretensions of 
 the schools, public opinion followed a track which turned 
 neither too far to the right nor to the left. This weakened 
 wisdom, which generally directs the course of life, occasion- 
 ally forsook public opinion, and this gave foolishness the 
 upper hand, and mad counsels free courses ; but, in the long 
 run, common sense almost always gained the day. And in 
 individual persons it is found, that if the particular " wise 
 folk " be excluded, one class is inclined to foolishness, while 
 another class remains subject to the influence of a weakened 
 wisdom, and the latter are said to be the people of common 
 sense; a term which does not so much express a personal 
 gift (^charisma), as the fact that they sail in safe channels. 
 If the phenomenon itself be thus sufficiently established, 
 the question arises, how, culminating in wisdom and finding 
 its antithesis in. folly, this phenomenon of "common sense" 
 is to be psychologically interpreted. It is not the fruit of 
 early training, it is not the result of study, neither is it 
 the effect of constant practice. Though it is granted that 
 these three factors facilitate and strengthen the clear opera- 
 tions of this common sense and of this wisdom, the phenome- 
 non itself does not find its origin in them. Two young men, 
 brought up in the same social circle, of like educational 
 advantages and of similar experience, will differ widely 
 in point of wisdom ; one will become a wise man, while 
 with the other life will be a constant struggle. Thus we 
 have to do with a certain capacity of the human mind, 
 which is not introduced into it from without, but which is 
 present in that mind as such, and abides there. The Dutch 
 language has the beautiful word " be-se/-fen " (to sense), 
 which etymologically is connected with the root of saj^-ientia, 
 and indicates a certain immediate affinity to that which 
 exists outside of us. In this sense prudence and wisdom are 
 innate ; not an innate conception, but an insight which pro- 
 ceeds immediately from the affinity in which by nature we 
 stand to the world about us, and to the world of higher 
 things. Both point to a condition in which, if we may so 
 
Chap. II] §45. WISDOM 123 
 
 express it, man felt Nature's pulse beat; in which he shared 
 the life of every animate thing, and so perceived and un- 
 derstood it ; and in which, moreover, he also apprehended 
 the higher life not as something foreign to himself, but as 
 " sensing " it in his own sense of existence. Or if we look 
 ahead, both phenomena lie in the line, at whose end the 
 seeing (dewpelv) is reached, "the knowing as we are known." 
 The energy of this intuition is now broken. With some it 
 seems entirely lost, and these are called "fools." With 
 some others it still works comparatively with great effect, 
 for which reason they are called, preeminently, the wise folk. 
 And between these extremes range the people of common 
 sense ; so called because in them something is still found 
 of the old, sound, primitive force (Urkraft) of the human 
 mind. 
 
 Now it is readily seen what a formidable dam wisdom and 
 common sense prove against the destructive floods of Scepti- 
 cism. If there were no other way open to knowledge than that 
 which discursive thought provides, the subjective character 
 which is inseparable from all higher science, the uncer- 
 tainty which is the penalty of sin, and the impossibility be- 
 tween truth and falsehood to decide what shall be objectively 
 compulsory would encourage Scepticism to strike ever deeper 
 root. But since an entirely different way of knowledge is 
 disclosed to us by wisdom and its allied common sense, 
 which, independent of scientific investigation, has a start- 
 ing-point of its own, this intuitive knowledge, founded on 
 fixed perceptions given with our consciousness itself, offers 
 a saving counterpoise to Scepticism. For now we have a 
 certain insight, and on the ground of this insight a relative 
 certainty, which has no connection with the discursive con- 
 flict between truth and falsehood, and which, being constantly 
 confirmed in the fiery test of practical application in daily 
 life, gives us a starting-point by which the conviction main- 
 tains itself in us that we are able to grasp the truth of 
 things. And since this wisdom and common sense determine- 
 those very issues and principles of life, against which scepti- 
 cism directs its most critical and important attacks, we find. 
 
124 § 45. WISDOM [Div. II 
 
 in this phenomenon, so mysterious in itself, a saving strength 
 which enables the human mind to effect its escape from the 
 clutches of Scepticism. This wisdom can never supersede 
 discursive thought, nor can it take the place of empiricism, 
 but it has the general universal tendency to exclude follies 
 from the processes of discursive thought, and in empirical 
 investigation to promote the accuracy of our tact. 
 
 In answer to the objection that it is difficult to harmonize 
 this interpretation of "wisdom" with the conception of <ro<f)ia 
 in our word "philosophy" {^iXocrojiia), we observe that for 
 a just criticism of this apparent objection we must go back 
 to the original conception of " wisdom " as held by the 
 Greeks, and to the most ancient meaning of the combination 
 of 4>t\elv with this word. As for " wisdom," we refer first 
 of all to the noteworthy sentence of Heraclitus: <jo4>ir) aXrj- 
 6ia Xe'yeiv koX TroLelv Kara (pvaiv eiratovTa<;, i.e. "Wisdom con- 
 sists in knowing how to speak the truth, and how to live 
 according to nature," in which the last words especially 
 indicate that "wisdom" is taken as ripening from a natural 
 instinct, whUe the verb "to live" Qjroieiv') exhibits its prac- 
 tical character. With Thales only it was thought that 
 "wisdom" also bore a somewhat theoretical character. See 
 Plutarch's Life of Solon, 3, 9: "And, on the whole, it is 
 likely that the conception of wisdom was at that time carried 
 further by Solon alone, in speculation, than its significance in 
 common use ; but in the case of others the name ' wisdom ' 
 arose from its use in civil aifairs." What Xenophon narrates 
 concerning Socrates leads to the same conclusion. See Xen. 
 Mem. III. 9, 4: " (Socrates) did not separate (i.e. distin- 
 guish between) wisdom and prudence," even in this sense 
 that " Those who do not act rightly he considered neither 
 wise nor prudent." Undoubtedly with Plato it is already 
 *' A possession of the truth in contemplation" (p. 414, J), 
 and with Aristotle, "The science of things divine and 
 human"; but this is not the original conception. With the 
 oldest philosophers we do not find the mention of a phi- 
 losophy which is the result of investigation. Their philoso- 
 phy is rather an exposition of their insight into the relation 
 
Chap. II] § 46. FAITH 125 
 
 of things, in the elaboration of which they deal more freely 
 with their phantasy than with empiricism. Even in the 
 word " theory " this ancient meaning of the wisdom-concep- 
 tion is still active. Etymologically, "theoria" refers to 
 intuition, and as such it has nothing in common with the 
 idea which we attach to the theoretical. 
 
 § 46. Faith 
 
 Even more effectually than by " wisdom " Scepticism is 
 counteracted by "faith" (Trto-Tt?). Faith in this connection 
 is taken formally, and hence considered quite apart from all 
 content. By " faith " here, then, we do not mean the " faith 
 in Christ Jesus " in its saving efficacy for the sinner, nor yet 
 the " faith in God " which is fundamental to all religion, 
 but that formal function of the life of our soul which is 
 fundamental to every fact in our human consciousness. 
 The common antithesis between "faith and knowledge" 
 places the content obtained by faith in contrast to the con- 
 tent obtained by knowledge. Thus we face two dissimilar 
 magnitudes, which are susceptible neither of comparison nor 
 of amalgamation. We encounter iron and clay, as Daniel 
 pictures it; elements which refuse to intermingle. To take a 
 position with reference also to this antithesis, it is necessary 
 that we go back to the formal function of faith, and inves- 
 tigate whether this function does or does not exhibit an 
 universal character. For if it does, this universal function 
 of faith must also influence that particular function by 
 which the scientific result is obtained, and the extent is 
 traceable to which the function of faith is able to exert 
 itself, as well as the point where its working stops. We 
 purposely consider this function of faith, next to wisdom, 
 as a similar reaction against Scepticism. All Scepticism 
 originates from the impression that our certainty depends 
 upon the result of our scientific research. Since, however, 
 this result constantly appears to be governed by subjective 
 influences, and is affected by the conflict between truth 
 and falsehood which is the result of sin, there is no defence 
 against Scepticism except in the subject itself. The defence 
 
126 §46. FAITH [Div. II 
 
 against Scepticism which, the subject provides, can prove no 
 benefit to our science, except it is evident that this defence 
 bears no individual-subjective character; but that in its 
 real significance it belongs to the subject as such, and may 
 therefore be called subjective in a general and communal 
 sense. And faith exhibits this character. 
 
 In the explanation of this two dif&culties present them- 
 selves, which we must not allow to overshadow us. The 
 first difficulty is, that faith is a conception which has been 
 introduced into our common speech, especially from the New 
 Testament, and has received thereby a religious, and in a 
 more restricted sense a soteriological, stamp. Thus under- 
 stood, this conception has no place in our Erkenntniss-theo- 
 rie, and the appearance is given that faith bears no universal 
 character at all. The second diificulty is, that profane 
 literature almost never uses the conception of faith tech- 
 nically, and hence attaches no definite meaning to it. The 
 old philosophy, for instance, never deals with faith as with 
 a special function of the soul. It appears, however, as if 
 Pythagoras attached something more to this conception and 
 that he classified it, as we learn in Theol. Arithm. X., p. 60, 
 how the Pythagoreans "in their mystical explanations called 
 it (i.e. TTio-Tt?) at one time the world ; at another, the heavens ; 
 still again, the universe ; then again, fate and eternity ; and, 
 yet again, might, faith, necessity "; yet this appears to be the 
 case in a very superficial sense only, since of this TriixTi? at 
 once this more exact explanation is given in Theol. Arithm,, 
 p. 61: " The number Ten indeed is called belief (or faith), 
 since according to Philolaos by (the number) Ten, and its 
 parts, which have to do primarily with realities, we have a 
 clear idea of Belief." It may not be denied that Philolaos 
 saw that in some instances faith stands on a line with avdyKrj 
 (necessity) ; but he makes no mention of a general applica- 
 tion of this conception. 
 
 Neither of these two difficulties, however, should prevent 
 us from making a more general application of this conception. 
 Not the difficulty derived from the Holy Scriptures, since 
 Heb. xi. 1 anticipates our wish to restore faith to its more 
 
Chap. II] § 46. FAITH 127 
 
 general meaning. There we read that faith is " the assur- 
 ance (i/Tro'o-Tao-is) of things hoped for, the proving (e'Xe7;\;o9) 
 of things not seen." Thus faith is here taken neither in 
 an exclusively religious sense, much less in a soteriological 
 significance, but very generally as an " assurance " and " prov- 
 ing " of objects which escape our perception, either because 
 they do not yet exist (to, eK-m^oiieva), or because they do 
 not show themselves (ra fir) ^XeTrofieva'). Far from exclud- 
 ing, therefore, a more general interpretation, the Scripture 
 itself calls our attention to it. And as for the backwardness 
 of profane literature in defining this conception more exactly, 
 the above-quoted saying of the Pythagoreans shows that the 
 idea of taking up faith as a link in a demonstration was not 
 entirely foreign to the ancients ; and this appears stronger 
 still from what Plutarch writes (^Mor. 756, 6), " that in di- 
 vine things no demonstration (aTrdSetl^t?) is to be obtained," 
 and that it is not needed, " For the traditional and ancient 
 faith is sufficient ; than which it is not possible to express 
 nor discover a clearer proof ; but this is, in itself, a sort of 
 underlying common foundation and support for piety," — 
 words which, although limited to the domain of religion, and 
 rather used in connection with tradition, nevertheless betray 
 a definite agreement with the teaching of Heb. xi. 1, and 
 place faith as the ground of certainty over against " assur- 
 ance." 
 
 Neither the etymology of Trto-Tf? and the words synony- 
 mous with it in other languages, nor the use of these words, 
 prove any obstacle in the way of this general application. 
 Faith with the root-idea of 'rreidco (to persuade), and in con- 
 nection with the derivatives Trto-rds, Tna-Too), iretroid-qa-i.'s, airei^ 
 64(0, aireiOrj';, and aveideia, points etymologically to an action 
 by which our consciousness is forced to surrender itself, and 
 to hold something for true, to confide in something and to 
 obey something. Here, then, we have nothing but a certain 
 power which is exercised upon our consciousness, to which it 
 is forced to subject itself. Upon our consciousness, which is 
 first unstable, uncertain, and tossed about, a check is placed 
 which puts an end to uncertainty. There is a restraint im- 
 
128 §46. .FAITH [Div. ir 
 
 posed on us from which we cannot escape. Or, as far as our 
 consciousness itself desires this stability, this "underlying 
 foundation and support " (^e'Spa /cal ^dai<; {/(pecrT&a-a}, as Plu- 
 tarch expressed it, or, as Heb. xi. 1 states it, this "assur- 
 ance " and this "proving" are offered us. Where the action 
 of the TreiOeiv (persuasion) is ended, certainty is obtained. 
 In the middle voice ireideaOai (to be persuaded) expresses the 
 function of the soul by which it establishes itself in that sta- 
 bility. And faith therefore may express this certainty itself, 
 as well as the action by which I grasp it. The same root- 
 idea lies in J''P>fil. |^i< (amen) is that which stands fast and 
 does not change. The Hiphil expresses that by which this 
 certainty is born in us. And our believing comes from a dif- 
 ferent source, but it allows the self-same universal tendency. 
 With the Latin luhet, allied to the Sanscrit luhh, which 
 means to appropriate something to oneself, and which stands 
 in immediate connection with the Dutch words lieven and 
 loven, it points to a cleaving to something, to holding fast 
 to something, and to being linked to it by an inner sym- 
 pathy. Thus in he-lieving the relation is more prominent 
 than in ■Kian's or in HJISSS, but that relation is taken as 
 something not uncertain, but certain. He who cleaves to 
 something holds himself fast to it, leans upon and trusts in 
 it ; while in this believing lies the fine secondary meaning, 
 that this cleaving unto, this holding fast to, is accom- 
 plished by an inward impulse. And if the etymology of 
 any of these expressions does not prevent a more general 
 application of this word, the difficulty presented in the 
 accepted use of these words is equally insignificant. Not 
 only was this irCcrTi-v e^eti' (to have faith), a current term in 
 Greek, applied to every department of life, and the tendency 
 of pP^n almost wider still (see, for instance, Dent, xxviii. 66, 
 Judges xi. 20, etc.), but, what is more noteworthy, in our 
 Christian society the use of the word " to believe " is limited 
 so little to the religious and soteriological domain, that even 
 more than " to have faith " the term " to believe " has be- 
 come common property for every relation. 
 
 There is no objection, therefore, to the use of the t&vm. faith 
 
Chap. II] §46. FAITH 129 
 
 for that function of the soul Q^vxi]^ by which it obtains cer- 
 tainty directly and immediately, without the aid of discursive 
 demonstration. This places faith over against " demonstra- 
 tion " ; but not of itself over against knowing. This would 
 be so, if our knowledge and its content came to us exclu- 
 sively by observation and demonstration, but, as we tried to 
 prove in § 37, this is not so. To know and knowledge, to know 
 and understanding, are not the same.. I know all those things 
 the existence of which, together with some relations of this 
 existence, is actual fact to me. No demonstration can ever 
 establish with mathematical certainty the question that gov- 
 erns your whole life, — who it is that has begotten you ; 
 and yet under ordinary circumstances no one hesitates to 
 declare, "I know that this man is my father." For though 
 men may talk here of the theory of probabilities, it is not at 
 all to the point. A proof proves only what it proves defi- 
 nitely and conclusively, and everything which in the end 
 misses this conclusive character is not obtained by your 
 demonstration but from elsewhere; and this other source of 
 certainty is the very point in question. Or rather, — for 
 even now we do not speak with sufQcient emphasis, — this 
 other source, which we call faith, is the only source of cer- 
 tainty, equally for what you prove definitely and conclusively 
 by demonstration. 
 
 That this is not generally so understood can only be ex- 
 plained from the fact that, in the search after the means at 
 our command by which to obtain knowledge, the investi- 
 gation is abandoned before it is finished. The building is 
 examined, and its foundation, and sometimes even the piles 
 that are underneath, but the ground on which the lowest 
 points of these piles rest is not explored. Or to state it in 
 another way, let us say that the need is felt of a continuous 
 line drawn from the outermost point in the periphery of the 
 object to the centre of your ego; but when the ego is as 
 nearly reached as possible, the distance which still separates 
 us from it is not bridged ; we simply vault the gulf. And 
 this is not lawful, because it is illogical. Of necessity 
 a chain must fall when a single link is wanting; for the 
 
130 §46. FAITH [DiT. n 
 
 two links which it ought to connect lose their point of 
 union. 
 
 This comes out at once in the self-consciousness by which 
 we say /. A child, in which self-consciousness has not yet 
 awakened, speaks of itself in the third person. There is 
 some thinking in the child, and a certain amount of knowl- 
 edge, but it is not yet his possession. There is a property, 
 but the owner is still anonymous. Meanwhile, this self- 
 consciousness is an impenetrable mystery to us. To say that 
 it originates through comparison is a vain attempt to soothe 
 oneself with words, for the very subject to be compared is 
 here in question. Neither can it be said that self-consciousness 
 is identical with the nature of our soul, for then it ought also 
 to be active in the child, and ought to stay with us under aU 
 circumstances of life, and that sort of insanity by which one 
 thinks himself to be another would annul our human nature. 
 Self-consciousness, therefore, is an entirely unaccountable 
 phenomenon in the life of the soul, which reveals its activity 
 only at a certain age, which sometimes may slumber, and 
 may lose itself for years in insanity. It is a phenomenon 
 that stays by us in the unconscious condition of our sleep, 
 for in our dreams also it is ourselves who suffer anxiety and 
 all things move themselves about our person. Neither is 
 this self-consciousness an accidental something to that science 
 which we seek to obtain. On this self-consciousness hangs 
 the subject that investigates, and without that subject 
 no investigation is conceivable. He with whom this self- 
 consciousness is still wanting is, like the child, unable 
 to separate himself from the object, and equally unable 
 to draw conclusions from his inward perceptions. Thus 
 the starting-point actually lies in this self-consciousness, 
 and there must ever be a gap if this self-consciousness 
 be not duly considered. From this it also follows, that 
 without faith you miss the starting-point of all knowledge. 
 The expression, "you must believe in yourself," has cer- 
 tainly been abused in humanistic circles to weaken both the 
 denial of ourselves and our faith in God, but it is actually 
 the case that he who does not begin hy believing in himself 
 
Chap. II] §46. FAITH 131 
 
 cannot progress a single step. Nothing but faith can ever 
 give you certainty in your consciousness of the existence of 
 your ego; and every proof to the sum, which you might 
 endeavor to furnish by the exhibition of your will, or if 
 need be by the revelation of your ill will, etc., vrill have no 
 force of demonstration, except before all things else, on 
 the ground of faith, the knowledge of your ego is established 
 for yourself. In the eogito ergo sum the logical fault has 
 indeed long since been shown. The ego, which is to be 
 proved in the sum, is already assumed in the premise by the 
 eogito. 
 
 But the indispensableness of faith goes much farther, and 
 it may safely be said that with the so-called exact sciences 
 there is no investigation, nor any conclusion conceivable 
 except in so far as the observation in the investigation and 
 the reasoning in the conclusion are grounded in faith. No 
 play is intended here on the word " faith." Faith is taken by 
 us in its most real sense. By faith you are sure of all those 
 things of which you have a firm conviction, but which con- 
 viction is not the outcome of observation or demonstration. 
 This may result from indolence by which you apply the 
 much easier and ever ready faith, where the more arduous 
 duty of observation and demonstration is demanded. But 
 this is the abuse of faith, which should ever be reproved. 
 In this abuse, however, the formal character of faith remains 
 inviolate. Properly used or misused, faith is and always 
 will be a means of becoming firmly convinced of a thing, 
 and of making this conviction the starting-point of conduct, 
 while for this conviction no empirical or demonstrative proof 
 is offered or found. Faith can never be anything else but 
 an immediate act of our consciousness, by which certainty is 
 established in that consciousness on any point outside of 
 observation or demonstration. " The ground on which your 
 faith rests," and "the ulterior ground of your faith," are 
 often spoken of, but in all such expressions faith itself is not 
 meant, but only its content, and this does not concern us 
 now. Faith here is taken merely as the means or instrument 
 by which to possess certainty, and as such it not only needs 
 
132 § 46. FAITH [Div. U 
 
 no demonstration, but allows none. And in that sense we 
 referred to it in the first place, as the certainty concern- 
 ing our ego in our own self-consciousness, which precedes 
 every act of thought or observation, and which can only 
 be established in us by faith, or, if you please, is not ac- 
 quired by us, but is a received good, of which no account 
 can be given. 
 
 This is equally true of the starting-point of perception. 
 All perception takes place through the senses, whether you 
 allow them to act naturally, or whether you reinforce 
 them by a technical apparatus. The case, however, is not 
 that our senses perceive, for our ego perceives by means of 
 those senses. The sick man who lies in bed with his eyes 
 wide open, but whose mind is affected, perceives nothing ; 
 even though the images of his surroundings are reflected on 
 the retina of his eyes. While you sleep, many sounds 
 may vibrate in the air-waves of your room, but not waken 
 you to hear and perceive them. To stop short with the 
 senses is, therefore, both unscientific and superficial. The 
 way of knowledge certainly leads through the senses, but 
 it extends farther. It is also continued from the sense 
 through the nerves and the brain, and back of these out of 
 our sensorial avenues to that mysterious something which 
 we call our consciousness, and, in the centrum of that con- 
 sciousness, to what we call our ego. The students of the 
 so-called exact sciences, who think that their as yet un- 
 demonstrated, immediate knowledge of the object rests ex- 
 clusively upon the action of the senses, are thus entirely 
 mistaken, and allow themselves a leap to which thej^ have 
 no right. If their ego is to obtain knowledge of the object, 
 they must not stop with the action of the senses, but ask 
 how the ego acquires certainty of the reality of the percep- 
 tion. By means of your senses, you receive sensations and 
 impressions ; but in your conscioiisness the result of this 
 consists of forms, images, shapes, and figures, which are not 
 dissimilar to those which loom up before your mind outside 
 of perception, — in imagination, in dreams, or in moments of 
 ecstasy. Your perception by means of your senses acquires 
 
Chap. II] §46. FAITH 133 
 
 value only when you know that your senses gave you 
 movements in your sensorial nerve-life, which came from 
 a real object, and in their changes and successions are 
 caused by the state of this object. Actually it amounts 
 to this : that your ego believes in your senses. If by faith 
 the action of your senses is brought into the relation of 
 certainty with your ego, then you can depend upon per- 
 ception by means of your senses, but not before. And 
 the perception of faith and the certainty which it gives 
 are so forcible that, as a rule, we grasp immediately the 
 distinction between the products of dream, fancy and of 
 perception. The action of faith becomes weaker when the 
 condition of mind becomes abnormal, as in delirium of 
 fever, in moments of anxiety, in hypochondria, or sudden 
 insanity ; then a feeling of uncertainty overtakes us as 
 to what we perceive or think we perceive, which we know 
 nothing of in a normal condition, when faith works regu- 
 larly. It must be granted that wilful deception may tempt 
 us to take for real what exists merely in appearance, but 
 even these ever more or less humiliating experiences do 
 not hinder us from resuming immediately our normal stand 
 on reality, thanks to this faith. He who was deceived 
 by the apparition of a ghost, which he afterward discovered 
 to be unreal, will not be uncertain whether a runaway horse 
 in the street is a real phenomenon or not, but will step out 
 of the way of it. If, thus, it must be granted that this faith, 
 by which our ego believes in our senses, can become abnor- 
 mal by a perplexity of our mind, and in like manner can 
 become the dupe of delusion, nevertheless this faith is, and 
 always will be, a certainty-yielding process in our mind, 
 which at once resumes its dominion. 
 
 This is even so true that we actually owe all our convic- 
 tions of the reality of the object exclusively to faith. With- 
 out faith you can never go from your ego to the non-ego; 
 there is no other bridge to be constructed from phenomena 
 to noumena ; and scientifically all the results of observation 
 hang in air. The line from Kant to Fichte is the only 
 line along which you may continue operations. It is true 
 
134 §46. FAITH [Div. II 
 
 that perception is susceptible of verification : the perception 
 of one sense by that of the other ; the perception of to-day 
 by that of to-morrow ; the perception of A by that of B. 
 But in the first place, this is no help whatever as long as 
 faith provides no certainty concerning a single perception. 
 You cannot verify x by x. And on the other hand, it is 
 an undoubted fact that, with the exception perhaps of some 
 weak-minded philosopher, every man, without thinking of 
 verification or applying any verification whatever, is cer- . 
 tain every moment of the day that his surroundings actually 
 are as they appear ; so that on the ground of this certainty 
 he acts and works without the least hesitation. When you 
 sit in your room and some one comes in and addresses you, 
 you do not consider it your first duty to verify this fact, 
 for in that very moment you are certain that this person 
 stands before you and speaks to you ; and you deal with 
 this fact and act accordingly. All human intercourse is 
 founded on this fact, as is also all observation, and conse- 
 quently all scientific knowledge, which is built up on 
 observation ; and this fact falls away at once if faith 
 does not work in you to make your ego believe in your 
 senses. 
 
 This is so true, that the most exact science properly begins 
 its scientific task in the higher sense only when observation 
 is finished. To observe bacteria or microbes is by itself as 
 little an act of science as the perception of horses and cows 
 pasturing in the meadow. The only difference between the 
 two is, that horses and cows in the meadow are perceptible 
 with the naked eye, and bacteria and microbes can be ob- 
 served only with the reinforced eye. Let no one, however, 
 be misled. The reinforcement of the eye is partly the result 
 of invention, and partly of scientific construction. But the 
 bacteriologist, who uses a maximum microscope in his labo- 
 ratory, did not make this himself, he bought it ; and all he 
 does is to see by means of his microscope. An aged person 
 can no longer distinguish letters with his naked eye and buys 
 glasses ; but who will assert that he performs a scientific act, 
 simply because Avith the aid of glasses he now reads what 
 
Chap. II] §46. FAITH 135 
 
 once lie read without glasses. Technical skill is called into 
 play in the use of the microscope ; accuracy also ; and a 
 certain inventive instinct in the statement of what one ob- 
 serves. Scientific knowledge of the department in which 
 one observes will also be a requisite. All this, however, does 
 not deny that the observation itself bears no scientific char- 
 acter, and that the scientific task of the observer only begins 
 when the result of the observation has been obtained. The 
 farmer who, in his stables and fields, observes the data and 
 phenomena of nature, exercises virtually the same function 
 as the observer in his laboratory. To perceive is the com- 
 mon function of man, and perception in a full-grown man is 
 not scientific study because an adult perceives more and 
 better than a child. He who has a sharp and penetrating 
 eye sees all sorts of things which a common observer does 
 not see, but who has ever thought of calling the observation 
 of a sharp-seeing man scientific? If then the observer in 
 his laboratory sees with the reinforced eye what would not 
 reveal itself in any other way, how can this put the stamp of 
 science on his labor? If suddenly our eye should be so 
 greatly strengthened as to equal the microscope in power of 
 vision, then every one would see what he sees. His advan- 
 tage consists simply in this, that his eye is reinforced. Rein- 
 forced in the same way as the eye of the pilot on the bridge 
 of a ship is reinforced, so that he discovers the approach 
 of a coming ship at a great distance. Reinforced in the 
 same way as the eye of the Alpine huntsman, who through 
 the spy-glass discovers from afar the wild goat on the gla- 
 cier. Only with a difference of degree. But how can this 
 difference of degree in the reinforcement of vision ever lend 
 a scientific character to work in the laboratory, which no one 
 ever grants to a sea-captain or chamois-hunter ? Grant there- 
 fore that the preparation of the chemist is scientific, that his 
 purpose lies in science, that presently he will go to work sci- 
 entifically with what has been observed. Very well, if only 
 you concede that his observation as such lacks all scientific 
 character, and that a chemist who confined himself to obser- 
 vation would not be prosecuting science at all. All certainty 
 
136 §46. FAITH [Div. II 
 
 indeed, as far as obtained by perception and observation alone, 
 rests exclusively on the faith that that which we acquire by 
 the senses deserves our confidence. 
 
 If such is the case with the self-consciousness of our ego, 
 and with the certainty obtained by observation, it is equally 
 so with demonstration or with the action of our reasoning 
 understanding. Here also you can pursue no course, unless 
 you have a point of departure. For this reason men have 
 always recognized axioms as fixed principles introductory to 
 demonstration. This word, however, is not happily chosen, 
 since it suggests an opinion, or a meaning ; but even in 
 this less-happily chosen word you confess that the funda- 
 mental principles on which you build are not results of dem- 
 onstration ; indeed, that they are not capable of proof. All 
 you can say of them is, that no one denies them ; that every 
 one, consciously or unconsciously, consents to them; so that 
 you will meet no opposition if you start out from them. 
 This by itself however is nothing more than an argumeii- 
 tum ad homines, and no proof whatever. Nothing remains, 
 therefore, but to declare that these axioms are given with 
 our self-consciousness itself ; that they inhere in it ; that 
 they are inseparable from it ; and that of themselves they 
 bring their certainty with them. Since certainty is your 
 highest aim, nothing more can be demanded than the entire 
 certainty of these axioms. And what is this again but faith? 
 To you they are sure, they are lifted above every ques- 
 tion of doubt, they offer you certainty in the fullest sense, 
 not because you can prove them, but because you uncondi- 
 tionally believe them. Thus faith is here also the mysteri- 
 ous bond which binds your ego to these axioms. It certainly 
 has happened, and may happen again, that one will accept all 
 too quickly as an axiom, what later on will appear suscepti- 
 ble of proof ; but at best this only shows that in connection 
 with what we observed above about "wisdom" our mind also 
 has intuitive knowledge, and that this intuitive knowledge 
 may readily be mistaken for the formal action of our faith. 
 If one takes merely the identity-conception that A = A, the 
 fact is still a fact that the conviction itself, which forms 
 
Chap. II] § 46. FAITH 137 
 
 the starting-point for all demonstration, is not fixed by dem- 
 onstration, but only and alone by faith. 
 
 This has by no means exhausted the significance of faith 
 for the "way of knowledge." As faith provides us the 
 starting-point for our observation and the axiomatic start- 
 ing-point for every demonstration, it also offers us the 
 motive for the construction of science. This motive lies in 
 the codification of the general laws which govern the phe- 
 nomena. Observation itself is no science yet in its higher 
 sense. Science is born of observation only when from those 
 phenomena, each of which by itself furnishes nothing more 
 than a concrete and separate case, we have reached the 
 universal law which governs all these phenomena in their 
 changes. You admit that without certainty of the existence 
 and of the validity of these laws, all scientifice effort is futile. 
 But how do you obtain the knowledge of these laws ? Have 
 you investigated beforehand all the phenomena that belong 
 to one class, and do you now conclude, that because the 
 same activity is seen to operate in all these phenomena in 
 the same way, it should therefore be the law which, thus 
 described, governs this class of phenomena? Of course not. 
 It is not possible for you to do this. The very idea of such 
 a general law even excludes such an all-embracing investiga- 
 tion. Just because it shall be a general law, it must have 
 been valid in the ages when you were not yet born, and must 
 be valid in the ages when you shall be no more. Moreover, 
 while you live it must be valid everywhere, even in those 
 places where you are not present, in which places, therefore, 
 observation is impossible for you. Moreover, suppose that 
 you had acquired your knowledge of this law in the afore- 
 mentioned way, you would have lost your interest in it. 
 For that which interests you in the knowledge of such 
 a law, is the very fact that it enables you to state how this 
 group of phenomena was conditioned before you were born, 
 and how it shall be after you are gone. This law holds the 
 key to the mystery, and it owes its attraction to this charm. 
 But how did you acquire the knowledge of this law? You 
 have observed a certain number of cases, which observation 
 
138 §46. FAITH [Div. II 
 
 shows you a certain constant action ; this constant action 
 makes you surmise that this action will always be constant ; 
 you hear of others who have built like conclusions upon like 
 observations ; you apply a special test, and it appears that 
 in this way you are able to call the same action into life; 
 no case is known to you in which this action has not shown 
 itself ; no one contradicts your surmise ; and every one who 
 devotes his attention to what has attracted yours, arrives at 
 the same conclusion : and, upon this ground, it is scientificaUy 
 determined that in this group of phenomena such and such 
 a law operates thus and so. Very well ! But have you now 
 demonstrated this law? Is the certainty which you have of 
 the existence of this law, the result of demonstration ? Your 
 demonstration cannot extend farther than your observation, 
 and your observation covered certainly not one billionth part 
 of the cases which are concerned. Whether the post hoc in 
 the cases observed is at the same time a propter hoc, can by 
 no means always be empirically proved. This proof is only 
 given when the genetic operation of the cause can be traced 
 in its entire development. But no one hesitates to adopt a 
 general conclusion, even where this genetic knowledge is 
 wanting. That quinine counteracts intermittent fever is a 
 generally accepted conclusion, even though no one has ever 
 been able to explain genetically the action of quinine on the 
 blood. In this case, however, no harm is done. But without 
 knowing the genetic action of vaccine, the general conclusion 
 was considered equally justifiable, that inoculation with 
 this virus is a harmless preventive against smallpox, and, 
 on the ground of this so-called scientifically discovered law 
 vaccination has been enforced by public authority; while 
 now, alas, in the end it appears how carelessly this conclu- 
 sion was drawn. Hence extreme care is necessary, lest we 
 proclaim as a general law what afterward appears to rest 
 on defective observation. But even though we pass these 
 cases by, and confine ourselves to those general laws which 
 are no longer contradicted, the question ever returns. What 
 foundation have you for your confidence that your conclu- 
 sion is correct? You say: "I can show this at once and 
 
Chap. II] § 46. FAITH 139 
 
 prove that it is so, since no one can call a phenomenon into 
 being in which this law does not show itself." And again 
 we say: Very well ! The law of gravitation, etc., is as certain 
 to us as to you ; but we ask : Where is your proof? And 
 to this question no answer can be given, except that here 
 also faith enters in and makes you believe in the existence 
 and in the absolute validity of such a law. Not that 
 the formula of this particular law rests on faith. The 
 formula is the result of your investigation. But the idea 
 itself that there are such laws, and that when certain phe- 
 nomena exhibit themselves, you are certain of the existence 
 of such laws, does not result from your demonstration, but 
 is assumed in your demonstration and is the basis on which 
 your demonstration rests, and in the end it appears the 
 means by which your certainty is obtained. Without faith 
 in the existence of the general in the special, in laws which 
 govern this special, and in your right to build a general con- 
 clusion on a given number of observations, you would never 
 come to acknowledge such a law. For one of the primor- 
 dial principles in your logic reads : A particulari ad generale 
 non valet conclusio, i.e. no conclusion from the special to 
 the general, is valid. Just so, but all your observations deal 
 with the special only. Hence you would never reach a gen- 
 eral conclusion if faith did not give you both the idea of 
 the general and the right to accept it as a fact. 
 
 Though this applies to all the sciences, it nevertheless 
 creates no uneasiness in the man of science, because every 
 student has the faith, in this universal sense, which is neces- 
 sary for the self-consciousness of the ego, for securing the 
 axiomatic starting-point and for the forming of general 
 conclusions. This harmony may momentarily be disturbed 
 by the report that some people still believe in the reality 
 of miracle ; but this alarming suggestion is readily dismissed. 
 If miracles are real, they have no place in common science, 
 for the very reason that they are miracles. Thus in scientific 
 investigation faith is virtually taken as a quantity that can 
 be neglected, because it is the same in all, and therefore 
 makes no difference in the conclusion. This, of course. 
 
140 §46. FAITH [Div. II 
 
 ought not to be so, and an ever stronger protest should be 
 raised against this superficiality which is so unworthy of 
 the name of science ; but the false antithesis between faith 
 and science is so generally current, that they who value 
 science most, as a rule prefer the removal of the last vestige 
 of the leaven of faith. 
 
 But when we leave the domain of the natural, and enter 
 the domain of the mixed and the spiritual sciences, what 
 then ? Here, also, faith (Trib-Ti?) enters in as the indispensable 
 factor, and in a way which is not the same with all. In the 
 mixed and spiritual sciences we touch immediately upon the 
 diversity of the subject, and constantly encounter what in a 
 preceding section we explained as the fact of sin. Take his- 
 tory, for instance. With the exception of a small part be- 
 longing to your own times, all observation is at second, third 
 and fourth hand. There is tradition. Is it trustworthy? 
 A certificate bears a signature. Is it the name of the certi- 
 fier ? You need to consult a document; is this document 
 genuine ? In such cases doubt is not unnatural. A repre- 
 sentation of events which you yourself have witnessed, is 
 often made in public meetings, in the press, and in reviews, 
 Avhich you know is incorrect; this is often given by persons 
 who were eye-witnesses as well as yourself; you have no 
 right in every case to assume bad faith, and yet it is some- 
 times as clear to you as day. If, then, the difficulty is so 
 great in establishing the truth of an event, the parties of which 
 are still alive, the official records of which are at your service, 
 and every particular of which is known to you, what then 
 becomes of the history of bygone ages, of entirely different 
 lands and countries, which comes to you from documents, the 
 very language of which at times is doubtful ? This concerns 
 merely the attestation of facts; and this gives chronicles, but 
 no history. History demands psychological explanations; 
 the discovery of a leading motive in events; a connection 
 among these events ; and a conclusion that leads to prophetic 
 insight into the future. Back of the facts, therefore, you 
 must interpret the characters, the plans, and purposes of the 
 actors ; and back of those persons you must search out 
 
Chap. 11] § 46. FAITH 141 
 
 the general impulses by which often unconsciously many 
 people were impelled. As long as this general motive is not 
 found, there is no science in history. Moreover, history is 
 likewise a judge. The past is no kaleidoscope which you 
 turn before your eye. In history there is a struggle of what 
 you deem holy and true against that which you despise and 
 lament. Thus you must pass judgment. Your sympathy 
 and antipathy are active. In history you spy the root-life 
 of what lives in yourself and in your own surroundings and 
 in your own times. If this is so, how then can there 
 ever be a place in the ranks of the sciences for a sci- 
 ence of history, if in your authentication of the past, in 
 your effort to explain the past, and in your judgment of 
 that past, you exclude faith and accept nothing but what has 
 been obtained by the immediate observation of the senses or 
 by logical demonstration ? 
 
 What has been said of history applies, mutatis mutandis, 
 in lesser or greater measure, to all the spiritual sciences, 
 simply because in all these sciences the mystery of man pre- 
 sents itself, and you are as unable to bring the mystery 
 of your own being, as that of your neighbor, within the 
 reach of your senses or of your logic. As soon therefore 
 as medical science leaves the domain of pure empiricism, 
 and thus becomes scientific, it has to deal more or less with 
 the same difficulties. Not only in Psychiatry alone, but in 
 Physiology and in Pathology as well, does it come in contact 
 with influences and processes, the explanation of which is not 
 found in matter, but in the psyche. For this reason, even 
 after the interesting studies of Professor Bornheim, Mag- 
 netism and Hypnotism have not yet been naturalized by 
 the medical science. 
 
 Ordinary experience shows that in all contact with this 
 invisible world, faith, and nothing but faith, forms the ground 
 in the human personality of every act. When some one 
 announces himself to us, and tells us who he is, we at once 
 accept it as true. We attach value to what he tells of him- 
 self, without having any proof of the truth or means of 
 verification. Take away this mutual confidence from soci- 
 
142 § 46. FAITH [Div. II 
 
 ety, and conversation or intercourse is no longer possible. 
 And so firmly and almost ineradicably is this confidence 
 rooted in us, that even the constant experience of deception 
 does not impair or take away this universal foundation of 
 life. Experience makes us guarded and more careful ; but 
 as long as there is no reason for distrust, confidence remains 
 the rule of society. This is accounted for by the fact that 
 no one is able to disclose the inner life of a man except 
 that man himself. What you call your observation is never 
 anything else with man than the observation of his life- 
 expressions. Since he has nine-tenths of these life-expressions 
 entirely under his control, and is able to withhold or to 
 falsify them, the knowledge of man obtained by observation 
 is always extremely limited, and in itself uncertain. Not 
 observation, but revelation, is the means by which knowledge 
 of the human person must come to you. Hence, you know 
 next to nothing of those individuals who are deaf-mute. 
 And even the revelation which a person makes to you of 
 himself is by itself of no use, unless you have in your person 
 the allied data by which to interpret his revelation. There 
 is certainly some verification by which one can judge of the 
 self-revelation of another ; but in the first place this veri- 
 fication is often of little use, and, again, it can only be 
 applied in special cases. Hence in most cases the judge 
 must depend upon the confessions of the accused and the 
 explanations of witnesses, both of which obtain their force 
 of evidence almost exclusively from faith. If such is the 
 case in the acquisition of knowledge of your nearest sur- 
 roundings, faith is still more strongly appealed to where it 
 concerns persons who live at a distance from you, or who 
 lived in former times. You only know what happens in 
 Japan by what other people say ; and though you may be 
 entirely unable to verify these communications, you believe 
 them grosso modo, and doubt not for a moment but that on 
 reaching Japan you would find the conditions as stated. 
 Your representation of many a part of Africa rests on the 
 information of one man. This, however, does not make a 
 sceptic of you. Yes, though time and again you may be 
 
Chap. II] § 46. FAITH 143 
 
 disappointed in your credulity, you do not abandon your in- 
 eradicable confidence, simply because this confidence cleaves 
 to your nature and is indispensable to life itself. And 
 this is also true with reference to the past. Even with 
 reference to your own past, you do not doubt for a moment 
 that the woman whom you loved as mother was your mother, 
 and that the man whom you addressed by the name of father 
 was your father. You have not observed your conception 
 and your birth. Equally unable are you to prove them. 
 And yet when there is no special cause to make doubt com- 
 pvXsory, every child lives in the glad assurance of having 
 its real father and mother. And herein lies the starting- 
 point of the power and right of tradition, which, though 
 frequently mixed up with mistake and falsehood, in itself 
 forms the natural tie which binds our consciousness to the 
 past, and so liberates it from the limitations of the present. 
 
 All this but shows the utter untenability of the current 
 representation that science establishes truth, which is equally 
 binding upon all, exclusively on the ground of observation 
 and demonstration, while faith is in order only in the realm 
 of suppositions and of uncertainties. In every expression 
 of his personality, as well as in the acquisition of scientific 
 conviction, every man starts out from faith. In every 
 realm faith is, and always will be, the last link by which 
 the object of our knowledge is placed in connection with 
 our knowing ego. Even in demonstration there is no cer- 
 tainty for you because of the proof, but simply because 
 you are bound to believe in the force of the demonstration. 
 That this is generally lost sight of, is because faith, which 
 operates in our observation and demonstration, renders this 
 service in the material sciences to all individuals equally and 
 of itself. This prevents the rise of a difference of opinions. 
 While in the spiritual sciences it has always been necessary 
 to admit a certain unknown factor in the demonstration, and 
 for the sake of this x to subtract something from the abso- 
 lute character of the certainty obtained, which, however, has 
 been disguised under the name of evidence or moral certainty. 
 And for this reason it was very important to show that 
 
144 § 46. FAITH [Div. U. 
 
 faith is the element in our mind by which we obtain cer- 
 tainty, not only in the spiritual, but equally in the material 
 sciences. From which it follows that the lesser degree of 
 certainty in the spiritual sciences is not explained by saying 
 that in the spiritual sciences we have to deal with faitJi, 
 which it is not necessary to do in the material sciences; 
 but rather from the fact that in the spiritual sciences faith 
 seems to operate differently in different persons. To obviate 
 this difficulty the effort is now made to approach the spiritual 
 sciences as much as possible from the visible world (physical 
 and physicocratic psychology, etc.), but the knowledge of the 
 psychical, which is the real object of these sciences, is not 
 advanced thereby a single step. The cause of this unlike 
 operation of faith in the domain of the spiritual sciences is 
 twofold. On the one hand, the effect worked upon this 
 faith by the disposition of the subject ; and on the other hand, 
 the fact that in spiritual science faith operates not merely 
 formally, but also presents a content. 
 
 The first cause finds its explanation in the fact that in 
 the spiritual sciences the unifying power of th.e object does 
 not control the subjective differentiation. In the material 
 sciences the subject is obliged to incline himself as far as 
 possible from his psychical centre to the object, and this 
 accounts for the fact that here all subjects present that 
 side only, which is almost one and the same with all. As 
 soon, however, as in esthetic observation, as the subject re- 
 sumes his active role, the subjective inequality and differ- 
 ence return at once, as is seen in the fine arts of painting 
 and music. In the spiritual sciences the opposite takes 
 place. Here the object is not physical, but psychical, and 
 where the physical still claims considerable attention, as 
 in the study of language, it is of a secondary order, and 
 the psychical remains of first importance. As in the street, 
 and especially in a foreign city, most people appear alike, 
 and their differences of nature and character are seen only 
 in their home life and in their drawing-rooms, so, in viewing 
 the material world, all spirits (jyjrvxai) show themselves one 
 and the same ; but in the psychic centrum their differences 
 
Chap. II] § 46. FAITH 145 
 
 of nature come to light. The peculiar character of the 
 spiritual sciences consists in this, that they look on the life 
 of the psyche in its own home and in its own calling, and 
 therefore in the domain of these sciences the result of faith 
 is often so entirely different in one than in the other. The 
 same phenomenon in language will make different impres- 
 sions upon a Mongolian and upon a Romanic linguist ; and 
 a High Ohurohman will give an entirely different explanation 
 of an event in English history from a partisan of the Old 
 Covenanters. And if this subjective differentiation counts 
 already for so much in Linguistics and in History, which have 
 so strong a physical substratum in common, how much more 
 powerful must be this influence of the subjective diversity, 
 where psychology, morals, politics, economics, jurisprudence, 
 etc., are in question. In these sciences almost everything 
 depends upon the principles one starts out from, the meaning 
 one attaches to words and the spiritual tendency by which 
 one is governed. This subjective character of faith in these 
 sciences is, therefore, no mistake, nor a defect, but a factor 
 given of necessity in the nature of their object and their 
 method. It is the essential condition (conditio sine qua non) 
 by which alone these sciences can flourish. 
 
 The second cause of this unlike working of faith in the 
 spiritual domain lies in the fact, that faith here not only 
 renders the formal service of establishing the relation be- 
 tween the object and the self-conscious and thinking ego, 
 but also becomes the immediate voucher of the content. 
 This is not the case in the material sciences, but it is in 
 daily life. Our walking, our climbing of stairs, our eating 
 and drinking, are not preceded by scientific investigation, 
 but are effected by faith. You run downstairs without 
 inquiring whether your feet will reach the steps, or whether 
 the steps are able to bear your weight. You eat bread 
 without investigating whether it may contain poison, etc. 
 But when the material world is the object of scientific 
 investigation, everything is measured, weighed, counted, 
 separated and examined, and faith renders the exclusively 
 formal service of making us believe in our senses, in the 
 
146 §47. RELIGION [Div. H 
 
 reality of the phenomena, and in the axioms and laws of 
 Logic by which we demonstrate. In the spiritual sciences, 
 on the other hand, this is different. In Psychology it is faith, 
 and faith alone, which directly guarantees to me the pres- 
 ence of my soul, of my ego, and of my sense of self. All 
 the data by which I labor on psychical ground fall away 
 immediately as soon as I consign faith to non-activity. 
 And when I go out of myself, in order to communicate 
 with other persons, in nine cases out of ten faith is the 
 only means at command by which I can receive the revela- 
 tion of their personality and attach a value to that reve- 
 lation. Let it be emphatically repeated here, that only 
 because my mother revealed to me who my father was, 
 do I know this as a fact ; and in almost every case this 
 all-important circumstance that affects my whole existence 
 cannot be certified except by faith in the content of this 
 revelation. This presents no difficulty as long as it con- 
 cerns a content which touches me alone ; as soon, however, 
 as this content acquires a general character, and tends to 
 establish the laws of psychic life, in the domains of morals, 
 politics, economics, pedagogy, jurisprudence and philosophy, 
 we see all sorts of groups of individuals separate into schools, 
 and nothing more is said of unity and common certainty. 
 
 § 47. Religion 
 
 That which in the given sense is true of all science of the 
 creaturely, and by which in the end everything depends upon 
 faith, is from the nature of the case still more eminently 
 true of all scientific research which concerns itself with the 
 matter of religion. Taking the conception of " religion " pro- 
 visionally, without any more precise definition, this much is 
 certain, that all religion assumes communion with something 
 that transcends the cosmos, this cosmos being taken objec- 
 tively as well as subjectively. Even when religion takes 
 no higher flight than Ethics, it gropes about in that ethical 
 world-order that it might find there a central ethical power 
 which governs this whole domain, and before which every 
 non-ethical phenomenon must vanish. As long as Ethics 
 
Chap. II] §47. RELIGION 147 
 
 aims only at utility or eudemonism, it misses all religious 
 character. Even with Kant this is the all-important point 
 at which religion, however barren and abstract, enters into 
 his ethical world. The ethical subject feels and recognizes 
 a higher ethical will, to which his will must be subordi- 
 nated. From which point of view, it follows of necessity 
 that the whole world of phenomena is either reasoned out of 
 existence as a mere semblance, or, as real, is subordinated to 
 the ethical. But in whatever way it is interpreted, in any 
 case the central power of the ethical world-order is made 
 to be supreme, transcending all things else, and to it the 
 subject not only subordinates himself, but also the object. 
 With a somewhat higher religious development, however, 
 this will not only not suffice, but there can be no rest until, 
 surpassing the thelematic, this subordination of subject and 
 object to this central power has also been found for one's 
 consciousness. The object of religion is not only placed 
 outside of this object-subject, but the subject as well as the 
 object, and the relation of both, must find their ground and 
 explanation in this central power. The psyche addresses 
 itself not merely to the general in the special, and to the 
 permanent in the transient, but to the cause (atVia), the 
 beginning (^ap'^rf), the constitution (^a-varaai';'), and end 
 (reXo?) of both. This extra-cosmic and hyper-cosmic char- 
 acter, however, of every central power, which in the higher 
 sense shall be the object of religion, is the very reason that 
 neither observation nor demonstration are of the least avail 
 in establishing the tie between our subject and this central 
 power, and that your reasoning understanding is as unable 
 to foster as to exterminate religion. 
 
 This is different, of course, with Theology, which as a 
 science concerns itself with the matter of religion ; but the 
 nature of this science, its method and its certainty, sustain 
 the closest relation to the character of this central power, 
 which is the impelling motive in all higher religion. As 
 a physiological and physicocratic study can be for years made 
 of the expressions of human life, without ever touching upon 
 the study of the psyche, a lifetime can be spent in all sorts 
 
148 §47. RELIGION [Div. II 
 
 of interesting studies of religious ideas, culture-forms, and 
 usages, without ever touching upon the study of religion. 
 Since we now have a psychology without pysche, we also hear 
 a great deal said of a science of religion without religion. 
 In which case all study remains phenomenal, but religion 
 itself is not reached. Hence in this domain also, everything 
 addresses itself to faith. If the subject were to construe his 
 religion out of himself, religion itself would be destroyed. 
 Its characteristic is that the subject places not only the 
 cosmos outside of him, but primarily himself in absolute 
 dependence upon the central power whose superiority he 
 acknowledges. Consequently he can never place himself 
 above this central power; this, however, is just what he 
 would do, if he placed this power under himself as object of 
 his investigation, or construed it out of himself. Much less 
 can he construe this central power from the cosmos; for if 
 the moral sense demands that we subordinate all that is 
 cosmical to our ethical life, a fortiori this cosmical can never 
 be adequate to the central power which dominates our ethical 
 world-order. By the study of phenomena, therefore, many 
 definite ideas of religion may be derived from the subject 
 and from the cosmos, but with all this there is nothing 
 gained unless I have first grasped the heart of religion, of 
 which the phenomenal is merely the outshining. 
 
 Thus, what in the preceding section we found to be the 
 case with respect to our relation to other subjects, repeats 
 itself here with still greater emphasis. No sense, no percep- 
 tion, and no knowledge is here possible for us, unless this 
 central power reveals itself to us, affects us, and touches us 
 inwardly in the centrum of our psyche. When we as man 
 stand over against man, we are always able from our own 
 subject to form our idea of the other subject, on the ground 
 of faith in our common nature. But in religion this infer- 
 ence fails us. Except, therefore, this central power makes 
 itself felt by us, and with entire independence reveals itself 
 to us in a way which bends to the form of our sense and of 
 our consciousness, it has no existen-ce for us, and religion is 
 inconceivable. For this reason all those systems which try 
 
Chap. II] § 47. RELIGION 149 
 
 to construe this central power ethically from the subject, or 
 naturalistically from the object, fall short of religion and 
 virtually deny it. Against all such efforts the words of the 
 Psalmist are ever in force : " In thy light shall we see light, " 
 and also the words of Christ : " Neither doth any know the 
 Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth 
 to reveal him." Presently your demonstration may have a 
 place in your theological studies of the knowledge that is 
 revealed, and in your inferences derived from it for the sub- 
 ject and the cosmos; but observation or demonstration can 
 never produce one single milligramme of religious gold. 
 The entire gold-mine of religion lies in the self-revelation 
 of this central power to the subject, and the subject has no 
 other means than faith by which to appropriate to itself the 
 gold from this mine. He who has no certainty in himself 
 on the ground of this faith, about some point or other in 
 religion, can never be made certain by demonstration or 
 argument. In this way you may produce outward religious- 
 ness, but never religion in the heart. 
 
 It may even be asserted that faith obtains its absolute 
 significance only in religion. In the cosmos you are sup- 
 ported by observation, in the knowledge of other persons by 
 your own human consciousness and in the self-knowledge of 
 your own person by the self-consciousness of your ego. But 
 nothing supports you here. Especially not as the cosmos 
 now is, and as your subject now exists. In that cosmos, as 
 well as in your subject, all manner of things oppose your 
 religious sense; and between you and the object of your 
 worship there is always the fathomless abyss of the "trans- 
 ference into another genus " (/iera/Sao-t? ek aXXo ^eVo?), the 
 transmutation of that which is not God into God. This 
 cannot be explained more fully now, because we must not 
 anticipate the character of Theology. But enough has been 
 said to show convincingly that without faith no forward 
 step can be taken here, and that therefore there can be no 
 science of religion unless, by faith, the inquiring subject 
 holds communion with that which is the supreme element 
 in the nature of all religion. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TWOFOLD DEVELOPMENT OP SCIENCE 
 § 48. Two Kinds of People 
 
 The certainty and unity of the scientific result, which, 
 through the strong divergencies which exist in the thinking 
 subject, and still more through the existence of the lie, al- 
 most fell victims to Scepticism, recover considerable strength 
 through the influence of wisdom and the support of faith. 
 Since, however, as soon as it performs its function in the 
 domain of the spiritual sciences, faith passes again under 
 the dominion of the subjective divergencies, it can indeed 
 promote the certainty of the result in the conviction, but 
 it proves, rather than a help, an obstacle in the way to the 
 unity of this result. The degree of certainty of one's own 
 conviction cannot be raised without causing the antithesis 
 with the scientific result of others to become proportionately 
 striking. This is true of every spiritual science, in so far 
 as its object is psychic ; but from the nature of the case this 
 is most true of the science which has religion for the object 
 of its investigation; because, here, the subjective-psychic 
 must make a very important step, in order from one's own 
 soul to reach the object of its worship. 
 
 And yet these darker spots in the orb of science would 
 prove no obstacle in the way to the unity of its radiance, 
 if these divergencies in the subject limited themselves to 
 a relative difference. Since, as was seen at the beginning 
 of our study, the subject of science is not the individual, 
 but the general subject of human nature, the potentially 
 higher might at length of itself draw the potentially lower 
 up to and along with itself, and in spite of much resistance 
 and hesitation bring the universal human consciousness to a 
 clear insight, a firm conviction, and a certain knowledge. 
 
 150 
 
Chap, ni] § 48. TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE 151 
 
 In every domain of the expression of human life the sub- 
 jective powers are unequal ; not only in that of science, but 
 also in those of art, religion, the development of social life, 
 and business. In the spiritual domain, i.e. as soon as the 
 powers of the consciousness and of the will turn the scale, 
 equality is no longer found. Here endless variety is the rule. 
 But in this multiformity there operates a law, which makes 
 a rule, and involuntarily causes the radically stronger and 
 purer expressions to dominate the weaker. That which 
 takes place in song, takes place in the entire spiritual 
 domain: the stronger and purer voice strikes the keynote, 
 and ends by getting the others in tune with it. In the 
 domain of the sciences, also, experience shows that, after 
 much resistance and trial, the man of stronger and purer 
 thought prevails at length over the men of weaker and less 
 pure thought, convinces them, and compels them to think as he 
 thinks, or at least to yield to the result of his thinking. Many 
 convictions are now the common property of the universal 
 human consciousness, which once were only entertained by 
 individual thinkers. And when we come into touch with 
 the thinking consciousness of Buddhists, of the followers 
 of Confusius, or of Mohammedans, we are in general so 
 deeply conscious of our superiority, that it never occurs 
 to us to ingratiate ourselves into their favor, but of itself 
 and involuntarily, by our very contact with them, we make 
 our conviction dominate them. When this does not succeed 
 at once, this is exclusively because of their lesser suscepti- 
 bility and backwardness ; as soon, however, as they begin to 
 develop and to approach maturity, they readily conform to 
 us. According to the rule "(iw ehoo des opinions jaillit 
 la veritS," i.e. "truth is formed from clashing opinions," 
 these provisional and necessary divergencies might be toler- 
 ated with equanimity, in the firm conviction that from this 
 multiplicity unity will spring, were only the character of 
 these divergencies among men exclusively relative and 
 matters of degree. 
 
 But this naturally all falls away when you encounter a 
 difference of principle, and when you come to deal Avith 
 
152 § 48. TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE [Div. U 
 
 two kinds of people, i.e. with those who part company 
 because of a difference which does not find its origin 
 within the circle of our human consciousness, but outside 
 of it. And the Christian religion places before us just this 
 supremely important fact. For it speaks of a regeneration 
 (TrdX.Lyyeveaia'), of a "being begotten anew" (^avayevvr]ai<;), 
 followed by an enlightening (^(on<7 jios:'), which changes man 
 in his very being; and that indeed by a change or transfor- 
 mation which is effected by a supernatural cause. The ex- 
 planation of this fact belongs properly to Dogmatics. But 
 since this fact exerts an absolutely dominating influence upon 
 our view of science, it would be a culpable blindfolding oi 
 self if we passed it by in silence. This " regeneration " breaks 
 humanity in two, and repeals the unity of the human con- 
 sciousness. If this fact of "being begotten anew," coming 
 in from without, establishes a radical change in the being of 
 man, be it only potentially, and if this change exercises at 
 the same time an influence upon his consciousness, then as far 
 as it has or has not undergone this transformation, there is an 
 abyss in the universal human consciousness across which no 
 bridge can be laid. It is with this as with wild fruit trees, 
 part of which you graft, while the rest you leave alone. 
 From the moment of that grafting, if successful and the 
 trees are properly pruned, the growth of the two kinds of trees 
 is entirely different, and this difference is not merely relative 
 and a matter of degree, but specific. It is not a better and 
 tenderer growth in one tree producing a richer fruit, while the 
 other tree thrives less prosperously, and consequently bears 
 poorer fruit ; but it is a difference in kind. However luxu- 
 riantly and abundantly the ungrafted tree may leaf and 
 blossom, it will never bear the fruit which grows on the 
 grafted tree. But however backward the grafted tree may 
 be at first in its growth, the blossom which unfolds on its 
 branches is fruit blossom. No tree grafts itself. The wild 
 tree cannot change from its own kind into the kind of the 
 grafted tree, unless a power which resides outside of the 
 sphere of botany enters in and effects the renewal of the wild 
 tree. This is no relative transition. A tree is not one- 
 
Chap. Ill] § 48. TWO KINDS OP PEOPLE 153 
 
 tenth cultivated and nine-tenths wild, so that by degrees it 
 may become entirely cultivated; it is simply grafted or not 
 grafted, and the entire result of its future growth depends 
 on this fundamental difference. And though from the nature 
 of the case this figure does not escape the weak side which 
 every metaphor has, it will nevertheless serve its purpose. 
 It illustrates the idea, that if in the orchard of humanity a 
 similar operation or grafting takes place, by which the char- 
 acter of the life-process of our human nature is potentially 
 changed, a differentiation between man and man takes place 
 which divides us into two kinds. And if the sublimate, 
 which from our being arrays itself in our consciousness, 
 may be compared to the blossom in which the tree develops 
 its hidden beauty, then it follows that the consciousness of 
 the grafted and the consciousness of the wow-grafted human- 
 ity must be as unlike as to kind, as the blossom of the wild, 
 and that of the true, vine. 
 
 But the difficulty which we here encounter is, that every 
 one grants this fact of grafting of trees, while in the world 
 of men the parallel fact is denied by all who have not experi- 
 enced it. This would be the case also with the trees, if 
 they could think and speak. "Without a doubt the wild 
 vine would maintain itself to be the true vine, and look 
 down upon that which announces itself as the true vine 
 as the victim of imagination and presumption. The supe- 
 riority of the cultivated branch would never be recognized 
 by the wild branch; or, to quote the beautiful German 
 words, the Wildling (weed) would ever claim to be Edelreis 
 (noble plant). No, it is not strange that so far as they have 
 not come into contact with this fact of palingenesis, thought- 
 ful men should consider the assertion of it an illusion and a 
 piece of fanaticism ; and that rather than deal with it as fact, 
 they should apply their powers to prove its inconceivable- 
 ness. This would not be so, if by some tension of human 
 power the palingenesis proceeded from the sphere of our 
 human life ; for then it would seem a thing to be desired, 
 and all nobler efforts would be directed to it. But since 
 palingenesis is effected by a power, the origin of which lies 
 
154 §48. TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE [Dir. II 
 
 outside of our human reach, so that man is passive under it 
 as a tree under grafting, the human mind is not quickened 
 by it to action, and consequently must array itself in opposi- 
 tion to it. The dilemma is the more perplexing, since he 
 who ha& been wrought upon by palingenesis can never con- 
 vince of it him who has not been similarly wrought upon, 
 because an action wrought upon us from without the human 
 sphere, does not lend itself to analysis by our human con- 
 sciousness; at least not so far as it concerns the common 
 ground on which men with and without palingenesis can 
 understand each other. They who are wrought upon by 
 palingenesis can in no wise avoid, therefore, conveying the 
 impression of being proud and of exalting themselves. The 
 Edeh-eis everywhere offends the Wildling, not merely in that 
 measure and sense in which a finely cultured, sesthetically 
 developed person offends the uncouth parvenu; for with 
 these the difference is a matter of degree, so that as a rule 
 the parvenu envies the aristocrat, and so secretly recognizes 
 his higher worth; but, and this is the fatality, the differ- 
 ence in hand is and always will be one of principle. The 
 Wildling also grows and blooms, and as a rule its foliage is 
 more luxuriant, while in its specific development the Edelreis 
 is not seldom backward. 
 
 We speak none too emphatically, therefore, when we 
 speak of two kinds of people. Both are human, but one is 
 inwardly different from the other, and consequently feels a 
 different content rising from his consciousness; thus they 
 face the cosmos from different points of view, and are 
 impelled by different impulses. And the fact that there are 
 two kinds of people occasions of necessitj' the fact of two 
 kinds of human life and consciousness of life, and of two 
 kinds of science ; for which reason the idea of the unity of 
 science, taken in its absolute sense, implies the denial of the 
 fact of palingenesis, and therefore from principle leads to the 
 rejection of the Christian religion. 
 
Chap. Ill] §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 155 
 
 § 49. Two Kinds of Science 
 
 By two kinds of science we do not mean that two radi- 
 cally different representations of the cosmos can be simul- 
 taneously entertained side by side, with equal right. Truth 
 is one, and so far as you understand it to be the object re- 
 flected in GUI' human consciousness, science also can only be 
 one. Thus if you understand science to be the systematized 
 result of your perception, observation and thought, the dif- 
 ference in the result of your investigation may be a matter 
 of degree but cannot be radical. If the result of A is con- 
 trary to the result of B, one or both have strayed from the path 
 of science, but in no case can the two results, simultaneously 
 and with equal right, be true. But our speaking of two kinds 
 of science does not mean this. What we mean is, that both 
 parts of humanity, that which has been wrought upon by 
 palingenesis and that which lacks it, feel the impulse to in- 
 vestigate the object, and, by doing this in a scientific way, to 
 obtain a scientific systemization of that which exists. The 
 effort and activity of both bear the same character; they 
 are both impelled by the same purpose ; both devote their 
 strength to the same kind of labor ; and this kind of labor is 
 in each case called the prosecution of science. But however 
 much they may be doing the same thing formally, their activ- 
 ities run in opposite directions, because they have different 
 starting-points ; and because of the difference in their nature 
 they apply themselves differently to this work, and view 
 things in a different way. Because they themselves are dif- 
 erently constituted, they see a corresponding difference in the 
 constitution of all things. They are not at work, therefore, 
 on different parts of the same house, but each builds a house 
 of his own. Not as if an existing plan, convention or de- 
 liberation here assigned the rule. This happens as little 
 in one circle as in the other. Generation upon generation 
 in all ages, in different lands, and among all classes of 
 people, is at work on this house of science, without concert, 
 and without an architectural plan, and it is a mysterious 
 power by which, from all this sporadic labor, a whole is per- 
 
156 § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 fected. Each one places his brick in the walls of this build- 
 ing, and always where it belongs, without himself knowing 
 or planning it. But despite the absence of all architectural 
 insight the building goes on, and the house is in process of 
 erection, even though it may never be entirely completed. 
 And loth are doing it, they who have been wrought upon 
 by palingenesis, as well as those who have remained un- 
 changed. All this study, in the circle of the one as well as 
 in that of the other, founds, builds and assists in the con- 
 struction of a whole. But we emphatically assert that these 
 two kinds of people devote their time and their strength to 
 the erection of two different structures, each of which pur- 
 poses to be a complete building of science. If, however, 
 one of these two is asked, whether the building, on which he 
 labors, will truly provide us what we need in the scientific 
 realm, he will of course claim for himself the high and noble 
 name of science, and withhold it from the other. 
 
 This cannot be otherwise, for if one acknowledged the 
 other to be truly scientific, he would be obliged to adopt the 
 other man's views. You cannot declare a thing to be scien- 
 tific gold, and then reject it. You derive your right to 
 reject a thing only from your conviction that that something 
 is not true, while a conviction that it is true would compel you 
 to accept it. These two streams of science, therefore, which 
 run in separate river-beds, do not in the least destroy the 
 principle of the unity of science. This cannot be done ; it 
 is absolutely inconceivable. We only affirm that formally 
 both groups perform scientific labor, and that they recognize 
 each other's scientific character, in the same way in which 
 two armies facing each other are mutually able to appreciate 
 military honor and military worth. But when they have 
 arrived at their result they cannot conceal the fact that in 
 many respects these results are contrary to each other, and 
 are entirely different ; and as far as this is the case, each 
 group naturally contradicts whatever the other group asserts. 
 
Chap. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 157 
 
 This would have revealed itself clearly and at once, at least 
 in Christian lands, if from the beginning the development of 
 each group had proceeded entirely within well-defined boun- 
 daries. But this was not the case, neither could it be. First, 
 because there is a very broad realm of investigation in which 
 the difference between the two groups exerts no influence. 
 For in the present dispensation palingenesis works no change 
 in the senses, nor in the plastic conception of visible things. 
 The entire domain of the more primary observation, which 
 limits itself to weights, measures and numbers, is common 
 to both. The entire empiric investigation of the things that 
 are perceptible to our senses (simple or reinforced) has noth- 
 ing to do with the radical difference which separates the two 
 groups. By this we do not mean, that the natural sciences as 
 such and in their entirety, fall outside of this difference, but 
 only that in these sciences the difference which separates the 
 two groups exerts no influence on the heginnings of the inves- 
 tigation. Whether a thing weighs two milligrams or three, 
 can be absolutely ascertained by every one that can weigh. 
 If it be mistakenly supposed that the natural sciences are 
 entirely exhausted in this first and lowest part of their inves- 
 tigation, the entirely unjust conclusion may be reached, that 
 these sciences, as such, fall outside of the difference. But in- 
 accurate as this would be, it would be equally unfair, for the 
 sake of accentuating the difference, to deny the absolute char- 
 acter of perception by the senses. Any one who in the realm 
 of visible things has observed and formulated something with 
 entire accuracy, whatever it be, has rendered service to hoth 
 groups. To the validity of these formulas, which makes 
 them binding upon all and for all time, the natural sciences 
 owe their reputation of certainty, and, since we are deeply 
 interested practically in the dominion over matter, also their 
 honor and overestimation. For the more accurate state- 
 ment of our idea we cannot fail to remark that, however 
 rich these formulas and the dominion over nature which they 
 place at our disposal may be in their practical results, they 
 stand, nevertheless, entirely at the foot of the ladder of sci- 
 entific investigation, and are so little scientific in their char- 
 
158 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 acter, that formally they are to be equated with the knowledge 
 of the farmer, who has learned how land must be tilled, and 
 how cattle may be bred to advantage. Observation in the 
 laboratory is certainly much finer, and the labor of thought 
 much more exhaustive, and the skill of invention much more 
 worthy of admiration, but this is a distinction in degree ; the 
 empiric knowledge of the farmer and the empiric knowledge 
 of our naturalist in principle are one. If, however, it is 
 important to reduce to its just equality the significance of 
 that which, in the results of naturalistic studies, is absolutely 
 certain, it should be gratefully acknowledged that in the 
 elementary parts of these studies there is a coinmon realm, 
 in which the difference between view- and starting-point 
 does not enforce itself. 
 
 Not only in the natural, but in the spiritual sciences 
 also, a common realm presents itself. The mixed psychic- 
 somatic nature of man accounts for this. Consequently, 
 the object of the spiritual sciences inclines also, to a cer- 
 tain extent, to express itself in the somatic. Only think 
 of the logos, which, being psychic in nature, creates a loiy 
 for itself in language. Hence in the spiritual sciences the 
 investigation is partly comprised of the statement of out- 
 wardly observable facts. Such is the case in History, the 
 skeleton of which, if we may so express it, consists entirely 
 of events and facts, the accurate narration of which must 
 rest upon the investigation of all sorts of palpable docu- 
 ments. It is the same with the study of Language, whose 
 first task it is to determine sounds, words and forms in their 
 constituent parts and historic development, from all manner 
 of information and observation obtained by eye and ear. 
 This is the case with nearly every spiritual science, in part 
 even with psychology itself, which has its physiological 
 side. To a certain extent, all these investigations are in 
 line with the lower natural sciences. To examine archives, 
 to unearth monuments, to decipher what at first seemed un- 
 intelligible and translate it into your own language ; to catch 
 forms of language from the mouth of a people and to trace 
 those forms in their development; and in like manner to 
 
Chap. Ill] §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 159 
 
 espy the relation among certain actions of our senses and 
 the psychic reactions which follow, etc., are altogether activ- 
 ities which in a sense bear an objective character, and are 
 but little dominated by the influence of what is individual 
 in the investigating subject. This should not be granted too 
 absolutely, and the determination whether an objective docu- 
 ment is genuine or not, or whether the contents of it must be 
 translated thus or so, is in many cases not susceptible to 
 such an absolute decision. But provided the study of the 
 objective side of the spiritual sciences does not behave itself 
 unseemly and contents itself within its boundaries, it claims 
 our joyful recognition, that here also a broad realm of study 
 opens itself, the results of which are benefits to both groups 
 of thinkers, and thus also to the two kinds of science. 
 
 This must be emphasized, because it is in the interest of 
 science at large, that mutual benefit be derived by both cir- 
 cles from what is contributed to the general stock of sci- 
 ence. What has been well done by one need not be done 
 again by you. It is at the same time important that, though 
 not hesitating to part company as soon as principle demands 
 it, the two kinds of science shall be as long as possible con- 
 scious of the fact that, formally at least, both are at work at 
 a common task. It is with reference to this that to the two 
 already mentioned common realms a third one should be 
 added, which is no less important. The formal process of 
 thought has not been attacked by sin, and for this reason 
 palingenesis works no change in this mental task. 
 
 There is but one logic, and not two. If this simply im- 
 plied, that logic properly so called as a subdivision of the 
 philosophical or psychological sciences, does not need to be 
 studied in a twofold way, the benefit would be small ; the 
 more because this is true to a certain extent only, and be- 
 cause all manner of differences and antitheses present them- 
 selves at once in the methodological investigation. But the 
 influence of the fact aforementioned extends much farther, 
 and contributes in two ways important service in main- 
 
160 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. U 
 
 taining a certain mutual contact between the two kinds of 
 science. In the first place, from this fact it follows that the 
 accuracy of one another's demonstrations can be critically ex- 
 amined and verified, in so far at least as the result strictly 
 depends upon the deduction made. By keeping a sharp 
 watch upon each other, mutual service is rendered in the 
 discovery of logical faults in each other's demonstrations, and 
 thus in a formal way each will continually watch over the 
 other. And, on the other hand, they may compel each other 
 to justify their points of view over against one another. 
 
 Let not this last be misunderstood. If, as we remarked, 
 palingenesis occasions one group of men to exist differently 
 from the other, every effort to understand each other will 
 be futile in those points of the investigation in which this 
 difference comes into play; and it will be impossible to settle 
 the difference of insight. No polemics between these two 
 kinds of science, on details which do not concern the state- 
 ment of an objectively observable fact, or the somatic side of 
 the psychical sciences, or, finally, a logical fault in argumenta- 
 tion, can ever serve any purpose. This is the reason why, as 
 soon as it has allowed itself to be inveigled into details, and 
 has undertaken to deal with things that are not palpable phe- 
 nomena or logical mistakes. Apologetics has always failed to 
 reach results, and has weakened rather than strengthened the 
 reasoner. But just because, so soon as the lines have diverged 
 but a little the divergency cannot be bridged over, it is so 
 much the more important that sharp and constant attention 
 be fixed upon the junction where the two lines begin to di- 
 verge. For though it is well known beforehand that even at 
 this point of intersection no agreement can be reached ; for 
 then no divergence would follow; yet at this point of intersec- 
 tion it can be explained to each other what it is that compels 
 us, from this point of intersection, to draw our line as we do. 
 If we neglect to do this, pride and self-conceit will come into 
 play, and our only concession to our scientific opponent will 
 be the mockery of a laugh. Because he does not walk in our 
 footsteps we dispute not only the accuracy of his results, 
 but also formally deny the scientific character of his work. 
 
Chap. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 161 
 
 And this is not right. Every tendency that wants to main- 
 tain itself as a scientific tendency, nyist at least give an 
 account of the reason why, from this point of intersection, it 
 moves in one and not in the other direction. 
 
 And though nothing be accomplished by this, beyond the 
 confession of the reason why one refuses to follow the ten- 
 dency of the other, even this is an infinite gain. On the one 
 hand it prevents the self-sufficiency which avoids all inves- 
 tigation into the deepest grounds, and lives by the theory 
 that "the Will stands in place of reason." Thus we feel 
 ourselves bound, not only to continue our studies formally 
 in a severely scientific way, but also to give ourselves an 
 increasingly clear account of the good and virtuous right 
 by which we maintain the position originally taken, and 
 by which we formally labor as we do. And since among 
 congenial spirits one is so ready to accept, as already 
 well defined, what is still wanting in the construction, 
 the two tendencies render this mutual service ; viz. that 
 they necessitate the continuance of the investigation into 
 the very soil in which the foundation lies. But, on the 
 other hand also, this practice of giving each other an account 
 at the point of intersection effects this very great gain, that 
 as scientists we do not simply walk independently side by 
 side, but that we remain together in logical fellowship, and 
 together pay our homage to the claim of science as such. 
 This prevents the useless plying of polemics touching points 
 of detail, which so readily gives rise to bitterness of feel- 
 ing, and concentrates the heat of battle against those issues 
 of our consciousness which determine the entire process of 
 the life of science. However plainly and candidly we may 
 speak thus of a twofold science, and however much we may 
 be persuaded that the scientific investigation can be brought 
 to a close in no single department by all scientists together, 
 yea, cannot be continued in concert, as soon as palingenesis 
 makes a division between the investigators ; we are equally 
 emphatic in our confession, which we do not make in spite 
 of ourselves, but with gladness, that in almost every depart- 
 ment there is some task that is common to all, and, what is 
 
162 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 almost of greater importance still, a clear account can be 
 given of both starting-points. 
 
 If this explains why these two kinds of science have re- 
 mained for the most part interlaced, there is still another 
 and no less important cause, which has prevented their 
 clearer separation. It is the slow process which must 
 ensue before any activity can develop itself from what po- 
 tentially is given in palingenesis. If palingenesis operated 
 immediately from the centrum of our inner life to the outer- 
 most circumference of our being and consciousness, the antith- 
 esis between the science which lives by it and that which de- 
 nies it, would be at once absolute in every subject. But such 
 is not the case. The illustration of the grafting is still in 
 point. The cultivated shoot which is grafted into the wild 
 tree is at first very small and weak ; the wild tree, on the 
 other hand, after being grafted, will persist in putting forth 
 its branches ; and it is only by the careful pruning away of 
 wild shoots that the vitality from the roots is compelled to 
 withdraw its service from the wild trunk and transfer it to 
 the cultivated shoot. Later on this progress is secured, tiU 
 at length the cultivated shoot obtains the entire upper hand 
 and the wild tree scarcely puts out another branch ; but this 
 takes sometimes seven or more years. You observe a similar 
 phenomenon in palingenesis, even to such an extent that if 
 the development begun upon earth were not destined to reach 
 completion in a higher life, the sufficient reason of the entire 
 fact could scarcely be conceived, especially not in those cases 
 where this palingenesis does not come until later life. But 
 even when in the strength of youth palingenesis leads to re- 
 pentance (transformation of the consciousness), and to con- 
 version (change in life-expression), the growth of the wild 
 tree is by no means yet cut off, neither is the shoot of the cul- 
 tivated branch at once completed. 
 
 This is never claimed in the circles that make profes- 
 sion of this palingenesis. It has been questioned among 
 themselves whether the entire triumph of the new element is 
 
Chap, m] §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 163 
 
 possible on this side of the grave (Perfectionists), but that 
 in any case a period of transition and conflict must precede 
 this completeness has been the experience and common confes- 
 sion of all. If we call to mind the facts that those people who 
 as a sect proclaim this Perfectionism, are theologically almost 
 without any development, and soon prove that they reach 
 their singular conclusions by a legal Pelagian interpretation 
 of sin and a mystical interpretation of virtue, while the 
 theologians in the church of Rome who defend this position 
 consider such an early completion a very rare exception, it 
 follows, that as far as it concerns our subject this Perfec- 
 tionism claims no consideration. These sectarian zealots 
 have nothing to do with science, and those who have been 
 canonized are too few in number to exert an influence upon 
 the progress of scientific development. Actually, therefore, 
 we here deal with a process of palingenesis which operates 
 continually, but which does not lead to an immediate cessa- 
 tion of the preceding development, nor to a sufficiently 
 powerful unfolding at once of the new development; and 
 as a necessary result the scientific account, given in the 
 consciousness, cannot at once effect a radical and a clearly 
 conscious separation. 
 
 Several causes, moreover, have assisted the long con- 
 tinuance of this intimate relation. First the fundamental 
 conceptions, which have been the starting-points of the two 
 groups of scientists, were for many centuries governed alto- 
 gether by Special Revelation. Not only those who shared the 
 palingenesis, but also those who remained without it, for a 
 long time started out from the existence of God, the creation 
 of the world, the creation of man as sui generis, the fall, etc. 
 A few might have expressed some doubt concerning one 
 thing and another ; a very few might have ventured to deny 
 them ; but for many centuries the common consciousness 
 rested in these fixed conceptions. 
 
 Properly, then, one cannot say that any reaction took 
 place before the Humanists ; and the forming of a common 
 
164 § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 opinion upon the basis of Pantheism and Naturalism has 
 really only begun since the last century. Since, now, those 
 who lived by palingenesis found these old representations 
 to conform entirely to their own consciousness, it is nat- 
 ural that they were not on the alert to build a scientific 
 house of their own, as long as general science also lived by 
 premises which properly belonged to palingenesis. Now, 
 however, all this has entirely changed. They who stand 
 outside the palingenesis have perceived, with increasing 
 clearness, that these primordial conceptions as premises 
 belonged not to them but to their opponents, and in a com- 
 paratively short time they have placed an entirely different 
 range of premises over against them. Creation has made 
 room for Evolution, and with surprising rapidity vast multi- 
 tudes have made this transition from creation to evolution, 
 because, in fact, they never have believed in creation, or 
 because they had, at least, never assimilated the world of 
 thoughts which this word Creation embraced. As natural 
 as it has been, therefore, that in the domain of science 
 both circles have been one thus far, it is equally natural 
 that the unity of this company should now be irreparably 
 broken. He who in building upon the foundation of crea- 
 tion thinks that he builds the same wall as another who 
 starts from evolution, reminds one of Sisyphus. No sooner 
 has the stone been carried up than relentlessly it rolls back 
 again. 
 
 A second cause in point, lies in the fact that palingenesis 
 does not primarily impel to scientific labor. It stands too 
 high for this, and is of too noble an origin. Let us be sober, 
 and awake from the intoxication of those who have become 
 drunk on the wine of science. If you except a small aris- 
 tocracy, the impulse to the greater part of scientific study 
 lies in the ambition to dominate the material and visible 
 world; to satisfy a certain intellectual tendency of the mind ; 
 to secure a position in life ; to make a name and to harvest 
 honors ; and to look down Avith a sense of superiority upon 
 those who are less broadly developed. Mention only the 
 name of Jesus Christ, and you perceive at once how this 
 
Chap. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 165 
 
 entire scientific interest must relinquisli its claim to occupy 
 the first place in our estimate of life. Jesus never wrote 
 a Summa like 'Thomas Aquinas, nor a Kritik der reinen 
 Vernunft like Kant, but even in the circles of the naturalists 
 his holy name sounds high above the names of all these 
 coryphsei of science. 
 
 There is thus something else to make a man great, and 
 this lies outside of science in its concrete and technical sense. 
 There is a human development and expression of life which 
 does not operate within the domain of science, but which, 
 nevertheless, stands much higher. There is an adoration 
 and a self-abasement before God, a love and a self-denial be- 
 fore our fellow-men, a growth in what is pure and heroic and 
 formative of character, which far excels all beauty of science. 
 Bound as it is to the consciousness-forms of our present 
 existence, it is highly improbable that science will be of 
 profit to us in our eternal existence ; but this we know, 
 that as certainly as there is a spark of holy love aglow in 
 our hearts, this spark cannot be extinguished, and the 
 breath of eternity alone can kindle it into the brightest 
 flame. And experience teaches that the new life which 
 springs from palingenesis, is much more inclined to move in 
 this nobler direction than to thirst after science. This may 
 become a defect, and has often degenerated into such, and 
 thus has resulted in a dislike or disdain for science. The 
 history of Mysticism has its tales to relate, and Methodism 
 comes in for its share. But as long as there is no disdain of 
 science, but merely a choice of the nobler interest, it is but 
 natural that the life of palingenesis should prefer to seek 
 its greatness in that which exalts so highly the name 
 of Jesus, and feels itself less attracted to the things which 
 brought Kant and Darwin their world-wide fame. Add to 
 this fact that for most people the life of science depends 
 upon the possibility of obtaining a professorship or a lecture- 
 ship, and that in Europe they who have these positions to 
 dispose of are, as a rule, inclined to exclude the sons of 
 palingenesis from such appointments, and you see at once 
 how relatively small the number among them must have 
 
166 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 been who were able to devote themselves, with all the energy 
 of their lives, to the study of the sciences. And thus their 
 strength was too small and their numbers too few to assume a 
 position of their own, and to prosecute science independently 
 from their own point of view. 
 
 One more remark will bring to a close the explanation of 
 this phenomenon. One may have a scientific mind, and be 
 able to make important contributions to the scientific result, 
 and yet not choose the most fundamental principles of life as 
 the subject of his study. There is a broad field of detail- 
 study in which laurels can be won, without penetrating to 
 the deep antitheses of the two world-views whose position 
 over against each other becomes ever more and more clearly 
 defined. In this class of studies success is won with less 
 talent, with less power of thought, with less sacrifice of 
 time and toil ; one also works with greater certainty ; more 
 immediate results are attained ; and more questions of an 
 historical character are presented which can be solved within 
 a more limited horizon. This accounts for the fact that of 
 ten scientists, nine will prefer this class of studies. Theolo- 
 gians are the exception, but their position at the univer- 
 sities is uncommon. One tolerates in them what would not 
 be tolerated in others, and a gulf between the theological and 
 the other faculties is tacitly acquiesced in. If these faculties 
 of theology were not an imperative necessity because of the 
 churches, at most universities they would simply be abol- 
 ished. With the reasonable exception of these, the ratio of 
 one to nine, assumed above, between the men of detail-study 
 and the men of the study of principles, is certainly a fair 
 one ; and thus when applied to the few sons of palingenesis 
 who have devoted themselves to science and have been ap- 
 pointed to official positions, causes the number of the stu- 
 dents of principles among them to be reduced to such a 
 minimum, that an independent and a clearly defined attitude 
 on their part has been fairly impossible. 
 
 Practically and academically the separation between these 
 
Chap. Ill] §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 167 
 
 two kinds of science has thus far been made only in a 
 few single points. The universities of Brussels and Lou- 
 vain are examples of this. In Amsterdam and Freiburg, 
 also, a life peculiar to itself has originated. And in Amer- 
 ica a certain division has begun. But these divisions bear 
 too much a churchly or anti-churchly character, and for the 
 greater " republic of letters " as a whole they are scarcely 
 yet worthy of mention. Almost everywhere the two stems 
 are still intertwined, and in almost every way the stem which 
 grows from palingenesis is still altogether repressed and 
 overshadowed by the stem of naturalism ; naturalism being 
 here taken as the expression of life, which, without palin- 
 genesis, flourishes as it originated. There was, indeed, a 
 conservative period in university life, in which the old 
 world-view still thought itself able, by an angry look or 
 by persecution, to exorcise the coming storm ; and a later 
 period in which by all manner of half concessions and weak 
 apologetics, it tried to repress the rise of the naturalistic 
 tendency. But this Conservatism, which first tried compul- 
 sion and then persuasion, owed its origin least of all to 
 palingenesis, and thus lacked a spiritual root. At present, 
 therefore, it is rapidly passing away. Its apologetics lack 
 force. It seeks so to comport itself that by the grace of 
 Naturalism it may still be only tolerated; and it deems it no 
 disgrace to skulk in a musty vault of the fortification in 
 which once it bore command. 
 
 Neither the tardiness, however, of the establishment of 
 this bifurcation of science, nor the futile effort of Conserva- 
 tism to prolong its existence, can resist the continuous 
 separation of these two kinds of science. The all-decisive 
 question here is whether there are two points of departure. 
 If this is not the case, then unity must be maintained by 
 means of the stronger mastering the weaker ; but if there 
 are two points of departure, then the claim of two kinds of 
 science in the indicated sense remains indisputably valid, 
 entirely apart from the question whether both will succeed 
 in developing themselves for any good result within a given 
 time. This twofold point of departure is certainly given by 
 
168 § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 palingenesis. This would not be true if the deepest founda- 
 tions of our knowledge lay outside of us and not in us, or 
 if the palingenesis operated outside of these principia of 
 knowledge in the subject. Since, however, this is not the 
 case, because, like sin, whose result it potentially destroys, 
 palingenesis causes the subject to be different in his inner- 
 most self from what he was before ; and because this disposi- 
 tion of the subject exercises an immediate influence upon 
 scientific investigation and our scientific conviction; these 
 two unlike magnitudes can have no like result, and from 
 this difference between the two circles of subjects there fol- 
 lows of necessity difference between their science. 
 
 This bifurcation must extend as far as the influence of 
 those subjective factors which palingenesis causes to be dif- 
 ferent in one than in the other. Hence all scientific research 
 which has things seen only as object, or which is prosecuted 
 simply by those subjective factors which have undergone no 
 change, remains the same for both. Near the ground the tree 
 of science is one for all. But no sooner has it reached a cer- 
 tain height, than two branches separate, in the same way 
 as may be seen in a tree which is grafted on the right side, 
 while on the left side there is allowed to grow a shoot from 
 the wild root. In its lowest parts the tree is one, but at a 
 given height it divides itself, and in this twofold develop- 
 ment one branch grows side by side with the other. Which 
 of these two is to be considered the wild development, is to 
 be accounted as failing of its end and to be cut away, and 
 which the truer development of the tree that shall bear fruit, 
 cannot be decided by one for the other. The negative for 
 the one determines here the positive for the other. This, 
 however, is the same for both, and the choice of each is not 
 governed by the results of discursive thought, but exclusively 
 by the deepest impulse of the life-consciousness of each. If 
 in that deepest impulse the one were like the other, the 
 choice would be the same. That it is different, is simply 
 because they are constitutionally different. 
 
Chap. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 169 
 
 Meanwhile, it must not be concluded from this that in the 
 circle of palingenesis scientific development must be uniform, 
 in the sense that all, who in this circle devote themselves to 
 science, must conform to a given model and arrive at harmo- 
 nious results. This representation is not infrequently made 
 by the other side. Naturalistic science decorates itself with 
 corn-flower and garden-rue, as symbols of the free character 
 which it boasts, while the science of those who accept palin- 
 genesis is represented as festooned with autumn-leaves(feuille- 
 morte), and as incapable of progress worthy of the name within 
 the narrow limits to which it is confined. This entire repre- 
 sentation, however, is but a play of the imagination, and in 
 both circles a real scientific development takes place, which un- 
 folds the beauty of truth only in the harmony of multiformity. 
 
 A fuller explanation may be considered important. 
 
 In the abstract every one concedes that the subjective 
 assimilation of the truth concerning the object cannot be 
 the same with all, because the investigating individuals are 
 not as alike as drops of water, but as unlike as blades of 
 grass and leaves on a tree. That a science should be free 
 from the influence of the subjective factor is inconceivable, 
 hence with the unlikeness of the individuals the influence 
 of this factor must appear. 
 
 For this reason science in its absolute sense is the property 
 of no single individual. The universal human consciousness 
 in its richest unfoldings is and ever will be the subject of 
 science, and individuals in their circle and age can never 
 be anything but sharers of a small division of science in 
 a given form and seen in a given light. The difference 
 among these individuals is accordingly both a matter of 
 degree and of kind. A matter of degree in so far as energy 
 in investigation, critical perspicuity and power of thought 
 are stronger in one than in the other. But a matter of 
 kind also, in so far as temperament, personal inclination, 
 position in life and the favorableness or unfavorableness of 
 circumstances cause each individual investigator to become 
 one-sided, and make him find his strength in that one-sided- 
 ness which renders the supplementation and the criticism 
 
170 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. n 
 
 of others a necessity. This accounts for the varieties of 
 theories and schools which antagonize, and by this antag- 
 onism bless, each other. This is the reason why in each age 
 and circle certain views prevail, and strike the keynote; 
 and that all manner of personal influences are restricted 
 by the power of public opinion. This piecemeal labor 
 of every description would never advance science, if the 
 object of science itself did not exist organically, and the 
 investigating individuals in every land and age were not 
 involuntarily and often unconsciously organically related. 
 To annul this mutually supplementary, corrective and yet 
 organically connected multiformity, would be the death of 
 science. Not the military mechanism of the army, but the 
 organic multiformity of social life is the type to which, in 
 order to flourish, science must correspond. 
 
 Such being the case with naturalistic science, it would be 
 different with the science which flourishes upon the root of 
 palingenesis, only if palingenesis annulled the cause of this 
 subjective pluriformity. This, however, is not at all the case. 
 Palingenesis does not destroy the difference in degree between 
 individuals. It does not alter the differences of tempera- 
 ment, of personal disposition, of position in life, nor of con- 
 comitant circumstances which dominate the investigation. 
 Neither does palingenesis take away the differences born 
 from the distinction of national character and the process 
 of time. Palingenesis may bring it about, that these dif- 
 ferences assume another character, that in some forms they 
 do not appear, and that they do appear in other forms 
 unknown outside of it ; but in every case with palingenesis 
 also subjective divergence continues to exist in every way. 
 The result indeed shows that in this domain, as well as 
 in that of naturalistic science, different schools have formed 
 themselves, and that even in the days of the Middle Ages 
 there never was a question of uniformity. However much 
 Rome has insisted upon uniformity, it has never been able 
 to establish it, and in the end she has adopted the system of 
 giving to each expression of the multiformity a place in the 
 organic harmony of her great hierarchy. 
 
Chaf. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 171 
 
 No doubt the antitheses sometimes assume an entirely dif- 
 ferent character in the domain of palingenesis than in the 
 domain of naturalistic science. No atheistic, materialistic, 
 nor pessimistic system can flourish in its soil. Its schools, 
 therefore, bear different names and divide themselves after 
 different standards. But as after the entrance of the Chris- 
 tian religion into the world, the schools of Alexandria, of 
 Antioch, of North Africa, of Constantinople, and of Rome, 
 each bore a type of its own, so it has remained through all 
 the ages, is now, and shall be to the end. Friction, fermen- 
 tation and conflict are the hall-mark of every expression of 
 life on higher ground in this present dispensation, and from 
 this the science of the palingenesis also effects no escape. 
 
 Three objections may here be raised : (1) that this 
 science is bound to the content of revelation ; (2) that its 
 liberty is impeded by the ecclesiastical placet ; and (3) that 
 its result is determined in advance. A brief remark is in 
 place on each of these three objections. 
 
 Since the investigating subject is changed by palingenesis 
 from what he was before, he will undoubtedly assume a 
 different attitude towards the Revelation of God. He will 
 no longer try, as in his naturalistic period, to denounce that 
 Revelation as a vexatious hindrance, but will feel the need 
 of it, wiU live in it, and profit by it. He will certainly thus 
 reckon with that Revelation, but in no other way than that 
 in which the naturalist is bound to and must reckon with the 
 existing cosmos. This, however, would destroy the scientific 
 character of his knowledge, only if this Revelation consisted 
 of nothing but a list of conclusions, and if he were not allowed 
 subjectively to assimilate these conclusions. This, however, 
 is by no means the case. The Revelation offered us in the 
 Word of God gives us gold in the mine, and imposes upon us 
 the obligation of mining it ; and what is mined is of such a 
 nature, that the subject as soon as he has been changed by 
 palingenesis, assimilates it in his own way, and brings it in 
 relation to the deepest impulse and entire inner disposition 
 
172 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 of his being. That this assimilation does not take place by 
 means of the understanding only, can raise no objection, since 
 it has been shown that naturalistic science also can make no 
 advances without faith. Moreover, naturalistic science, as 
 well as that of palingenesis, has its bounds, beyond which it 
 cannot go; its antinomies, which it cannot reconcile; and its 
 mysteries, after which the interrogation point remains stand- 
 ing. If now knowledge is brought us by Revelation from 
 across the boundaries, a reconciliation is offered for many 
 antinomies, and many a new mystery is unveiled, it pleads 
 in no respect against the scientific character of our science, 
 that our reason is unable to analyze this new material and 
 to place it in organic connection with the rest. It is not 
 strange, therefore, that with reference to this Revelation, 
 faith unfolds a broader activity than in the investigation 
 of the cosmos, and harmonizes entirely with the aim and 
 character of this Revelation : viz. to be of service first to 
 the practical religious life, even of the simplest-minded 
 people, and after that to science. But rather than protest 
 against this, science ought to recognize the fact that she is 
 called, (1) to investigate the nature and essence of this Reve- 
 lation; (2) to analyze the material, which has been derived 
 from it ; and (3) to discover and indicate the way in which 
 this material, as well as Revelation itself, enters into relation 
 with the psychical life of man. The lack of unanimity on 
 any of these three points, and that in all ages these three 
 points, and everything connected with them, have been so 
 differently judged, is readily explained. The tendencies of 
 mysticism and pietism, of realism and spiritualism, of trans- 
 cendentalism and immanence, of monism and dualism, of the 
 organic and individualism have ever intruded themselves 
 into these questions, and have crossed again those blended 
 types, which are known by the name of Romanism, Luther- 
 anism and Calvinism. Tendencies and types these, in which 
 shortsightedness beholds merely ecclesiastical variegations, 
 but which to the man of broader view, extend themselves 
 across the entire domain of human life, science included. 
 And though the science of the palingenesis may succeed as 
 
Chap. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 173 
 
 little as naturalistic science in scientifically bringing to a suc- 
 cessful end the conflict between these different schools and 
 tendencies on its own ground, it is still the task of science 
 also within the realm of palingenesis constantly to test the 
 assertions of these several tendencies, for the sake of en- 
 hancing the clearness of their self-consciousness. 
 
 This brings us of itself to the second objection : that the 
 liberty of this soienee is impeded hy the ecclesiastical placet. 
 This also must be denied. There is no instituted church 
 (ecclesia instituta) conceivable without a placet; and the 
 position of an investigator, whose results antagonize this ec- 
 clesiastical placet, is thereby rendered false and untenable ; 
 but this does not impede the prosecution of science in the 
 least. In the first place the church, as instituted church, 
 never passes sentence upon that which has no bearing upon 
 "saving faith." Even the church of Rome, which goes far- 
 thest in this respect, leaves the greater part of the object 
 free. Again, this church placet is itself the result of a spir- 
 itual conflict, which was developed by contradictions, and in 
 which the controversy was scientific on both sides. Hence 
 it is every man's duty and calling constantly to test by sci- 
 entific methods the grounds advanced from either side. And 
 if, in the third place, an investigator becomes convinced that 
 \kQ placet of the church is an unjust inference from Revela- 
 tion, he must try to prove this to his church, and if she will 
 not allow him this privilege, he must leave her. This would 
 not be possible if the church were a scientific institute, 
 but no instituted church advances this claim. Hence in the 
 realm of palingenesis one remains a man of science, even 
 though he may lose his harmony with the church of his birth ; 
 and it is not science, but honesty and the sense of morality, 
 which in such a case compels a man to break with his church. 
 This, however, occurs but rarely, partly because the churches 
 in general allow considerable latitude ; partly because a false 
 position does not seem untenable to many ; but more 
 especially, because the churchly types are not arbitrarily 
 chosen, but of necessity have risen from the constellation of 
 life. Since the scientific investigator, who is connected with 
 
174 §49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE [Dit. n 
 
 such a church, stands for the most part under those same 
 constellations, it is very natural that in most cases he •will 
 not come into any such conflict, but will arrive at the same 
 conclusions as his church. Then, however, there is no com- 
 pulsion ; no bonds are employed ; but the agreement is 
 unconstrained and necessary. The danger would be more 
 serious, if the whole church in the earth had only one form 
 alike for all parts of the world, so that the placet would be 
 everywhere the same ; and indeed the existence of this dan- 
 ger of the loss of liberty could not entirely be denied dur- 
 ing the Middle Ages, nor can it be denied to-day in those 
 countries which are entirely uniform religiously. But since 
 in the instituted church this unity is broken, so that now 
 there are ten or more forms of church organizations, in which 
 almost every possible type has come to an organization of its 
 own, it is almost inconceivable that in the domain of palin- 
 genesis a scientific investigation would ever lead to a result 
 which would not accord with the placet of one of these 
 churches on the contested points. And if, in case a conflict 
 cannot be avoided, one is impelled by love of truth and by 
 a sense of honor to change his relations from one church to 
 the other, it is as little of a hindrance to the liberty of the 
 spiritual sciences, as when one is compelled by the results of 
 investigation on political grounds to seek refuge from Russia 
 in freer England or America. 
 
 Finally, concerning the last objection, — that in the do- 
 main of palingenesis there can be no science, because iti 
 results are predetermined, — let it be said that this is partly 
 inaccurate, and that as far as it is accurate, it applies equally 
 to naturalistic science. As it stands, this proposition is 
 partly untrue. In general one understands by it, that in 
 the ecclesiastical Creed or in the Holy Scriptures the results 
 are already given. If a conflict arises between the result of 
 oiir investigation and our ecclesiastical creed, it may render 
 our ecclesiastical position untenable, but it cannot affect the 
 maintenance of our scientific results. And as for the Holy 
 Bible, it is ever the province and duty of science to verify 
 what is inferred from it. Yet after the subtraction of these 
 
Chap. Ill] § 49. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE 175 
 
 two factors, it is still entirely true that in the abstract the 
 results of our investigation are beforehand certain, and that, 
 if we reach other results, our former results are not valid and 
 our investigation is faulty. This, however, is common both to 
 the science of palingenesis and to naturalistic science. The 
 actual nature of the cosmos conditions the results of all 
 investigation, and so far as there is question of knowledge 
 which we obtain by thinking, our thinking can never be 
 aught than the offer-thinking of what has been lefore thought 
 by the Creator of all relations ; even to such an extent 
 that all our thinking, to the extent that it aims to be and is 
 original, can never be anything but pure hallucination. Hence 
 it is entirely true, that in the domain of palingenesis all 
 results of investigation are bound to the nature of palin- 
 genesis, and determined by the real constitution of the 
 spiritual world with which it brings us into relation ; it is 
 also true, that that which has been well investigated will 
 prove to agree with what has been revealed to us in an 
 accurate way from this spiritual world ; nor may it be 
 denied that in this realm also, all our thinking can only 
 be the after-thinking of the thoughts of God ; but it has 
 all this in common with the other science, and all this is 
 inherent in the nature of science. If the objection be raised 
 that in the prosecution of science as directed by palingen- 
 esis, it is a matter of pre-assumption that there is a God, 
 that a creation took place, that sin reigns, etc., we grant this 
 readily, but in the same sense in which it is pre-assumed in 
 all science that there is a human being, that that human 
 being thinks, that it is possible for this human being to 
 think mistakenly, etc., etc. He to whom these last-named 
 things are not presuppositions, will not so much as put his 
 hand to the plough in the field of science ; and such is the 
 case with him who does not know, with greater certainty 
 than he knows his own existence, that God is his Creator, 
 entirely apart from palingenesis. Facts such as are here 
 named, — that there is a God, that a creation took place, 
 that sin exists, etc., — can never be established by scientific 
 investigation ; nor has this ever been attempted but some 
 
176 § 50. THE PROCESS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 acuter mind was at hand to convict its predecessor of error. 
 Only let it be remembered, that in this section we do by no 
 means refer to Theology simply, nor even especially. Sci- 
 ence, as here considered, is science which has the entirety 
 of things as its object ; and only when we come to Theology 
 may the special questions be answered, to which the entirely 
 peculiar character of this holy science gives occasion. 
 
 § 50. The Process of Science 
 
 Our proposition that there are two kinds of science is, 
 from the nature of the case, merely the accommodation to a 
 linguistic usage. The two sciences must never be coordi- 
 nated with each other. In fact, no one can be convinced 
 that there is more than one science, and that which 
 announces itself as science by the side of, or in opposition 
 to, this can never be acknowledged as such in the absolute 
 sense. As soon as the thinker of palingenesis has come to 
 that point in the road where the thinker of naturalism parts 
 company with him, the latter's science is no longer anything 
 to the former but "science falsely so called." Similarly 
 the naturalistic thinker is bound to contest the name of 
 science for that which the student of the " wisdom of God " 
 derives from his premises. That which lies outside of the 
 realm of these diiferent premises is common to both, but 
 that which is governed, directly or indirectly, by these 
 premises comes to stand entirely differently to the one from 
 what it does to the other. Always in this sense, of course, 
 that only one is right and in touch with actual reality, but 
 is unable to convince the other of wrong. It will once be 
 decided, but not until the final consummation of all things. 
 For though it must be granted, that in what is called the 
 moral and social "Banquerott der "Wissenschaft," even now 
 a test is often put in part to the twofold problem ; and though 
 it is equally clear that every investigator will come to know 
 this decision at his death : yet this does not change the fact 
 that, of necessity, the two kinds of science continue to spin 
 their two threads, as long as the antithesis is maintained 
 between naturalism and palingenesis; and it is this very 
 
Chap. Ill] § 50. THE PROCESS OF SCIENCE 177 
 
 antithesis which the parousia will bring to an end, or — this 
 end will never come. 
 
 Hence formal recognition only is possible from either side. 
 The grateful acceptance of those results of investigation 
 which lie outside of the point in question, is no recog- 
 nition, but is merely a reaping of harvests from common 
 fields. So far, on the other hand, as the antithesis between 
 our human personality, as it manifests itself in sinful nat- 
 ure and is changed by palingenesis, governs the investi- 
 gation and demonstration, we stand exclusively opposed to 
 one another, and one must call falsehood what the other 
 calls truth. Formally, one can concede, as we do without 
 reservation, that from the view-point of the opponent, 
 the scientific impulse could not lead to any other prosecu- 
 tion of science, even with the most honest intention; so 
 that, though his results must be rejected, his formal labor 
 and the honesty of his intention must claim our apprecia- 
 tion. That this appreciation is mostly withheld from us, is 
 chiefly explained from the fact that, from the view-point of 
 palingenesis, one can readily imagine himself at the view- 
 point of unregenerated nature, while he who considers fallen 
 nature normal, cannot even conceive the possibility of a palin- 
 genesis. For which reason, every scientific effort that goes out 
 from the principle of palingenesis is either explained as fanat- 
 icism or is attributed to motives of ambition and selfishness. 
 Hence the urgent necessity to combat the false represen- 
 tation that that science which lives from the principle of 
 palingenesis lacks all organic process, and consists merely 
 in the schematic application of dogmas to the several prob- 
 lems that present themselves. This representation is antago- 
 nistic to the very conception of science, and is contradicted 
 by experience. Very marked differences of insight pre- 
 vail among the scholars of the science which operates from 
 the principle of palingenesis, as well as among the others, 
 and many institutions and schools form themselves. There 
 is, therefore, no organic, multiform process of science among 
 naturalists and a schematic, barren monotony with the men 
 of palingenesis ; but the calling of science to strive after an 
 
178 § 50. THE PROCESS OE SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 objective unity of result born from multiformity, in the face 
 of all the disturbance of subjectivity, is common to both. 
 
 To both the general subject of science is, and always will 
 be, the human mind at large and not the ego of the individual 
 investigator. The rule is also common to both, that the 
 human mind does not operate except through the subject of 
 individual investigators, and that these, according to their 
 differences of disposition, of age, and habits of life, can sever- 
 ally bring in but a very small and limited, a very subjec- 
 tively tinted and one-sidedly represented, contribution to 
 the final harvest of science. This many-sided variety gives 
 rise to divers antitheses and contradictory representations, 
 which for a time establish themselves in the institutions and 
 schools, which are in process of time superseded by other 
 antitheses, and from which again new institutions and 
 schools are born. Thus there is continual friction and con- 
 stant fermentation, and under it all goes on the process of 
 an entirely free development, which is in no wise bound 
 except by its point of departure, whether in unregenerate 
 or in regenerate human nature. Let no one think, there- 
 fore, that Christian science, if we may so call the science 
 which takes palingenesis as its point of departure, will all 
 at once lead its investigators to entirely like and harmonious 
 results. This is impossible, because with the regenerate 
 also, the differences of subjective disposition, of manner of 
 life, and of the age in which one lives, remain the same; 
 and because Christian science would be no science, if it did 
 not go through a process by which it advanced from less to 
 more, and if it were not free in its investigation, with the 
 exception of being bound by its point of departure. That 
 which the prosecutor of Christian science takes as his point 
 of departure is to him as little a result of science as to the 
 naturalist; but he, as well as the naturalist, must obtain 
 his results of science by investigation and demonstration. 
 
 Only let it be remembered, that not every subjective repre- 
 sentation which announces itself as scientific is a link in the 
 
Chap. Ill] § 50. THE PROCESS OF SCIENCE 179 
 
 process of the development of science. The subjective ele- 
 . ment certainly bears on one side a necessary character, but 
 also one which, all too often, is merely accidental or even 
 sinful. In the spirit of humanity is a multiformity from 
 which, for the sake of the full harmony, no single element 
 can be spared; but there is also a false subjectivism which, 
 instead of causing single tones to vibrate for the sake of 
 the full accord, disturbs the accord by discord. To over- 
 come this false subjectivism, and to silence these discords, 
 is by no means the least important part of the task of science. 
 However much this false subjectivism may exert itself in 
 the domain of Christian science, as well as in that of natural- 
 istic science, yet we may assert that with Christian science 
 this parasite does not reach an equal development of strength. 
 Palingenesis takes away from the human spirit much on 
 which otherwise this parasite feeds, and the enlightening, 
 which develops itself from regeneration, applies a saving 
 bridle to this false subjectivism. But this parasite will 
 never be wanting from the domain of Christian science, 
 simply because palingenesis does not absolutely remove the 
 after-workings of unregenerated nature. Hence it is also 
 the calling of Christian science to resist this false subjectiv- 
 ism, but only by scientific combat. 
 
 As far, on the other hand, as this subjective element is of 
 necessity connected with the multiformity of all human life, 
 the differences born from this will reveal themselves in Chris- 
 tian science more strongly father than more weakly, because 
 palingenesis allows these subjective differences to fully assert 
 themselves, and does not, like naturalism, kill them. From 
 the earliest ages of the Christian religion, therefore, these an- 
 titheses in the domain of Christian science, and the tendencies 
 born from them, have ever assumed a much firmer and more 
 concrete form, especially where they ran parallel with the 
 ecclesiastical distinctions. But in the realm of Christian 
 science it will never do for these several tendencies to point 
 to the ecclesiastical basis of operation, as the source from 
 which they obtained their greater permanency. Every ten- 
 dency is bound scientifically to defend its assertions in the 
 
180 § 50. THE PROCESS OF SCIENCE [Div. II 
 
 face of those of other tendencies. One may even say that 
 this scientific labor maintains the spiritual communion be- 
 tween those who are ecclesiastically separated and estranged 
 from each other. And if this is objected to by the state- 
 ment that the prosecutors of this science often assume the 
 position over against one another, that they only possess 
 truth in its absolute form, the threefold remark is in place: 
 First, that in their realm the students of naturalistic science 
 often do the same thing; that with them also one school 
 often stands over against the other with the pretence of 
 publishing absolute truth. Secondly, that we must dis- 
 tinguish between what the student of Christian science 
 professes as a church-member, and what he offers as the 
 result of his scientific investigation. But, in the third 
 place also, that idealism in science demands that every man 
 of conviction shall firmly believe that, provided their devel- 
 opment be normal, every other investigator must reach the 
 same result as he. He who slirinks from this cannot affirm 
 that he holds the result of his own investigation as true; 
 he becomes a sceptic. He who in his own conception has 
 not stepped out from his subjectivity in order to grasp the 
 eternally true, has no conviction. And though it be entirely 
 true that history plainly teaches, that the ripest and noblest 
 conviction has never escaped the one-sidedness of one's own 
 subjectivity, the inextinguishable impulse of our human 
 nature never denies itself, but sees truth in that which it 
 has grasped for itself as truth. 
 
 Hence the result we reach is, that the effort which reveals 
 itself in our nature to obtain a scientific knowledge of the 
 cosmos by investigation and demonstration, is ever bound 
 to the premises in our nature from which this effort starts 
 out. That for this reason this effort leads to a common 
 practice of science, as far as these premises remain equal, 
 but must divide itself as soon as the fork is reached where 
 the change effected in these premises by palingenesis begins 
 to influence the investigation. That for this part of the 
 investigation, therefore, two kinds of scientific study run 
 parallel, one which is, and one which is not, governed by 
 
Chap. Ill] § 51. BOTH SCIENCES UNIVERSAL 181 
 
 the fact of palingenesis. That they who study science under 
 the influence of palingenesis, as well as they who leave it 
 out of account, can only hold for true what rests on their 
 own premises, and thus can appreciate each other's study 
 only in a formal manner. That with Christian, as well as 
 with naturalistic science, that only stands scientifically sure 
 which, going out from its own premises, each has obtained 
 as the result of scientific research. That consequently, in 
 both studies of science, all sorts of antitheses, tendencies, 
 and schools will reveal themselves, and that by this process 
 alone science on both sides advances. And finally, that 
 because the influence of the subjective element, occasioned 
 by a difference of disposition, manner of life, spiritual 
 tendency, and age, makes itself felt with both, every in- 
 vestigator deems his own result of science true in the 
 broadest sense ; thereby going out from the conviction that, 
 provided he carries on his investigation well, every normal 
 investigator will attain a like result with himself. 
 
 § 61. Both Sciences Universal 
 
 The proposition, that in virtue of the fact of palingenesis 
 a science develops itself by the side of the naturalistic, 
 which, though formally allied to it, is differently disposed, 
 and therefore different in its conclusions, and stands over 
 against it as Christian science, must not be understood in a 
 specifically theological, but in an absolutely universal sense. 
 The difference between the two is not merely apparent in 
 theological science, but in all the sciences, in so far as 
 the fact of palingenesis governs the whole subject in all in- 
 vestigations, and hence also, the result of all these investi- 
 gations as far as their data are not absolutely material. To 
 support this proposition, however, two things must still be 
 shown: first, that in both cases science is taken in the sense 
 of universal-human validity ; and, secondly, that palingenesis 
 is not merely a subjective psychical, but a universal phenom- 
 enon, which involves both the investigating subject and the 
 cosmos. Inasmuch, however, as we are writing a theological 
 encyclopedia, we do not proceed here to the exposition of this. 
 
182 § 51. BOTH SCIENCES UNIVERSAL [Dit. n 
 
 but reserve it for treatment under the development of the con- 
 ception of Theology. At this point, therefore, a simple sug- 
 gestion suffices. Concerning the first, the universally valid 
 character is inseparable from all science ; not in the sense that 
 every individual agrees with you, but that the subject of your 
 science is, and ever will be, the universal human conscious- 
 ness. Well, then, the palingenesis, which does not operate 
 within single persons atomistically, but organically upon our 
 race, will produce this result: that the tree of humanity, our 
 race, humanity as a whole, and thus also the univo-sal human 
 consciousness, shall be glorified and sanctified in the " body of 
 Christ." He who remains outside of this till the end, falls 
 away from humanity. Up to the time of this final solution, 
 however, neither the naturalistic nor the Christian science 
 have any universally compulsive character outside of their 
 own sphere. We encounter one another in open conflict, and 
 a universally compulsory science, that shall be compulsory 
 upon all men, is inconceivable. And concerning the second 
 point, let the provisional remark suffice, that there is not 
 merely a palingenesis of the human soul, but also a palin- 
 genesis of the bod}^ and of the cosmos. This accounts for 
 the central character of the Resurrection of Christ, and for 
 the far-reaching significance of the restoration of the cosmos, 
 which in Matthew xix. 28 is indicated by this very word of 
 palingenesis. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DIVISION OP SCIENCE 
 
 § 52. Organic Division of Scientific Study 
 
 Before we can find a provisional answer, in the closing 
 chapter of this division, to the question, whether Theology- 
 is or is not a necessary and an integral part of the organism 
 of science, this organism itself must be somewhat closely ex- 
 amined. Only when the anatomy of this organism is known, 
 can it be seen of what parts it consists, and whether among 
 these parts a science in the spirit of what we call Theology 
 occupies a place of its own. Of course, in the framing 
 of this conclusion we must start out with a definition of 
 Theology, which cannot be explained until the following 
 division ; but for the sake of clearness in the process of the 
 argument, this hypothetical demonstration is here indispen- 
 sable. 
 
 As far as the organism of science itself is concerned, we have 
 purposely chosen as the title of this section the expression : The 
 organic division of scientific study. If the organic division 
 of science itself is viewed, apart from its relation to practice, 
 nothing is obtained but an abstraction, which lies entirely 
 outside of history and reality ; and the question whether 
 Theology is a science in this scientific organism can never 
 be answered. For Theology is an historic-concrete com- 
 plex, which, if brought over into the retort of abstractions, 
 would at once slip through our fingers and volatilize. 
 
 As regards the organic character of science, three data 
 must be taken into account : (1) the organic relation among 
 the several parts of the object of science; (2) the organic 
 relation among the different capacities of the subject and the 
 data which lead to the knowledge of the object ; and (3) the 
 organic relation which in consequence of (1) and (2) must 
 
 183 
 
184 § 52. ORGANIC DIVISION [Div. II 
 
 appear in the result of the scientific task. The object exists 
 organically ; the subject itself exists organically and stands 
 organically related to the object; and consequently this 
 organic character must be found again, as soon as the knowl- 
 edge of the object has been attained by the subject with 
 sufficient completeness and accuracy. The unity of these 
 three reveals itself historically in the scientific task, which 
 did not begin by making these distinctions clear for itself, 
 but had its rise in the instinctive faith in this mutual rela- 
 tionship. The stimulus to undertake this scientific study is 
 not given by an Academy of Sciences, but by our innate 
 inclination to investigate. As a child breaks his toys and 
 cuts them into pieces, in order to find out what they are 
 and how they are constructed ; or, as outside of his play- 
 hour he overwhelms you with questions ; thus is man 
 prompted by a natural impulse to investigate the cosmos. 
 And, though with adults also this desire after knowledge 
 may consist too largely of a playful inquiry, the needs 
 of life add a nobler seriousness to this playful investiga- 
 tion and by it rule and continuity are imparted to the sci- 
 entific task. If the practical need of physicians, lawyers, 
 ministers of the Word, Academic professors, etc., did not 
 continually press its claims, the very existence of universities 
 would at once be jeopardized. If these were abolished, and 
 with them the avenues to success were closed against those 
 who desire to devote their lives to scientific pursuits, a small 
 group only of competent persons would be able to allow 
 itself the luxury of this pursuit. And if the number of sci- 
 entists should thus be reduced, the study of science would 
 likewise suffer from the gradual disappearance of the whole 
 apparatus which is now at its service in libraries, labora- 
 tories, observatories, etc. The vitae non scolae is true also 
 in the sense that only life gives the school its susceptibility 
 to life. 
 
 The ideal representation that science would still be able to 
 flourish when practised merely for its own sake, rests upon 
 self-deception. This is best observed in the case of those 
 special sciences whose study is not immediately born from 
 
CHAr. IV] OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY 185 
 
 the practical need of life, and whose development in conse- 
 quence has been so greatly retarded. If there were no 
 logic in this practical need of life, and if it were not con- 
 nected with the organic motive of science itself, this de- 
 pendence of the school upon life would be most fatal, and 
 would obstruct the smooth progress of scientific investiga- 
 tion. This, however, is not so. The practical need of life 
 is born from the relation in which the subject stands to the 
 object, and from the necessary way in which the subject 
 (humanity) develops itself organically from itself. It must 
 be conceded that the claims which this practical need causes 
 to be felt, are not always considered in the accurate order of 
 succession, and that only after several fits and starts do they 
 assume a more normal character ; but the result also shows 
 that science has made all these fluctuations with them, and 
 only when the practical need of life has begun to express itself 
 in clearer language, and, consequently, with clearer self-con- 
 sciousness, has it assumed a more normal character. This 
 would certainly have proved a difficulty, if the slow ripen- 
 ing of this clear insight into the claims of practical need 
 were bound to any other law than that which governs the 
 development of science itself ; but it has created no disturb- 
 ance, since both the development of these practical needs and 
 the development of science have been governed by the self- 
 same power, i.e. by the actual mode of existence and or- 
 ganic relation of object and subject. Every encyclopedical 
 division of the sciences, which aims to be something more 
 than a specimen of mental gymnastics, will therefore in the 
 main always proceed from the practical division given histori- 
 cally in the academical faculties. Not as though this division 
 were simply to be copied ; for this division, which has already 
 been modified so often, is always susceptible of further modi- 
 fication; but these future modifications also will not abstractly 
 regulate themselves according to the demands of your scheme, 
 but will be permanently governed by the demands of prac- 
 ..tiaal need ; and only when your schematic insight has modi- 
 fied the form in which the practical need of life asserts itself, 
 will this insight, through the medium of practical life, be 
 
186 §52. ORGANIC DIVISION [Div. n 
 
 able to influence effectually the process of discriminating the 
 faculties. 
 
 But while criticism of the division of scientific study, as it 
 is controlled by that of the faculties, is in every way lawful 
 and obligatory. Encyclopedic science is nevertheless bound 
 to set out from this historic division. It is not to dissect an 
 imaginary organism of science, but it must take as its start- 
 ing-point the body of science as it actually and historically 
 presents itself ; it must trace the thought which has deter- 
 mined the course of this study; and, reinforced with this lead- 
 ing thought, it must critically examine that which actually is. 
 Encyclopedia is no speculative, but a positive, science; it 
 finds the object of its investigation in the actually given 
 development of science. As long as this object had not 
 sufficiently developed, the very thought of Encyclopedic 
 science could not suggest itself. Its study only begins when 
 the study of the sciences has acquired some form of perma- 
 nency. Since historically Theology has called into life a 
 faculty of its own and has presented itself in this faculty as 
 a complex of studies ; and since it is our exclusive aim to 
 answer the question whether Theology takes a place of its 
 own in the organism of the sciences ; it would be futile to 
 sketch the organism of science in the abstract. For in the 
 case both of ourselves and of our opponents this sketch would 
 of necessity be controlled by the sympathy or antipathy 
 which each fosters for Theology. Hence that we may have 
 ground beneath our feet, we should not lose ourselves in. 
 speculative abstractions, but must start out from the historic 
 course which, under the influence of the practical needs of 
 life, has been pursued by the study of the sciences. 
 
 Practically, now, we see that the theological faculty was 
 the first to attain a more fixed form. Alongside of it, and fol- 
 lowing immediately in its wake, is the juridical faculty. Next 
 to these two is the slow growth of the medical, as a third 
 independent faculty. The so-called philosophical faculty 
 finds its precursors in the Artistae ^ ; but it is a slow process 
 by which these surmount the purely propaedeutic character 
 
 1 Artistse was the name of the teachers of classic languages. 
 
Chap. IV] OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY 187 
 
 which their study bore at first. The faoultas litteraria, 
 either in or out of connection witli the faculty of natural 
 philosophy, only gradually takes its place by the side of the 
 above-named three. Clergymen, lawyers and physicians 
 were everywhere needed, while a man of letters and a natu- 
 ral philosopher could find a place only in a few schools. 
 To every one hundred young men, who studied in the first 
 three faculties, there were scarcely five who found their 
 career in the study of literature or natural philosophy. 
 And for this reason the first three faculties were for a long 
 time the principal faculties, and the study of the Artistse 
 and Physicists were mere auxiliaries to them. Propaedeutics 
 was the aU-important interest, and not the independent 
 study of Letters or of Natural Philosophy. From this 
 it must also be explained, that at so many universities 
 the study of Letters and of Natural Philosophy has always 
 been combined in the same faculty. In Holland the un- 
 tenability of this union has long since been recognized, and 
 the Literary and Natural Philosophy faculties have each 
 been allowed a separate existence; and the fact that else- 
 where they still remain together is simply the result of the 
 common propaedeutic character which was deemed to con- 
 stitute their reason for being. The practical needs of life to 
 broaden the knowledge of nature have for more than a century 
 caused the independent character of the natural sciences con- 
 vincingly to appear, and this very detachment of the study 
 of natural philosophy has quickened the literary studies to 
 a sense of their own independence. The difference of method 
 especially, between the two kinds of sciences, was too pro- 
 nounced to allow the auxiliary character of literary studies to 
 be maintained. This last process of the emancipation of the 
 literary faculty, however, is still so imperfect, that no com- 
 mon opinion has yet been obtained on the unity of matter, 
 or, if you please, on the real object of this group of sciences. 
 The philological, historical and philosophical studies still 
 seek their organic unity. But in any case it seems an. 
 accepted fact, that the cyclus of studies will run its roundi 
 in the circle of these five faculties. Although there seems; 
 
188 § 52. ORGANIC DIVISION [Div. II 
 
 to be a disposition abroad to let the Theological faculty be- 
 come extinct, or to supersede it by a faculty of Philosophy, 
 no serious desire is perceived to enlarge the number of 
 faculties beyond the five, and it is scarcely conceivable that 
 the practical needs of life will ever warrant the increase 
 of this number. Neither the smaller or larger number of 
 departments, nor the lesser or greater number of professors, 
 but only the combination of studies demanded by a practical 
 education, decides in the end the number and the division 
 of the faculties. 
 
 Meanwhile it is by no means asserted that the prosecution 
 of science, and in connection with it the university life, 
 should aim exclusively at a practical education. On the con- 
 trary, the pursuit of science for its own sake is the ideal 
 which must never be abandoned. We merely emphasize that 
 the way to this ideal does not lead through sky and clouds, 
 but through practical life. A science which loses itself in 
 speculation and in abstraction never reaches its ideal, but 
 ends in disaster ; and the high ideal of science will be the 
 more nearly realized in proportion as the thirst after and the 
 need of this ideal shall express themselves more strongly in 
 human life, so that the practical need of it shall be stimulated 
 Ijy life. As the transition from unconscious into conscious life 
 advances, the impulse born of society increases of itself to 
 account for every element and every relation, and, thanks 
 to this impulse, the prosecution of science for its own sake 
 carries the day. 
 
 In connection with this it is noteworthy that the three 
 originally principal faculties were born of the necessity of 
 warding off evil. This is seen in the strongest light in the 
 case of the medical faculty, which still exhibits this negative 
 character in name, and partly even in practice. It is not 
 called the somatic faculty, to express the fact that the human 
 body is the object of its study ; nor the hygienic faculty, to 
 express the fact that health is the object of its choice; but 
 the medical, by which name the diseased body alone is desig- 
 nated as its real object. This accords with the attention 
 which man bestows in real life upon his body. As long as 
 
Chap. IV] OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY 189 
 
 one is well and feels no indisposition, he does not inquire 
 into the location and the action of the organs in his body ; 
 and only when one feels pain and becomes ill does the pains- 
 taking care for the body begin. Alike observation applies 
 to the juridical faculty. If there were no evil in the world 
 there would be no public authority, and it is only for the 
 sake of evil that the authority is instituted, that the judge 
 pronounces judgment, and that the making of laws is de- 
 manded. Not for the sake of the study of law as such, 
 but for the sake of rendering a well-ordered human in- 
 tercourse possible in the midst of a sinful society, did 
 jurisprudence undertake its work ; and the juridical faculty 
 came into being for the education of men who, as states- 
 men and judges, are leaders of public life. This also applies 
 to the theological faculty, though not in so absolute a sense. 
 Because it was found that salvation for the sinner, and a 
 spiritual safeguard against the fatal effects of wickedness, 
 were indispensable, both law and gospel were demanded. 
 The purpose was medical, but in the Theological faculty it 
 was psychic, as it was somatic in the so-called Medical fac- 
 ulty. For though it must be acknowledged that originally 
 the aim of the Theological faculty was not exclusively soteri- 
 ological, but that on the contrary it also tried to foster theti- 
 cally the knowledge of God, yet the call for an educated 
 clergy, and the concomitant prosperity of this faculty, are 
 due in the first place to the fact that men were needed 
 everywhere who would be able to act as physicians against 
 sin and its results. Hence it is actually the struggle against 
 evil in the body, in society, and in the soul which has cre- 
 ated the impulse for these three groups of sciences, the need 
 of men to combat this evil, and consequently the necessity 
 for the rise of these three faculties. All three bear origi- 
 nally a militant character. This cannot be said of the Artistee, 
 nor of the faculties of Literature and Natural Philosophy 
 which at a later period were formed from their circle. 
 In the case of these studies positive Icnowledge was much more 
 the immediate object in view, even though it must be granted 
 that this knowledge was pursued only rarely for its own sake, 
 
190 § 52. ORGANIC DIVISION [Div. II 
 
 and much more for the sake of utility. One studied natural 
 philosophy and letters in order to become a jurist, physician, 
 or theologian, or to obtain power over nature. But with this 
 reservation it is evident that from the beginning these pro- 
 visionally dependent faculties stood nearer to the scientific 
 ideal, and formally occupied a higher point of view. 
 
 If it is asked what distinctions control this actual division 
 of scientific labor, it is easily seen that the attention of the 
 thoughtful mind had directed itself in turn to man and to 
 nature that surrounds him ; that, as far as his own being is 
 concerned, man has occupied himself severally with his so- 
 matic, psychic, and social existence ; and that even more 
 than these four groups of sciences, he aimed distinctively at 
 the knowledge of Crod. The accuracy of this division, which 
 sprang from practical need, is apparent. The principium of 
 division is the subject of science, i.e. Man. This leads to 
 the coordination of man himself with nature, which he rules, 
 and with his God, by whom he feels himself ruled. And this 
 trilogy is crossed by another threefold division, which concerns 
 " man " as such, even the distinction between one man and 
 many, and alongside of this the antithesis between his somatic 
 and psychic existence. Thus the subject was induced in the 
 Theological faculty, to investigate the knowledge of God, and 
 in the faculty of natural philosophy to pursue the knowledge 
 of nature ; to investigate the somatic existence of man in the 
 Medical, his psychic existence in the Philological faculty, 
 and finally in the Juridical faculty to embrace all those 
 studies which bear upon human relationships. The boun- 
 dary between these provinces of science is nowhere absolutely 
 certain, and between each two faculties there is always some 
 more or less disputed ground ; but this cannot be otherwise, 
 since the parts of the object of science are organically re- 
 lated, and the reflection of this object in the consciousness 
 of the subject exhibits an equally organic character. 
 
 If science had begun with devising a scheme for the divi- 
 sion of labor, these disputed frontier-fields of the faculties 
 would have been carefully distributed. Since science, how- 
 ever, and the division of faculties both, are products of the 
 
Chap. IV] OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY 191 
 
 organic process of life, it could not be otherwise tlian that 
 uncertainty at the boundaries, which is the mark of all or- 
 ganic division, here also shows itself. Should the Medical 
 faculty teach psychology for the sake of psychiatry and of the 
 psychical influences upon the body? Does the philosophy of 
 nature and of law belong to the Philological, or to the Psy- 
 chical and Juridical faculty ? Is the place for Church-law in the 
 Theological faculty or in the Juridical faculty, which itself 
 originated from it as the " Decretorum facultas," and which 
 for many years it claimed in the title of iuris utriusque doctor ? 
 These questions, together with many others, have all been 
 solved in a practical way such as is of course open to critical 
 examination by self-conscious science in its Encyclopedia, but 
 such as a closer investigation claims an ever-increasing re- 
 spect for the accuracy that marks the decision of practice. 
 The Encyclopedia of the sciences is safest, therefore, when it 
 does not abandon this historic track marked out by prac- 
 tice. A speculative scheme, in which the organic-genetic 
 relations of the sciences are fitted to another last, would 
 have almost no other value than to evoke our admiration 
 for the ingeniousness of the writer. Thus various titles of 
 departments would be obtained, for which there are no 
 departments of study. In our review of the history of 
 Theologic Encyclopedia,^ it has been seen that, in the study 
 of Theology also, such speculations have not been spared, 
 and numerous departments for new and imaginary branches 
 of study have been formed ; but, meanwhile, practice has 
 continued the even tenor of its way, and real study has 
 been best served by this practical division. This would 
 not be so, if the object and the subject of science, and also 
 the development of life and of the consciousness of life, 
 stood in no necessary relation to each other ; but since this 
 all-sided relation cannot be denied, and the process of sci- 
 ence and the process of life almost always keep equal step, 
 history offers us an important objective guarantee of accu- 
 racy. There is a power that directs the course of our life- 
 
 ^ In the translation this review of the history of Theologic Encyclopedia, 
 occupying in the original 432 pages, has been omitted. 
 
192 § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES [Div. II 
 
 process, and there is a power that directs the course of the 
 process of science. This dominion does not rest in the hand 
 of a single individual, but, for life and science both, is in 
 the hand of a Spirit who stands above all individuals ; and 
 since in both realms (in that of life as weU as in that of 
 science) this power is exercised by one and the selfsame 
 Spirit, the correct idea of the organism of science comes 
 of itself to light in history, though it be only gradually and 
 not without fits and starts. 
 
 § 53. The Five Faculties 
 
 In the preceding section the Theological faculty was num- 
 bered with the other four, in order to state the fact that it 
 was born from the practical needs of life, and that it has stood 
 behind none of the others in the manner of formation. Its 
 right of primogeniture among these five can scarcely be 
 disputed. But however important a weight this fact may 
 add to the scale, it does by no means yet define the posi- 
 tion which Theology is entitled to hold in the organism of 
 science. The fact may not be overlooked, that at more than 
 one university the faculty of Theology has practically been 
 abolished; that at a number of universities it continues 
 merely as the child of tradition ; and that in this traditional 
 prolongation of its life it has undergone, more than any other 
 faculty, so violent a metamorphosis that at length the iden- 
 tity of the object of its study has been entirely lost. Not 
 merely the need, therefore, of judicious criticism, but practice 
 itself places a very grave interrogation mark after this heri- 
 tage of history, and compels, with respect to Theology, a 
 closer investigation into its certificate of birth and its right 
 of domicile. To do this, however, it is necessary that we 
 first orient ourselves a little with reference to the other parts 
 of the realm, in order to obtain a definite conception of the 
 other four faculties. 
 
 Since for our investigation the Philological is the most 
 important, we wiU consider that first. This faculty has not 
 yet attained its self-consciousness. It would have done this 
 much sooner, if the faculty of Natural Philosophy had 
 
Chap. IV] § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 193 
 
 been separated from it in Germany as timely as in Holland. 
 Now, however, this unnatural conjunction has in many 
 ways confused insight into the character of Philological 
 study. Even when the studies of Philology and Natural 
 Philosophy are separated, every difficulty is by no means yet 
 surmounted, for then the antithesis is at once encountered be- 
 tween the studies of Philosophy and Philology in the narrower 
 sense. It has more than once been proposed to allow Phi- 
 losophy a faculty of its own and to give it the house in which 
 Theology lies dying. The Philological faculty would then 
 become exclusively the faculty of letters^ and in an eminent 
 sense engage itself with all those studies which the littera 
 scripta gives rise to or renders possible. And from this point 
 of view a third antithesis appears : viz. the antithesis be- 
 tween Historical studies and those of Philology proper. If 
 indeed the criterium for the object of Philology lies in the 
 littera scripta^ then it both can and must investigate the his- 
 torical documents and the historical expositions, as literary 
 products, but the real content of History lies outside of its 
 horizon. In this wise the faculty is more and more reduced, 
 and at length its only remaining object is that whioh is written, 
 which condemns it as an independent faculty. However 
 highly one may estimate its value, letters can never form 
 a principal group in the organism of the object; and to 
 a certain extent it is even contingent. The object existed 
 long centuries before literary life manifested itself. Hence 
 the name Literary faculty can in no case be taken as a start- 
 ing-point. We owe this name to Humanism, which in this 
 instance also did not forsake its superficial character. " Philo- 
 logical " is therefore in every way a richer and a more deeply 
 significant name, because the Logos does not refer to the 
 letter, but to that which the letter serves as body. For a 
 long time the restricted meaning of word or of language 
 was attached to the logos in " Philology," and consequently 
 Philology was interpreted as standing outside of Philosophy 
 and History. This, however, only showed how dimly it was 
 understood that every faculty must have a principal group 
 in the object of science as the object of its investigation. If 
 
194 § 53. THE FIVE rACUI-TIES [Div. II 
 
 word, and language still more, is a wider conception than 
 that of littera scripta, yet language and word can never 
 acquire the significance of being a principal group in the 
 object of science. As a life-expression of man the life of 
 language is coordinated with the expressions of the ethical, 
 aesthetic and material life, and hence for each of these a 
 separate faculty should have to be created. As long as only 
 the expression of life is studied the object of science is not 
 grasped. This is done only when life itself is reached, the ex- 
 pression of which is observed. This, in the case of the logos, 
 is, in its general sense, the life of the human consciousness. It 
 is this life which recapitulates itself in the logos, taken as 
 thought; expresses itself in the logos, taken as word; and 
 which for a very considerable part is at our disposal in the 
 literary product. And thus we have laid our hand upon a 
 principal group in the great object of science; for not only does 
 man belong to this object, but is himself the most important 
 factor in it, and it is in his wonderful consciousness that pres- 
 ently the whole cosmos reflects itself. If now in this sense 
 the object of this faculty is understood to be the conscious 
 life of man, the word conscious must of necessity be taken in 
 its pregnant sense. Else all science could be brought under 
 this faculty, even that of nature. But this danger is evaded 
 if, on the other hand, full emphasis is placed upon the quality 
 of conscious life, so that in this faculty our life is in question 
 only from the side of our consciousness. By doing this we 
 keep in the path first indicated by Boeck and extended so 
 much farther by my esteemed colleague. Dr. J. Woltjer, in 
 his Rectoral oration of 1891.^ If Boeck placed thinking too 
 much in the foreground. Dr. Woltjer rightly perceived that 
 from thinking we must go back to the Logos as reason in 
 man ; and it is therefore entirely in keeping with the relation 
 established by him, that in Philology we interpret the word 
 Logos as indicating that which is conscious in our life. 
 
 And thus the view-point is gained, from which the prac- 
 tice is justified, which has ever united philosophical and 
 historical studies with that of Letters. Even if language and 
 
 1 The Science of the Logos, by Dr. J. Woltjer, 1891. 
 
Chap. IV] § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 195 
 
 everything that is connected with language is the vehicle of 
 human consciousness, the study of this vehicle does by no 
 means end the study of that consciousness itself. That 
 human consciousness also as such, according to its form and 
 comprehensive content, must be made the object of investi- 
 gation, and this necessitates the formal and material study of 
 philosophy. Above all it should be taken into consideration 
 that it is not the consciousness of a single individual, but the 
 consciousness of man as such, and hence of humanity in its re- 
 lation and continuous process, that is to be known ; and this 
 gives rise to the task of History. Hence it is the one Logos, 
 taken as the consciousness of humanity, which provides the 
 motive for Linguistic and Historic and Philosophic studies ; so 
 that no reasonable objection can be raised against the name of 
 Philological faculty. "Logoi" was indeed the word used 
 originally for an historical narrative, and this gave historians 
 the name of Logographers. In this way the combination of 
 Linguistic, Historic, and Philosophic studies does not lead to 
 an aggregate, but to an organic unity, which in an excellent 
 manner locates a principal group of the object of science in 
 a realm of its own. It is man in antithesis with nature, and 
 in man his logical, in antithesis with his bodily manifestation, 
 which determine the boundaries of this realm. The unity 
 that lies in this may not be abandoned. 
 
 Meanwhile let it be observed, that the task of this faculty 
 should not be extensively, but intensively interpreted. The 
 object of its existence is not the study of every conceivable 
 language, nor the investigation of all history, nor yet the 
 systematizing of the whole content of the human conscious- 
 ness. The Faculty, as such, must direct its attention to 
 the consciousness of humanity taken as an organic unity, 
 and thus must concentrate its power upon that in which the 
 process of this human consciousness exhibits itself. It does 
 not cast its plummet into a stagnant pool, but away out in 
 the stream of human life. Its attention is not riveted by 
 what vegetates in isolation, but by that which lives and asso- 
 ciates with and operates within the life of humanity. For 
 this reason the classical and richly developed languages from 
 
196 § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES [Div. II 
 
 the old world and the new are so vastly more important to 
 this Faculty, as such, than the defective languages of the 
 more supine and undeveloped nations. It does not look 
 upon Literature as an aggregate of everything that has been 
 handed down in writing, but as an organic conception, which 
 only embraces that which is excellent in form and content. 
 History also is only that in which the human consciousness 
 has developed strength to bring the human life to the fuller 
 unfolding of its idea. And as material Philosophy, it merely 
 offers that which has advanced the current of human thought, 
 and has enabled its different tendencies to express themselves 
 correctly. The proposal to overwhelm this Faculty with the 
 study of all conceivable languages and peoples and conceptions 
 must therefore be declined. This deals the death-blow to 
 this Faculty, makes it top-heavy, and causes it to lose all 
 unity in its self-consciousness. In order to maintain itself as 
 a faculty it must distinguish between main interests and side- 
 issues, and maintain unity in multiformity, and keep its 
 attention fixed upon that which in continuous process has 
 ever more richly unfolded the consciousness of our human 
 race, has enabled it to fuller action, and has brought it to 
 clearer consciousness. We do not deny that other languages 
 also, peoples and conceptions may be the object of scien- 
 tific research, but this sort of study must annex itself to 
 the work of this faculty, and not consume its strength. 
 This self-limitation is not only necessary in order that it 
 may handle its own material, but also that it may not lose 
 its hold on life, and thus may keep itself from conflict 
 with practical demands. Duty, therefore, demands that 
 in the study of the human consciousness it should not 
 swing away to the periphery, but that it shall take its station 
 at the centrum, and never lose from sight the fact that the 
 object of its investigation is the conscious life of our human 
 race taken as an organic unity. "With this in view it inves- 
 tigates language as the wondrous instrument given as vehicle 
 to our consciousness; the richest development which language 
 has proved capable of in the Classical languages of ancient and 
 modern times ; and the full-grown and ripe fruit which Ian- 
 
CuAP. IV] § 53. THE FIVE EACULTIES 197 
 
 guage has produced in classical Literature. Next to this study 
 of language as vehicle and incorporation of our consciousness, 
 follows the investigation into the activities of this conscious- 
 ness in the life of humanity, i.e. the broad study of History. 
 And then, at length, formal and material Philosophy follow; 
 4;he first to investigate conscious life in its nature, and the 
 laws which govern it ; the second to answer the question, 
 how the " World-Image " (Weltbild) has gradually formed 
 itself in this consciousness, and in what form it exhibits 
 itself at present. This order of succession certainly gives 
 rise to the objection, that formal philosophy should properly 
 lead the van ; nevertheless, we deem it necessary to maintain 
 it, because formal as well as material philosophy assumes a 
 preceding development of language, and hence also a preced- 
 ing history. 
 
 The Medical faculty being of less importance for our investi- 
 gation may therefore be more briefly considered. We for our 
 part do not desire the name of Medical faculty to be changed 
 into Somatological or Philosomatieal faculty. We would not 
 have the fact lost from sight that this science did not origi- 
 nate from the thirst after a knowledge of our body, but 
 from the need of seeking healing for its diseases. For this 
 implies the confession that our general human condition 
 is neither sound nor normal, but is in conflict with a destruc- 
 tive force, against which help from a saving power must be 
 sought and can be found. This, however, does not weaken 
 the demand that the medical character of these studies should 
 not too absolutely be maintained. Obstetrics in itself is 
 no real medical study. Moreover, medical study has always 
 assumed the knowledge of the healthy body. And Hygiene, 
 which demands an ever broader place, is not merely medical- 
 prophylactic, but in part stands in line with the doctrine 
 of diet, dress, etc., as tending to the maintenance of the 
 healthy body. On these grounds it seems undeniable, that 
 the object of investigation for this faculty is the human 
 body, or better still, man from his somatic side. Already 
 for this reason the effort to take up the body of animals 
 
198 §53. THE FIVE FACULTIES [Div. n 
 
 into this faculty should be protested against ; and warnings 
 should be sounded against entertaining too sanguine expec- 
 tations from vivisection, and against the altogether too bold 
 exploits which it adventures. In itself, veterinary surgery 
 would never have become anything more than an empiric 
 knowledge ; and the insight it derives from the Medical 
 faculty is a mercy which from our human life descends to 
 suffering animals. But Darwinism should never tempt us in 
 this faculty to coordinate man and animal under the concep- 
 tion of "living things." If the human body had not been sub- 
 ject to disease, there would never have been a medical science. 
 Vegetation also has its diseases and invites medical treat- 
 ment; but who will include the healing of plants in the 
 Medical faculty ? The human hody must remain the exclu- 
 sive object for the complex of medical studies. The pro- 
 plastic forms also, or preformations which were created for 
 this body in the vegetable and animal kingdom, must indeed 
 be investigated with a view to this body, but the studies 
 which this investigation provokes serve exclusively as sub- 
 sidiary helps, and should not be permitted to destroy the 
 boundary between the human body and these preformations. 
 In the same way the boundary should be guarded which 
 divides the somatic life of man from his psychical life. 
 This psychical life is the heritage of the Philological and not 
 of the Medical faculty. If this boundary be crossed, the 
 Medical faculty must subordinate the psychical phenomena 
 to the somatic life, and cannot rest until, under the pressure 
 of its own object, it has interpreted this psychical life 
 materialistically. But neither should it be forgotten that an 
 uncertain and mingled region lies between the somatic and 
 the psychic life. Both sides of human life stand in organic 
 relation. The body affects the soul, and the soul the body. 
 Hence, there is on one side a physico-psychical study which 
 must trace the psychical phenomena on physical ground, and 
 on the other side a psychico-physical study which determines 
 the influence exercised by the soul upon the body. And 
 this must serve as a rule, that Psychology derives its physi- 
 cal data from the Medical faculty ; while on the other hand 
 
Chap. IV] § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 199 
 
 the Medical derives its psychological data from the Philo- 
 logical faculty. That the Theological faculty also comes into 
 consideration here is not denied ; but since it is the very 
 purpose of this investigation to point out the place in the 
 organism of science which belongs to the Theological faculty, 
 we pass it by for the present. Only let the necessary obser- 
 vation be made, that it is contradictory to the peculiar 
 character of the medical studies to leave the important 
 decision concerning the imputability of guilt in the process 
 of punishment to be accounted for by this faculty. Finally 
 a last boundary must be drawn for the medical faculty on the 
 side of the juridical faculty. For on that side also medical 
 science steps constantly beyond the lines of its propriety. It 
 demands, indeed, that public authority shall unconditionally 
 adopt the results from medical and hygienic domains into civil 
 ordinances, and shall execute what it prescribes. This abso- 
 lute demand should be declined, first, because these results 
 lack an absolute, and sometimes even a constant character ; 
 and in the second place, because it is not the task of 
 medical, but of juridical science to investigate in how far 
 the claims of the body should be conditioned by the higher 
 claims of the psychic and social life. 
 
 Within these boundaries these medical studies naturally 
 divide themselves, according to their object, into studies 
 which investigate the healthy body; which trace the phe- 
 nomena of disease; and which have for their purpose the 
 cure of these abnormal phenomena. The study of the body 
 as such, i.e. in its healthy state, divides itself equally 
 naturally into the somatical and psychico-somatical, while the 
 somatic studies divide again into anatomy and physiology. 
 The sciences which have for their object the deviations from 
 the normal, i.e. the sick body, are pathology and psycho- 
 pathology. The studies, finally, which direct themselves to 
 Therapeutics, divide into medical, surgical, and psychiatri- 
 cal, to which Medicine and applied Medica join themselves. 
 Only the place of Obstetrics is not easily pointed out, be- 
 cause a normal delivery, without pain, would not be a path- 
 ological phenomenon, and to this extent Obstetrics would 
 
200 §S3. THE FIVE FACULTIES [Di7. II 
 
 not find its motive in the medical, but in the somatical char- 
 acter of these studies. As such it should belong as a tech- 
 nical department to Physiology. From the view-point of 
 Revelation, however, delivery with pain is an abnormal 
 phenomenon, and to this extent we see no difficulty in coordi- 
 nating obstetrics after the old style with medical and surgical 
 science. With the exception of these incidental questions it 
 is readily seen, meanwhile, that as long as the Medical science 
 confines itself to these independent studies, it still lacks its 
 higher unity, and cannot be credited with having come to a 
 clear self -consciousness. This would only be possible if it 
 could grasp the deeper cause of the corruption from which 
 all diseases originate ; if, on the other hand, it could expose 
 the relation between this cause and the reagents ; and thus 
 could crown its labor by the production of a Medical 
 Philosophy. 
 
 The Juridical faculty claims a somewhat larger share of 
 our attention, since it stands in a closer relation to that of 
 Theology. In the object of science we found its province 
 in man, — not in himself, but as taken in his relation to 
 other men. This, however, must not be interpreted in the 
 sense that man is merely a social being, and that therefore 
 juridical study must lapse into sociology. The origia of 
 this faculty is a protest against this. From the beginning 
 it was a faculty for the study of Sancta Justitia, devoted to 
 the education of those who were to administer the affairs of 
 government and exercise the judicial function. Both these 
 conceptions, of government and judicial power, were derived 
 from the fundamental conception of the Supreme Authority. 
 The folly of separating the powers of state had not yet been 
 invented, and the intrinsic unity of all legislative, judicial, 
 and governing power stood still firm in the common mind. 
 Authority was exercised over men upon earth ; this authority 
 Avas not original with man, but was conferred of God upon 
 the magistracy. Hence the way in which this authority was 
 to be exercised by the magistracy was not left to the arbi- 
 trariness of despotism, but this authority fulfilled its end 
 
Chap. IV] § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 201 
 
 only when it operated in harmony with the order of liuman 
 society ordained of God. The laws and regulations to 
 which this authority bound its subjects and itself were 
 obliged, therefore, to meet a fixed claim ; and this claim had 
 been established by God himself in the ordinances of his 
 Creation, and had received its fuller interpretation in his 
 special Revelation. Hence, though whatever the magistracy 
 ordained as law was actually valid, as such, within the 
 circle of their authority, and though as such it bound the 
 conscience formally, the obligation that this enforced law 
 should legitimate itself as law before a higher tribunal, and 
 in other ways be corrected, could not be ignored. From 
 this obligation the study of law in the higher sense is born ; 
 for profound and scientific study alone can obtain an insight 
 into the nature of law in general, and into the special rela- 
 tions of law, as they should be in order to correspond to 
 the relations which have been divinely ordained in creation 
 and by history mutually between man and man or among 
 groups of men. 
 
 The view, which formed the point of departure in this, 
 was accurate in every way, viz., that there would have been 
 no need of a magistracy, nor of the regulation of law, nor of 
 a consequent study of law, if there had been no moral evil 
 among men. In a sinless state, the correspondence of the 
 social life to the demands of the holiest law would be spon- 
 taneous. Hence, when this faculty originated, it was still 
 the common confession that sin alone was the cause that one 
 man was clothed with compulsory authority over the other. 
 In a sinless society every occasion for the appearance of such 
 a compulsory authority would fall away, because every one 
 would feel himself immediately and in all things bound by 
 the authority of God. And so it has come to pass that the 
 Juridical faculty, as well as the Medical and the Theological, 
 has disclosed the tendency to oppose an existing evil. If 
 the Theological faculty tended to militate against evil in the 
 heart of man, and the Medical to overcome evil in the human 
 body, in like manner the Juridical faculty has tended to 
 resist evil in the realm of Justice. In connection with this. 
 
202 § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES [Div. II 
 
 the Juridical faculty bore a consecrated character. It did 
 not study human relations in its own self-sufficiency, but 
 realized its calling to lead the authority imposed of God 
 upon men into the path of Eight ordained by Him. Mean- 
 while this almost sacred origin of the Juridical faculty does 
 not prevent science from introducing the logical purpose 
 of all science more prominently into the foreground of the 
 Juridical domain, and from giving an account of the place 
 which these studies also occupy in the organic unit of 
 science. Viewed in this way, a proper, well-defined place 
 in the object of general science should also be allotted to 
 this study ; and in this sense there is no objection against 
 seeking this proper domain of the juridical science, this 
 provincia juris, in the social relations of man. The great 
 development of the sociological and economical auxiliary 
 departments shows, that the study of law actually moves in 
 this direction, while no one seriously thinks of separating all 
 sociological and economical studies from this faculty and 
 of classing them with the Philological faculty, or, as far 
 as the material object of economical studies is concerned, 
 with the natural philosophical. 
 
 It would be a serious matter, however, if for this reason 
 the original juridical character of this faculty should be 
 abandoned, and if gradually and by preference it should be 
 allowed to merge into a sociological faculty. If there is 
 apportioned to this faculty the study of all that originates 
 the social life of man, makes it real, and belongs to its 
 nature in its broad extent, then ethics would gradually 
 claim a lodging with it, the life of science and art would 
 come under its care, pedagogy would have to recognize its 
 authority, and the technique also of agriculture, commerce, 
 and of trade would partly come under its rule. It is 
 necessary, therefore, to limit the object of this faculty by a 
 more accurate definition, and that closer definition can be no 
 other than that this faculty is concerned with human society 
 only in so far as this calls out the Jural Relationships. Thus 
 authority will ever be the characteristic of this faculty, 
 since authority alone is able to verifj- these Jural Relation- 
 
Chap. IV] § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 203 
 
 ships as Law, to maintain them where they are normal, to 
 modify them where they are abnormal, and, where they are 
 still undeveloped, gradually to cause them to emerge. This 
 is as valid for the Jural Relationships between the magis- 
 tracy and their subjects as for the Jural Relationships of 
 these subjects mutually, and of the nations at large. The 
 sociological and economical studies in this faculty are not 
 charged with tracing abstractly the organic relation among 
 people at every point, nor yet with viewing from every side 
 the relation between our human social life and property ; 
 but it is their exclusive task to obtain such an insight into 
 this twofold and very important relation as shall interpret 
 the Jural Relationships it implies, and shall discover to the 
 magistracy what in this domain it must and must not do. 
 
 In fact, the study of the Juridical faculty will always 
 be governed by the principles professed with reference to 
 authority. If authority is considered to have its rise from 
 the State, and the State is looked on as the highest natural 
 form of life in the organism of humanity, the tendency 
 cannot fail to spring up to deepen the significance of the 
 State continuously, and even to extend the lines of authori- 
 tative interference, which Plato pushed so far that even 
 pedagogy and morals were almost entirely included in the 
 sphere of the State. Indeed, more than one sociologist in 
 the Juridical faculty is bent upon having his light shine 
 more and more across the entire psychical life of man, in 
 the religious, ethical, sesthetical, and hygienic sense. If 
 sooner or later the chairs of this faculty are arranged and 
 filled by a social-democratic government, this tendency 
 will undoubtedly be developed. If, on the other hand, it 
 is conceded that authority over man can rest nowhere 
 originally but in God, and is only imposed by Him upon 
 men with regard to a particular sphere., this impulse to 
 continuous extension is curbed at once, and everything that 
 does not belong to this particular sphere falls outside of the 
 Juridical faculty. In the moral life, which is not included 
 here, God himself is the immediate judge, who pronounces 
 sentence in the conscience and various temporal judgments 
 
204 § 53. THE nVE FACULTIES [Div. II 
 
 in the world, and Avho will utter final judgment in the last 
 day ; while public authority must appoint law only upon 
 the earth, and must pronounce sentence as judge upon 
 that alone which can be legally established and maintained 
 in the external relations of life by compulsion. Hence ethics, 
 as touching the relation of man in foro interna, will remain 
 in the Theological and Philological faculty ; pedagogy, as 
 bearing upon the psychic life, belongs in the Philological 
 faculty ; hygiene remains with the Medical ; the material 
 side of property finds its study in the faculty of Natural 
 Philosophy ; while all that touches the real technics is 
 treated by the Artes and not by the Scientice. Thus the 
 Juridical faculty stands in organic relation to all the others ; 
 it cannot forego the assistance of any ; it must borrow data 
 (Lehnsatze) from all ; but it does not lose itself in these 
 studies, while the object of its own science is the social 
 life of man, not as abandoned to whim or accident, but as 
 governed by an authority, and thus bound to a law, which 
 is indeed framed by man, but which finds its deepest ground 
 and hence its binding rule in Him who created this human 
 social life, and who, in the interests of its outward relations, 
 on account of sin, conferred authority upon man over man. 
 
 The science of Law, therefore, is not only to shed light 
 upon the relation of the magistrate and the subject (public 
 law and penal law), upon the relation of citizen to citizen 
 (civil law, commercial law, etc.), and upon the relation of 
 nation to nation (international law) ; but, before all this, it 
 must develop the idea of Justice itself, so that it can be well 
 understood at what view-point it takes its stand, and accord- 
 ing to what rule the development of law must be guided. 
 To accomplish this, it cannot rest content with the investi- 
 gation of existing Jural institutions, their comparison with 
 others, and a study of their historical origin. All this can 
 never effect more than the knowledge of formal law ; while 
 Justice exhibits itself in its majesty only when it obtains its 
 adamantine point of support in our psychical existence, and 
 of necessity flows from what, to our deepest sense of life, is 
 highest and holiest. The question whether one worships 
 
Chap. IV] § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 205 
 
 this highest and holiest in the living God, or whether it is 
 sought in the pantheistic idea, or in the pressure of natural 
 life, determines, really, the entire course of our further studies. 
 But in any case the science of law must fix its point of de- 
 parture, formulate its idea of justice, and make clear the vital 
 principle of law. To do this it must borrow its data from 
 Theology, Psychology, and Philosophy in the general sense, 
 but by a proper Philosophy of law it must work out these bor- 
 rowed data independently with a view to Justice, and unite 
 them organically into one whole, in which the self-conscious- 
 ness of Law expresses itself. The Encyclopedia of the science 
 of law does not preclude the necessity of a separate study of 
 the philosophy of law. For the object of Encyclopedia is not 
 law itself, but the science of law, and though it is self-evident 
 that there can be no exposition of the science of Law as an 
 organic whole without due consideration of the questions 
 what law is, what law is born from, and how we can learn 
 to understand law, yet the answer of these does not rest 
 with the Encyclopedia, but is accepted in the Encyclopedia 
 as already determined ; and this is only possible when in the 
 organism of the Science of law the Encyclopedia also finds 
 the Philosophy of law, with its results. 
 
 By this we do not detract in the least from the signifi- 
 cance of the historical study of law. That historical study 
 includes by no means merely the explanation of existing Ju- 
 ral institutions in their origin, but at the same time points out 
 the forms which the character of our human nature, in con- 
 nection with national and climatic differences, have given to 
 law, and according to what process these forms have devel- 
 oped themselves one from the other. It also appears from 
 these historical studies, that the development of law has been 
 more normal in one direction, and that in definite circles the 
 development of law has exhibited a classical superiority. 
 What we contend is, that no criticism or even a mere judg- 
 ment is possible, unless a critic is present subjectively in the 
 investigator, and the authority which gives law its sanction 
 determined in advance. Even where this criticism is rejected 
 from principle, and in a pantheistic sense the distinction be- 
 
206 § 53. THE FIVE FACULTIES [Bit. U 
 
 tween right and wrong is actually abolished, in order to recog- 
 nize law only in that which is in force as such as long as it 
 maintains itself, there is a premise already in this, and back 
 of this premise an entire system, that dominates our entire 
 science of law. Even where one eliminates the Philosophy 
 of law, the start is made insensibly, i.e. without a clear 
 self -consciousness, from a point which the Philosophy of law 
 alone can scientifically justify ; and for this reason the omis- 
 sion of this study is at heart an insincerity. 
 
 Concerning the grouping of the several departments of 
 study in this faculty, no one will longer defend the method 
 of Kirchner of placing the fountain-studies, such as herme- 
 neutics, criticism, and diplomatics in the foreground as the 
 exegetical group. These are simply not juridical departments, 
 but philological, and are here specially applied to documents 
 of juridical contents. In this faculty also the grouping 
 should derive its principle of division (^prineipium divisionis) 
 from its object, and hence this principium can only lie in 
 the several elements, among which the Jural relationships 
 are observed, i.e. government and subject, people and peo- 
 ple, citizen and citizen. The fourth relation, God and 
 Sovereignty, we purposely omit, because law also runs its 
 course where this relation is not recognized or is even 
 denied, and where the prerogative of Sovereignty is ex- 
 plained in other ways. From this, however, it follows that 
 the three lines of relations which we have named form only 
 the particular part in the juridical science, and that these 
 three studies, which together form the particular part, must 
 be preceded by a general part on Law as such. This general 
 part should embrace the two departments : (1) The philoso- 
 phy of Law ; and (2) the history of Law ; to which, for rea- 
 sons fully developed above. Encyclopedia can be added 
 (although, even as with the other faculties really a philo- 
 sophical study), in an irregular way. Of course it is not 
 denied that the three portions of the particular part have 
 each a history of their own, but we are so fully convinced 
 of the common fundamental trait which dominated these 
 parts in every period and with every people, that Roman 
 
Chap. IV] §53. THE FIVE FACULTIES 207 
 
 law, Germanic law, etc., are generally spoken of in an uni- 
 versal sense. Upon this general part follows the particular 
 part, which falls into three : Public law. International law. 
 Civil law, each with their auxiliary sciences. Public law 
 divides itself again into public law in the narrower sense 
 and Penal law, and to penal law the theory of procedure is 
 added as a subdivision. Those which, on the other hand, are 
 taken separately as political sciences, i.e. statistics, econom- 
 ics, politics, diplomatics, sociology, etc., are only auxiliary 
 sciences which keep public law especially, but civil law also 
 in part, from feeling their way at random, and help them to 
 walk in the broad light of the knowledge of facts, condi- 
 tions, and relations. The difference is that in olden times 
 the unconscious life was stronger, and hence also the sense 
 of law, since custom of itself determined all sorts of rela- 
 tions which now in our more conscious life are only obtained 
 as the result of investigation. Of course material goods are 
 here considered only in so far as they are subsumed under 
 man, and thereby are brought under the conception of law, 
 or at least can exercise an influence upon the decision of the 
 relations of law. The relation between gold and silver, for 
 instance, would of itself be entirely indifferent to the jurist, 
 but it becomes of importance to him as soon as the question 
 arises, in what way the government in its monetary sys- 
 tem is to decide the relation between them. We cannot 
 enter into further detail. To analyze more closely the sev- 
 eral characteristics of civil law, commercial law, maritime 
 law, etc., lies not in our province, and the fact that legal pro- 
 cedure, political science, etc., bear less a scientific than a tech- 
 nical character is self-evident. Our only purpose has been to 
 explain that side of the science of law on which it lies organ- 
 ically linked in the organism of general science, and to indi- 
 cate the partly sacred character which the Juridical science 
 must maintain, for Justitia must remain saneta or cease to be 
 Justitia, and for this reason it stands in immediate relation 
 to the two great problems, of how authority from God comes 
 to man, and whether or no it has been conferred upon man 
 simply because of sin. 
 
208 § 53. THE FIVE FACULTDiS [Div. II 
 
 The faculty of Natural PhilosopJiy can be considered more 
 briefly. There is only one difference of opinion about the 
 object of physical science. This arises from the fact that 
 the mathematical and arithmetical sciences were formerly 
 classed with Philosophy, while at present the tendency is 
 stronger to class them with the physical sciences as the sci- 
 ences of the relations of physical data. Those who hold 
 these relations to be unreal, or at least explain them in the 
 main as subjective, are obliged, for the sake of logical conse- 
 quence, to prefer the custom of the old philosophy, and group 
 these departments with the psychical studies. Since, how- 
 ever, the impression has become more universal that science 
 in general and therefore each particular science, must seek its 
 strength in the knowledge of the relations even more than in 
 the knowledge of the elements among which these relations 
 exist, it is not probable that with reference to the disposi- 
 tion of Mathematics and Arithmetic the subjective tendency 
 will again gain the day. It is entirely true that our human 
 consciousness is adjusted to measure and to number ; else 
 the most industrious effort would never bring us the concep- 
 tion of geometry or arithmetic. It is also entirely true that 
 the laws which dominate the combination of measures and 
 numbers, or, if you please, the Logica of measure and number, 
 must find a point of connection in our human consciousness; 
 else we should never be able to propound or solve an abstract 
 problem in mathematics or arithmetic. This, however, does 
 not take away the fact that it is the cosmos outside of us 
 that first brings measure and number to our consciousness. 
 On this ground there seems to be no objection to classing 
 Mathematics, Algebra, and Arithmetic as three formal depart- 
 ments under the physical sciences. For the material depart- 
 ments, however, the principium of division here too lies in 
 the object of physical science. This object ascends from the 
 elements of nature to the cosmos, and in this ascent it fol- 
 lows the scale of the so-called natural kingdoms of our earth, 
 and of that which has been observed in the cosmos physically 
 outside of our earth. Hence those departments come first, 
 which investigate the elements (matter as well as force), and 
 
Chap. IV] § 63. THE FIVE FACULTIES 209 
 
 which are to be embraced under Physics and Chemistry. 
 Then come the sciences which investigate certain groups of 
 elements in their organic relations, i.e. Mineralogy, Botany, 
 and Zoology. After that come the studies which direct 
 themselves to our earth as such, viz., Geology, Geography in 
 its broadest extent, and Meteorology. And lastly follows 
 Astronomy ; and finally Cosmology, as embracing the whole. 
 Let no one imagine, however, that all these sciences as 
 such belong to the so-called exact sciences. No one will be 
 able to assert this of Cosmogony, and the evolution-theory 
 of Darwin sufficiently shows that natural philosophy cannot 
 afford to limit itself to the simple results of weight, number, 
 and measure. The simple observation of what one hears, sees, 
 tastes, and handles, even with the aid of instrumental rein- 
 forcement of our senses, and under proper verification, is 
 never anything more than the primitive point of departure 
 of all science and stands formally in line with common per- 
 ception. Only by the discovery of the laws which exercise 
 general rule in that which is particular does this science 
 raise itself to its second stadium, and become able to exer- 
 cise authority over matter. But though in this way it ma- 
 terially aids in establishing the dominion which was given 
 man over all created things, and though physical science 
 has contributed the valuable result that it has exalted the 
 independent human consciousness and has set us free to so 
 large an extent from the dominion of matter, it has by no 
 means yet satisfied the highest scientific need. As long as it 
 knows nothing beyond the several data and the law by which 
 these data are governed, the thinking mind cannot rest. It 
 searches also after the relations among the several king- 
 doms of nature, between our earth and the other parts of the 
 cosmos, between all of nature outside of us and man, and 
 finally after the origin of nature and of the tie which binds 
 us to it, even in our body. These are the points of connec- 
 tion between the faculty of Natural Philosophy and the other 
 faculties ; and the fact that physical science inclines more 
 and more to announce itself as the only true science, in order 
 to coordinate man with the objects of zoology, and to explain 
 
210 § 53. THE FIVE EACULTIES [Div. II 
 
 the psychical life materialistically, shows how ill-advised it 
 is to allow this physical science to make only practical ad- 
 vances, without attaining encyclopedically to self-conscious- 
 ness and giving itself an account of the place which it 
 occupies in the great organism of science. A scientific Ency- 
 clopedia, worthy of the name, is the very thing it altogether 
 lacks ; and only when it makes serious work of this can the 
 question be answered, whether as a culminating department 
 Philosophy of nature belongs to this faculty. 
 
 If now the outline of the four named faculties has been 
 drawn fairly correctly, the question arises whether the 
 Theological faculty joins itself to them in organic connec- 
 tion, with a proper object, and in good coordination. To 
 make this clear it will not do to begin by making the con- 
 ception of Theology fluid. All judgment concerning the 
 Juridical faculty is rendered impossible so soon as you 
 interpret it now as the facultas juris, or legal faculty, and 
 again as ^e facultas societatis, or sociological faculty. Much 
 less will a way of escape be discovered from the labyrinth 
 on theological ground, if by Theology you understand, now, 
 that which was originally understood by it, and again 
 supersede this verified conception by an entirely different 
 one, such as, for instance, the Science of Religion. The 
 study of the nature of Theology is in order in the follow- 
 ing division, so that in this chapter we can do no other than 
 state the conception which we start out from, and after that 
 review the Theological faculty, and in historical connection 
 with this determine the place of Theology in the organism 
 of science. Because of the importance of the subject we 
 do this in a separate chapter. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THEOLOGY IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 
 
 § 54. Is there a Place for Theology in the Organism of 
 
 Science ? 
 
 The raising of this question intends no coquetry what- 
 ever with much-boasted "science." The theologian who, 
 depressed by the small measure of respect cherished at 
 present by public opinion for theological study, seeks favor 
 with public opinion by loudly proclaiming that what he 
 studies is science too, forfeits thereby his right to the 
 honorable name of theologian. Suppose it were demon- 
 strated that Theology is no science, but that, like the 
 study of music, it is called to enrich our spiritual life, 
 and the consciousness of that life, in an entirely different 
 way, what would this detract from its importance? Does 
 Mozart rank lower than Edison, because he did not work 
 enchantments, like Edison, with the data of the exact 
 sciences? The oft-repeated attempt to exclude Theology 
 from the company of the sciences, and to coordinate it, as 
 something mystical, rather with the world of sounds, was in 
 itself entirely praiseworthy, and has commanded more respect 
 from public opinion in general than the scholastic distinc- 
 tions. If thus it should be shown that Theology has no 
 place in the organism of science, it would not lower it in the 
 least, even as, on the other hand. Theology would gain no 
 merit whatever from the fact (if it be proved) that it has 
 its rank among the sciences. In no case may Theology 
 begin with renouncing its own self-respect. And those 
 theologians who are evidently guilty of this, and who, being 
 more or less ashamed of Theology, have tried, by borrowing 
 the scientific brevet, to put it forth in new forms, have been 
 punished for their cowardice. For the non-theological science 
 
 211 
 
212 § 54. IS TUEKE A PLACE FOR THEOLOGY [Uiv. 11 
 
 has compelled them to cut out the heart of Theology, and to 
 transform it into a department of study which shall fit into the 
 framework of naturalistic science. Hence we definitely de- 
 clare that our defence of the scientific character of Theology 
 has nothing in common with this questionable effort. No 
 Calvinist takes part in the renunciation of our character as 
 theologians. And now to the point. 
 
 When treating of the historical development of the facul- 
 ties it was shown that the general organism of science allows 
 itself to be analyzed into its parts along plain and clearly 
 discernible lines. Thinking man distinguishes in himself 
 first between that which relates to his inner or psychical, 
 and outward or somatical, existence. He distinguishes in 
 the second place between his own personal existence and his 
 social life with others, as far as this is not governed by the 
 personal existence of the individuals. And in the third place 
 he distinguishes between human life and the life of nature. 
 This division comes of itself, is unsought, sees itself justi- 
 fied by the history of the faculties, and is in entire agree- 
 ment with the needs of practical life. Now the question is 
 whether, along with these four, there remains yet a fifth inde- 
 pendent part or organ in the organism of science. And the 
 answer lies at hand, that a final distinction still remains, 
 even the distinction between man and his Crod. Thus 
 in the complete object of science we have four antitheses 
 and five independent parts: (1) God and his creation; 
 
 (2) in that creation the rest of creation and man; (3) in 
 man first the distinction between his material and spiritual 
 existence, and, again, (4) the antithesis between unity and 
 multiplicity. Or, if you please, five independent and j^et 
 organically connected objects present themselves to think- 
 ing man, viz. : (1) his God, (2) his psychical existence, 
 
 (3) his somatical existence, (4) his existence as a member 
 of humanity, and (5) nature outside of man. This divi- 
 sion corresponds fully to the Theological faculty (object: 
 God), the Philological (the human soul, ■yjrvxrj'), the Medical 
 (the human body, aSy/xa'), the Juridical (the legal relation- 
 ships among men), and Natural Philosophy (the cosmos out- 
 
Chap. V] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 1' 213 
 
 side of man). And this analysis of the entire organism into 
 five parts causes the organic relation among the parts, at 
 least in the case of the four faculties already outlined, to 
 be clearly discerned, as well in the object itself as in the 
 reflection of it in the subject, and develops the subdivisions 
 organically in each of the four parts. 
 
 Nothing is gained, on the other hand, by the notion that 
 Theology has religious feeling, subjective religion, the phe- 
 nomena of piety, etc., for its object, and that for this rea- 
 son it is not to be taken as Theology, but as the Science of 
 Religion. It is impossible in an organic sense to coordinate 
 man's psychical existence, man's somatical existence, man 
 as subdivision of humanity, and nature outside of man, and 
 then, as a fifth wheel to the wagon, man'-s religious feeling. 
 For this religious feeling belongs to man's psychic existence, 
 and the study of it as such tends to investigate the object 
 man. Hence the religious feeling cannot be an indepen- 
 dent part in the object to be investigated, distinguished 
 from the other coordinated parts by an essential difference. 
 This religious feeling is very important, and it is certainly 
 right to investigate this phenomenon in the life of man 
 and of humanity; but this religious life is coordinate with 
 his ethical, gesthetical, and intellectual life ; and hence be- 
 longs to his psychical existence. In this way these studies 
 come of themselves under the Philological faculty, and can 
 never occasion the rise of a separate faculty of Theology. 
 
 One objection only can be raised. From the view-point 
 of the Trichotomists it can be asserted that man does not 
 consist of body and soul, but of bodi/, soul, and spirit, and that 
 it is therefore entirely rational, by the side of a faculty for 
 the body and a faculty for the soul, to place a third faculty, 
 which has the spirit (jrvevfjia) of man for its object, and that 
 this should be the Theological. Thus next to a Somatology 
 and a Psychology, there should also be a Pneumatology as 
 "Dritte im Bunde." This objection, however, cannot stand. 
 The organism of science cannot be analyzed, or, if you please, 
 divided, according to the measure of a distinction accepted 
 only by a single school, but disputed by other schools, and 
 
214 § 54. IS THERE A PLACE TOR THEOLOGY [Dir. H 
 
 finding no echo in the universal human sense. With all 
 the Reformed we reject the Trichotomy, at least in so far as 
 it assumes three substances in man. We are Dichotomists. 
 Even if the distinction between soul and spirit (^yjrv^T] and 
 ■n-vevfj.a') were able to maintain itself to a certain extent, 
 body, soul, and spirit could never be coordinated. But the 
 antithesis should be between body and soul, and within 
 that soul the distinction between the psychical and the 
 pneumatical should be sought. Even they who speak of a 
 faculty of the Science of Religion are well aware that nothing 
 can be done with the pneuma as such, wherefore they have 
 thrown themselves upon religion, as being a very compli- 
 cated expression of life and rich in phenomenal life. The 
 pneumatical jcier se would not be capable of investigation to 
 any considerable extent. Hence along this way there is no 
 possibility of pointing out a proper ground in the object of 
 general science for a science of Theology, and there can be 
 no question of a Theological faculty. Both are possible only 
 when you come to the antithesis of self-conscious man and 
 his God, so that jou find the object of your faculty not in 
 religion, but in God. 
 
 But even this by itself will not suffice. Not so much 
 because it will not answer to coordinate God with the 
 incorporeal, -with the soul, the body politic, or nature. For 
 the distinction could well be made between the creator and 
 creation, in the creation between man and nature, and in 
 man between his body and soul. This would be no logical 
 error. But the difficulty is, that in science, as taken in 
 this chapter, man is the thinking subject, and not God; 
 tliat this thinking subject as such must stand above the 
 object of science, and must be able to investigate it, and 
 to grasp it with his understanding. And this he is well 
 able to do with nature, with our body, soul, and body politic, 
 but not with God, taken as an object of our human science. 
 Thinking man, taken as subject over against God as object, is 
 a logical contradiction in terms. It remains an incontestable 
 truth (1 Cor. ii. 11) that "the things of God none knoweth, 
 save the Spirit of God." Man himself would stand before 
 
Chap. V] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 1 215 
 
 US a closed mysterj-, if we were not man ourselves and thus 
 able from ourselves to form our conclusions as to others. 
 "For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save 
 the spirit of the man, which is in him?" With man, ac- 
 cordingly, his phenomenal manifestation may always serve 
 us; observation is possible; and the multiplicity of objects, 
 through comparison, may bring you to some clue. But 
 with God taken as object, all this forsakes us. In the most 
 absolute sense. He is univocus. From yourself (at least so 
 long as He has not Himself revealed to you the creation 
 after His image) you can conclude nothing concerning 
 Him; neither can you see or hear or perceive Him in any 
 conceivable way. For which reason it is entirely logical 
 that the naturalistic tendency in science has not hesitated 
 to cancel Theology, and that the Free University at Brus- 
 sels, and after her more than one university in America, 
 have opened no faculty, or "Department," as it is called in 
 America, for Theology. We can also understand that the 
 Theologians who have broken with Special Revelation have 
 refused to walk any longer in the old paths, have abandoned 
 God (d ^eo?) as object of science, and have declared: We 
 can investigate religion, but not G-od. And no fault could 
 have been found with this, had they faced the consequence 
 of this metamorphosis of the object, and after the demoli- 
 tion of the Theological faculty transferred their study of 
 religion to the Philological faculty. 
 
 Something very different presents itself, on the other 
 hand, when the old definition is readopted, that the science 
 of Theology finds its object of investigation in the revealed, 
 ectypal Itnowledge of Crod ; which definition we hold our- 
 selves, but which can be explained only in the following 
 chapter. It is enough here to recall that, according to 
 this representation, God alone knows Himself (" archetypal 
 knowledge of God," cognito Dei archetypa), and that there 
 is no created being that can know aught of Him, except 
 He himself reveals something from His self-knowledge and 
 self-consciousness in a form that falls within the compre- 
 hension of the creature ("ectypal knowledge of God," cog- 
 
216 § 54. IS THERE A PLACE FOR THEOLOGY [Div. II 
 
 nitio Dei ectypa). Had this revelation, now, taken place in 
 the form of complete analysis and synthesis, it would satisfy 
 at once the most rigorous claims of our scientific wants, and 
 would simply have to be inserted into the result of our other 
 scientific work; just as in an historical sketch of an event, 
 in which you j^ourself have played an important r81e, you 
 simply insert and embody without further examination that 
 which you yourself have planned and achieved, because you 
 know your personal part in a way which does not provoke 
 a closer investigation. Such, however, is not the character 
 of this revelation, for it presents itself in such a form that 
 all sorts of data are given, from which you are obliged 
 to frame the result. Understood in this way, the com- 
 plex of all that belongs to this revelation forms an object 
 which, in its starting-point and end, is a unit (einheit- 
 lich); which invites investigation; and which by scientific 
 effort must be transposed into a form that shall satisfy the 
 claims of our human consciousness. Suppose that still more 
 Egyptological discoveries were to be made, and, what is not 
 impossible, that a number of inscriptions and communica- 
 tions were brought to light concerning a thus far lesser 
 known Pharaoh; that monuments of his activity were un- 
 earthed; and that 3'ou were supplied with all sorts of 
 letters, statistics, and records of his reign; all these dis- 
 coveries would invite and enable you scientifically to ex- 
 plain the historical phenomenon of this prince. Then, 
 however, the object of your investigation would still he 
 Pharaoh himself, and not the knowledge of his person, 
 simply because all these monuments and documents were 
 not erected and written by him for the sake of giving you 
 a specially intended representation of his person. But now 
 imagine the other case. Suppose that an Eastern despot 
 had purposed to hand down to succeeding generations, a 
 particular representation of his person and work, which 
 did not correspond to reality, and to this end had prepared 
 numerous monuments and documents; then from these his 
 real figure in history could not be known, but only that 
 representation of himself which he had intended. And the 
 
Chap. V] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE? 217 
 
 object of your investigation would not be that despot him- 
 self, but "the knowledge of his person," such as he had 
 purposed to hand down to posterity. And this is the case 
 here. God has not unintentionally left behind Him traces 
 of His works and revelations of His thoughts in monuments 
 and documents, from which we are to search out who God is. 
 But purposely, and fully conscious of what He was doing, 
 the Lord our God has imparted a knowledge of His Being 
 such as He desired that this knowledge should be. And 
 He has done this in such a way that this revelation does not 
 contain His absolute image, but conveys this knowledge in 
 that particular form which alone can be of service to you. 
 What we supposed in the case of the Asiatic despot to have 
 sprung from the desire to have a different image of himself 
 outlive him from that which he had exhibited in reality, 
 takes place here by means of the third term of comparison 
 (tertium comparationis). The image which is purposely ex- 
 hibited here is different from the real Being, simply because 
 it is only in that definite form, " according to the measure of 
 man" (pro mensura hominis), that it can be taken up by us. 
 We are therefore fully authorized to say that that which 
 presents itself to us in these monuments and documents is 
 not the knowledge of the real Being of God, which we are 
 to search out from them, but, on the contrary, that in these 
 monuments and documents lies an image of God, drawn by 
 Himself, such as He desires us to receive. Hence, when 
 we investigate these monuments and documents, the object 
 which we search out is not the Divine Being, but that 
 ectypal knowledge of God, which is posited in them by God 
 Himself, and which corresponds entirely to the character of 
 our human nature and our human consciousness. The in- 
 vestigation of those monuments and documents, and the 
 search after the ectypal knowledge of God contained there- \ 
 in, is a scientific task in an equally rigorous sense as, in the 
 supposed case, the historic expounding of the image of such 
 a Pharaoh or Asiatic despot. 
 
 We admit, of course, that in this section it is only an 
 hypothesis that the Lord our God has placed such monu- 
 
218 §54. IS THERE A PLACE EOE THEOLOGY [Div. II 
 
 ments and documents at our disposal, that He has purposely 
 hid in them an image of Himself, and that it is possible for 
 us to obtain this ectj'pal knowledge from them. We only 
 wanted to render it apparent, that with this hj-pothesis the 
 necessity arises for a peculiar scientific work which does not 
 indeed have God for its object, — a thing which cannot be, 
 — but His ectypal knowledge ; provided there exists a defi- 
 nite circle of phenomena from which, by investigation, this 
 object can be known. And if, later on, it can be shown that 
 what is here put as hypothesis is true, then in this way we 
 have certainly found a Theology whose calling it is to do a 
 scientific work, and which as such has a place in the organ- 
 ism of science. For this hypothesis itself implies that the 
 phenomena from which this knowledge must be drawn, and 
 this knowledge itself, must organically cohere with the ob- 
 ject as well as with the subject of science : with the object, 
 because these phenomena are given in the cosmos and in 
 history; and with the subject, since it is only as ectypal 
 that this knowledge corresponds to the measure of man. 
 And this being so, the founding of a proper faculty for this 
 scientific investigation is justified of itself. The object, 
 indeed, which is sought in these phenomena cannot be 
 brought under either of the four other heads. The phe- 
 nomena which must be investigated form an entirely pe- 
 culiar group. And the object itself is of such eminent 
 importance, that not only the needs of practical life, but 
 the incomplete character of all other science, alike render 
 the studjr of Theology necessary. 
 
 One more objection, however, must be met. It might, 
 indeed, be said that in § 38 of this volume we designate 
 the cosmos as the only object of science ; that except we fall 
 into Pantheism, God does not belong to the cosmos, but that 
 as the ground of all being and cause of the cosmos. He must 
 be sought outside of it ; that hence He does not belong to it, 
 and that therefore the search after God, i.e. Theology, cannot 
 be classed with science. We answer, that this objection 
 has no force when directed against our representation of the 
 matter. To us, indeed, not the unknown Essence of God but 
 
Chap. V] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE? 219 
 
 the ectypal revelation (revelatio ectj^pa) which has been 
 made known, is the object of Theology. This revelation does 
 not lie outside of, but in the cosmos, and never presents itself 
 to us in any but its cosmical form. Without the least 
 modification, therefore, of our definition of the object of 
 science. Theology, interpreted in this Avay, certainly obtains 
 its proper place in the organism of science. And Theology 
 extends no further than this. For though the assumption 
 of a cosmos implies the confession of a ground of being for 
 that cosmos, it is not science, and therefore not Theology, 
 but only the mysticism, of our inner life, which involves the 
 data by which we personally know and experience that we 
 stand in communion with that extracosmical ground of 
 being. 
 
 § 55. The Influence of Palingenesis upon our View of 
 Theology and its Relation to the Other Sciences 
 
 In the preceding sections the difference has repeatedly 
 been shown between the conceptions which, according as 
 you reckon with or without palingenesis, you must enter- 
 tain of the task of the several faculties and their mutual 
 relations. In this closing paragraph this difference is more 
 definitely considered. There are two sorts of people, both 
 of which claim to be the interpreters of our human race 
 in its normal manifestation, and who, because thinking that 
 their own apprehension is the scientific consciousness, cannot 
 abandon the pretension that the result of their scientific work 
 alone leads to the knowledge of the object; which knowl- 
 edge is indeed not adequate, but as pure as lies within 
 our reach. The difference between these two groups can 
 briefly be designated by the word Palingenesis, in so far as 
 this implies, first, the abnormal character of that which has 
 not undergone this palingenesis, and, on the other hand, the 
 gradual growth into normality again of what exhibits itself 
 as fruit of this palingenesis. This accounts for the fact 
 that he who not only stands outside of palingenesis but: 
 also rejects it as a play of the imagination, must consider 
 everything as normal and can only view the divergencies 
 
220 § 55. THE INFLUENCE OF PALINGENESIS [Drr. n 
 
 or disturbances as necessary stages in the process of de- 
 velopment. Hence such an one deems himself authorized 
 to draw his conclusions from what exists — both from what 
 exists outside of him and from Avhat exists in h imself, — and 
 to make these conclusions compulsory for all. And from 
 this point of view no other method is conceivable. He, on 
 the other hand, who himself lives in the palingenesis, or who 
 at least accepts it as a fact, has eo ipso an entirely different 
 outlook upon himself and his surroundings. Palingenesis 
 implies that all existing things are in ruins ; that there is a 
 means bv which these ruins can be restored, yea, that in 
 part they are already restored. He neither may nor can, 
 therefore, draw compulsory conclusions from what exists 
 outside of palingenesis ; there can be no question with him 
 of an evolution process ; and for him the necessity of aU 
 science does not lie in what presents itself to him, but in 
 the criticism of existing things by which he distinguishes 
 the abnormal from the normal. 
 
 This applies to all the faculties, but becomes more impor- 
 tant in proportion as the part of the object which a given 
 facrdty is to investigate stands higher. With the faculty 
 of Xatural Philosophy, therefore, this antithesis makes itself 
 least felt ; a little more with the Medical ; more strongly 
 with t!ie Philological ; almost overwhelmingly with the Ju- 
 ridical; but most strongly of all with the Theological faculty. 
 
 If I omit from my calculations the facts of palingenesis 
 and sin. then no estrangement from God has taken place ; 
 then our understanding has not been darkened ; and no 
 disturbance has convulsed nature to cloud the transparency 
 of God in the cosmos. And it is equally inconceivable 
 that a restoring power should be operative in the world, 
 in our heart and in our thought, or that there should be 
 a revelation, in facts or in words, which does not coincide 
 with the normal process of development. For in this case 
 we have nothing but progress, continuous gain and clari- 
 fying of knowledge. And granted that there is a God and 
 that a knowledge of this God seems possible, this knowl- 
 edge of God stands infinitely higher in our nineteenth cen- 
 
Chap. V] UPON OUR VIEW OF THEOLOGY 221 
 
 tury than in the days of Abraham and Moses, of David and 
 Isaiah, of Christ and his Apostles. Hence it is from no evil 
 intent, at least not among men (of Satan we do not speak), 
 but simply the necessary consequence of the lack of a per- 
 sonal experience of palingenesis, that, so far from acknowl- 
 edging them, modern theological development cannot rest 
 until it has dispossessed all religious phenomena of their un- 
 common character, and has included them in the scope of the 
 normal development of our human consciousness. And it 
 is but the consequence of principle, which is compulsory 
 from this point of view, that the authority of the Holy 
 Scriptures is attacked, and that the conflict against the 
 Holy Scriptures must be continued until at length all that 
 they offer us is reduced to the proportions of the ordinary. 
 
 And this gives rise to the question whether from tliis 
 naturalistic point of view there can still be a theological 
 science, and whether there is still room for a theological fac- 
 ulty. This question is not answered by a rehearsal of the 
 gigantic labors of modern Theology in breaking down the 
 so-called antiquated representations. Breaking down is 
 not building up. And though it is indisputably the task of 
 science to combat error, it is plain that this negative effort 
 does not justify the existence of a faculty. Thus the ques- 
 tion should be put as follows : When once the old building 
 shall have been taken down entirely, so that without causing 
 any more concern, antique Theology, properly catalogued, 
 shall have been carefully put by in the museum of scientific 
 antiquities, will there then still remain a work of a peculiar 
 character like Theology which as such will justify the exist- 
 ence of a separate faculty ? And this must be answered in 
 the negative. It can be said superficially, that from this 
 view-point also the five questions present themselves to the 
 thinking mind — concerning his own spiritual and bodily ex- 
 istence, and his relation to his fellow-men, to nature and to his 
 God ; but — and this is the decisive point — from this point 
 of view the very existence of God is questionable. One no 
 doubt says there is a God; but another denies it. And among 
 those also who acknowledge the existence of God, some hold 
 
222 § 56. THE INFLUENCE OF PALINGENESIS [Div. □ 
 
 that He can be known, while others dispute it. Suppose it 
 were a question whetlier tliere are plants, should we be able 
 to speak of a botanical science? So long as the existence 
 of the object of a science remains uncertain, inquiry may- 
 take place ; one may sound, feel his way and seek, but one 
 cannot investigate. Science with a proper object, and a 
 method derived from that object, is still wanting. Hence 
 in no case can a complex of sciences be allowed to form an 
 independent faculty, on the ground of its organic relation to 
 life. As an escape from this dilemma an attempt has been 
 made to substitute another object for this science, by placing 
 the knowledge of Religion at its disposal instead of the knowl- 
 edge of Grod. From now on it is to be called the Science of 
 Religion. The existence of religion can in no case be denied. 
 In religion we have to do with a notable phenomenon that 
 has been observed at all times and among many nations. 
 This phenomenon may be investigated and thus theological 
 science be revivified. This, however, rests upon a misunder- 
 standing. As a subjective phenomenon religion is one of 
 the phenomena of man's spiritual existence, and as such it 
 belongs to the Philological faculty, and more appropriately 
 to history and philosophy. And as no one would think it 
 proper to found a separate faculty for aesthetics or ethics, 
 it is equally unreasonable to open a faculty for the religious 
 life in man (or at least in many men). We do not deny 
 that from this point of view also there may be a very ear- 
 nest desire to learn what may be known of God in man 
 and in nature ; and to the study of religion or of the science 
 of religion, to annex another study, which seeks after God, 
 feels after Him that it may find Him, tries to prove His 
 existence and to establish knowledge concerning Him. But 
 he who ignores the facts of the fall and palingenesis, must 
 always reckon with the denial of God by so many thou- 
 sands, for which reason he can never attain unto a positive 
 knowledge, nor ever produce anything that falls outside of 
 the scope of Philosophy. Prom this naturalistic point of 
 view the five faculties must be reduced to four. The faculty 
 of Theology, whose supposed object must still be sought, falls 
 
Chap. V] UPON OUR VIEW OF THEOLOGY 223 
 
 a-way. And everything that relates to religion, in its phe- 
 nomena as well as in the postulates that produce these phe- 
 nomena, as a department of study, goes to the Philological 
 faculty. The so-called history of religions is classed with 
 history, more appropriately with the science of countries 
 and nations. Religion as a psychological phenomenon is 
 relegated to the psychological sciences. And finally the 
 assumptions to which religion leads find their place in specu- 
 lative philosophy, which here finds a point of support for its 
 favorite monistic conclusions. 
 
 This whole matter assumes an entirely different phase, 
 however, when palingenesis is taken as the starting-point. 
 For then it ceases to be a problem whether there is a God ; 
 that the knowledge of God can be obtained is certain ; and 
 in the revelation which corresponds to this palingenesis there 
 is presented of itself an objectum sui generis, which cannot 
 be subserved under any of the other faculties; this im- 
 pels the human mind to a very serious scientific investiga- 
 tion, which is of the utmost importance to practical life. 
 Then every necessary claim, for the emergence of Theol- 
 ogy as a proper department of science, is fully met ; and 
 its right to a special faculty is entirely indisputable. He 
 who knows from personal experience that there is such a pal- 
 ingenesis, and conceives something of the important change 
 wrought by this fact in our entire sensibility, cannot remain 
 in the suspense of this vague impression, but feels impelled 
 to explain it to his consciousness, and to give himself an 
 intelligent account of all the consequences which flow from 
 it and which are bound to affect his entire world- and 
 life- view. And since this fact does not stand by itself in 
 him, but corresponds to similar facts in the spiritual exist- 
 ence of others, and to analogous facts in the cosmos and in 
 history, the demand of the human spirit is absolute, that 
 these facts, in him as well as outside of him, must be in- 
 vestigated and placed in relation and in order. And this 
 no other science can do ; hence a special science must be 
 found to do this ; since the object to be investigated bears an 
 entirely independent character. The further exposition of 
 
224 § 55. THE INFLUENCE OF PALINGENESIS [Div. U 
 
 this will be the task of the following chapters. But at this 
 point let us briefly consider the relation which, from the 
 view-point of palingenesis, must exist between the Theologi- 
 cal faculty and the other faculties. 
 
 All prosecution of science which starts out from natural- 
 istic premises denies the subjective fact of palingenesis, as 
 well as the objective fact of a special revelation, which 
 immediately corresponds to this. Even though the incon- 
 sistency is committed of maintaining from this point of view 
 a Theological faculty, no influence worth the mention can 
 ever be exerted by this faculty upon the other faculties. 
 Religion, which as a phenomenon is the object to be inves- 
 tigated by this faculty, is and remains an expression of the 
 life of the emotions, which, however strong its hold may 
 be upon life, either remains unexplained, or allows itself to 
 be classed in the common scope. Alongside of the ethical 
 and aisthetical life, there is also a religious life ; but the 
 study of that religious life imposes no claims upon the 
 studies of the other sciences, nor does it exercise an influ- 
 ence upon their methods. 
 
 This, of course, is altogether different, when in palin- 
 genesis we recognize a critical and a restorative fact, which 
 both subjectively and objectively places all things, along 
 with their origin and issue, before us in an entirely differ- 
 ent light. In the Holy Scriptures palingenesis is a general 
 conception, which is applied to the subject of science (vide 
 Tit. iii. 5), as well as to the object of science (vide Matt. 
 xix. 28). It assumes a first genesis, which by a departure 
 of the process of life from its principle has led to death, and 
 now it declares that a repetition of the genesis takes place, 
 but this time as a springing up again of that which went 
 down, and that in this restoration the method of genesis 
 repeats itself, viz. the development from a germ. This is 
 applied to man in all his inward life, but will sometime be 
 applied as well to man's somatical existence, as to the whole 
 cosmos outside of him, as far as this also has shared in the 
 false process. Hence palingenesis is now operative in the 
 human mind ; and, analogous to this, palingenesis will here- 
 
Chap. V] UPON OUR VIEW OF THEOLOGY 225 
 
 after appear in the somatical and cosmical life. This palin- 
 genesis is introduced spiritually by an act of God's Spirit 
 in the spiritual life of humanity (inspiration in its broadest 
 sense), and somatically by an act of the power of God in the 
 natural life of the world (miracles in their widest interpre- 
 tation). From which it follows that all study of science, 
 where the investigator occupies the view-point of palingen- 
 esis, must reckon with the four phenomena: (1) of personal 
 regeneration ; and (2) of its corresponding inspiration ; 
 (3) of the final restoration of all things ; and (4) of its 
 corresponding manifestation of God's power in miracles 
 (NiphledtK). These four phenomena have no existence to 
 the scientist who starts out from naturalistic premises. On 
 the contrary, Ms principle and starting-point compel him to 
 cancel these phenomena, or, where this is not possible, to ex- 
 plain them naturalistically. He, on the other hand, who has 
 personally been taken up into this powerful, all-dominat- 
 ing activity of palingenesis, finds his starting-point in these 
 very phenomena, and mistrusts every result of investiga- 
 tion which does not entirely correspond to them. If now 
 this palingenesis applied only to the religious life, one could 
 say that the faculty of Theology alone is bound to deal with 
 it. But this is not at all the case. Palingenesis is a uni- 
 versal conception which dominates your whole person, and 
 all of life about you ; moreover, palingenesis is a power that 
 exerts an influence not merely in your religious, but equally 
 in your ethical, eesthetical, and intellectual life. A Jurist, a 
 Physician, a Philologian, and a Physicist, who have person- 
 ally come under the action of this palingenesis, experience 
 its influence as well as the Theologian, and not only in 
 their emotional but in their intellectual life. This, indeed, 
 has been too much overlooked in earlier periods ; where- 
 fore the consequences of palingenesis have been looked for 
 in Theology alone, and thus the mischievous demand has 
 been imposed upon the other sciences that they should 
 subject themselves to the utterances of Theology in those 
 points also which did not pertain to its object of investiga- 
 tion. The Reformed alone have established the rule with 
 
226 § 55. THE INFLUENCE OE PALESf GENE SIS [Diy. n 
 
 reference to tlie magistracy, that it should not ask the 
 Church to interpret God's ordinances regarding the duties 
 of its life, but that the magistrates should study them out 
 independently for themselves from nature and from the 
 word of God. In this way homage was paid to the prin- 
 ciple that every one who shares this palingenesis should 
 exercise independent judgment in all his own affairs. If 
 this principle, which is the only true one, were applied to 
 all the sciences, it would readily be seen that Theology is 
 by no means called upon to arbitrate in every domain of sci- 
 ence ; while, on the other hand, also, it would be seen that 
 a twofold study must develop itself of all the sciences, — 
 one, by those who must deny palingenesis, and the other 
 by those who must reckon with it. 
 
 This, however, does not take away the fact, that the other 
 sciences must leave Theology the task of investigating palin- 
 genesis. For this is its appointed task. Theology alone is 
 called to do this. If there were no palingenesis, there would 
 be no other than a natural knowledge of God, which belongs 
 in the Philological faculty to the philosophical, and more 
 especially to the psychological and ontological, sciences. 
 Since, on the contrary, palingenesis has come in as an uni- 
 versal phenomenon, dominating all things, a faculty of its 
 own had to be created for Theology, and it is the task of 
 Theology to take the four above-mentioned phenomena as 
 the object of its independent investigation. It must exam- 
 ine : (1) inspiration, as the introductory fact to psychical 
 palingenesis ; (2) the psychical palingenesis itself ; (3) the 
 manifestation that operates introductory to the cosmical pal- 
 ingenesis ; and (4) the cosmical palingenesis. Later on it 
 will be shown why this entire study must be drawn from 
 the Holy Scriptures as the principium of Theology, and how 
 it owes its unity just to this common principium. For the 
 present, let it suffice that we simply assume this as a fact, and 
 conclude from it that the investigation here to be instituted 
 forms a special, well-defined ground, and that the other facul- 
 ties must leave this investigation to Theology. And as, in 
 virtue of the mutual relations of the sciences, one adopts 
 
Chap. V] UPON OUR VIEW OF THEOLOGY 227 
 
 its borrowed data (Lelinsatze) from the other whenever it is 
 necessary, so that the Juridical science, for instance, does not 
 compose a psychology for itself, and does not teach a physics 
 of its own in economics, but borrows as much material as it 
 requires from the philological and physical sciences ; so also 
 is the relation here. No one of the other faculties can insti- 
 tute an investigation of its own of palingenesis, but must 
 borrow its data for this from Theology. And as to their 
 own ground of investigations, they operate from the con- 
 sciousness of palingenesis, as far as this refers to their own 
 department ; and they cannot rest until with their own 
 method they have brought the insight and the knowledge of 
 their own object into harmony with the study of palingenesis. 
 
DIVISION III 
 
 THEOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 
 
 § 56. The Name 
 
 In the answer to what we are to understand by Theology, 
 even the name is in our time too superficially explained. 
 The reason is that men are in some perplexity about the 
 name. Having broken away from old-time Theology, and 
 having displaced it by something else, the old name is 
 merely kept to maintain in a moral and formal sense an 
 hereditary right to the heritage of Sacrosanct Theology. 
 This is only arbitrary, unless one can prove, genetically at 
 least, his relation to old-time Theology. If this cannot be 
 done, it does not infringe the right to abandon what has 
 become unfit for use, and to replace it by a new complex of 
 studies entirely differently understood, but in that case the 
 old name should be discarded. For then the name becomes 
 a false label, and its retention would be dishonest. Our 
 going back to the name of Theology is therefore no anti- 
 quarian predilection, but is demanded by the method that 
 must guide us in defining the conception of Theology. The 
 effort more and more put forth in the second half of this 
 century, either in the psychologic-empiric line of Schleier- 
 macher, or in the speculative track of Hegel, or in both, to 
 form a certain idea of the departments taught in the Theo- 
 logical faculty, to translate this idea into a conception, and 
 
 228 
 
CuAi'. I] § 66. THE NAME 2li9 
 
 to take this conception as the definition of Theology, is a 
 method which can stand no testing, because in this way the 
 certainty that the object of this science remains the same 
 is altogether wanting. In his Qratylus Plato does not 
 say in vain: "To teach a thing rightly it is necessary first 
 to define its name." Even in itself, therefore, a study of 
 the name of Theology is demanded ; but this is much more 
 necessary now since a genealogical proof must be furnished 
 by those who claim hereditary right, and this hereditarj'- 
 right to the Theological inheritance must be disputed with 
 more than one contestant. 
 
 For the right understanding of the name Theology the 
 etymology and the usage of the word claim our attention. 
 With respect to the etymology three questions arise : In 
 what sense is -logia to be interpreted ? In what sense 6e6^ ? 
 And in this connection is 0eo'? to be taken actively or 
 passively ? The addition -logia occurs, just as the allied 
 terms, in the sense of speaking about something^ as well 
 as in the sense of thinking about something. Ao<yeiov was in 
 Athens what we call the platform, and deoXoyeiov was the 
 place on the stage from which they spoke who represented 
 the gods as speaking. The conception of speaking, there- 
 fore, and not of thinking, stands here clearly in the fore- 
 ground. In ocTTeoXoyia, (j^vaLoXoyia, and other combinations, 
 on the other hand, -logia has the sense of tracing, investigat- 
 ing. In itself, therefore, OeoXoryia could indicate etymologi- 
 calLy the action of a 6eo\6jo<;, i.e. of one who speaks about 
 God, as well as the thinking about God. The only thing that 
 serves as a more precise indication here is the age of the word 
 and the object to which -Xoyia is coupled. The root of Xeyetv 
 (to speak) with Homer almost always means " to gather," 
 with or without choice. Only later on it obtains the sense 
 of speaking. And only later still, in its last development, the 
 utterance of the thought is put in the background, in order to 
 cause the thought itself to appear in the front. Since now 
 the word OeoXoyia occurs already in Plato, the first under- 
 standing of -Xoyia has the choice ; a choice which is con- 
 firmed by Plato's own words. In his de lie Publ. Lib. II., 
 
230 § 56. THE NAME [Div. lu 
 
 p. 379", he writes : " We, O Adimantos, are at this moment 
 no poets (^TToirjTai), but speak as founders of a city (olKKnai 
 TTo'Xea)?), and as such we should understand the forms (rinroi) 
 in which the poets must tell their legend." The question 
 is then asked, " What should be the forms (types) of Theol- 
 ogy?" upon which the answer follows that the gods must 
 be proclaimed as they are, whether they are spoken of in 
 "epics, in lyrics, or in tragedy" (ev 'iirecn, iv /xeXeaiv or iv 
 rpayayBla'). This statement admits of no doubt. In this 
 place at least -Xoyia is used in the sense of speaking. And 
 with reference to its composition with 6eo-, it is evident 
 that the idea of investigating the being of God must have 
 originated much later than the necessity of speaking about 
 the gods. Hence our first conclusion is that -\oyia in this 
 combination was originally used in the sense of speaking. 
 The second question, what 6eo- in this combination means, 
 the gods in general or the only true God, can likewise be 
 answered by the above citation from Plato. Plato himself 
 interchanges ' theology ' with a speaking of the gods in 
 epics, in lyrics, or in tragedy. Concerning the third ques- 
 tion, however, whether in this combination 6eo- is object or 
 subject, we must grant the possibility of both. In 6eoh6<no's, 
 aeo/xrjvia, OeoKpaTia, OeoKpi(Tia, 6eoya)j,{a, Oeoirpa^Ca, OeoTrpoTria, 
 etc., a god is meant who gives, who is angry, who rules, 
 judges, marries, acts, speaks, and thus deo- is the subject. 
 On tlie other hand, in 6eoaej3eia, Oeofjupirjcria, deoK\vTrja-i's, 
 OeoXarpeia, etc., it is a god who is feared, imitated, in- 
 voked, and honored, hence 0eo- is the object. ©€0X0710, 
 therefore, can mean etymologically the speaking of God, 
 as well as the speaking about God. Or if you take 
 OeoXoyia in the later sense of knowledge, then it indicates 
 a knowledge which God Himself has, as well as a knoAvledge 
 which we have of God. Finally, in the last-mentioned sense 
 BeoXoyc; seems to be older than deoXoyelv, and it appears 
 that OeoXoyelv as well as OeoXoyia are derived from it. The 
 result therefore is that Theology etymologically is no com- 
 bination of Beo'i and Xoyo^, but means originally a speaking 
 of or about a god or gods ; and that only with the further 
 
Chap. I] § 56. THE NAME 231 
 
 development of the word logos, which at first indicated a 
 collected mass, then a word, and only later reason or thought, 
 6eo\6yo^, deoXoyelv, and OeoXoyia also were conceived as a 
 knowledge of or concerning a god or the gods. 
 
 Since the etymology admits so many possibilities, the 
 more accurate knowledge of the term "Theologia" should be 
 gleaned from the usage of the word. With Lucian and 
 Plutarch 6eo\6jo<; occurs in the general sense of one who 
 treats of the gods, and Augustine declares in de Qiv. Dei, 
 XVIII., c. 14 : " During the same period of time arose the 
 poets, who were also called theologians, because they made 
 hymns about the gods." With Aristotle deoXoyeiv indi- 
 cates, to be a theologian, or to act as a theologian. 'ETnarrj/jLT] 
 OeoXoyiK'^ means with Aristotle (^Metaph. X. 6) a knowledge 
 concerning the divine ; while with Plato, " theology " occurs 
 as a speaking about the gods, and with Aristotle in the 
 plural number, " Theologies " were investigations into divine 
 things {Metereol. 2. 1). Thxis far in all these combinations 
 the general conception was implied of engaging oneself with 
 the matter of the gods or deity, either in consultation with 
 tradition, or in reflection for the sake of a more accurate 
 understanding. With the name "Theology," this general 
 conception has been adopted by Christian writers, modified 
 according to the requirements of their point of view, and 
 carried out upon a large scale. He who reads the exhaustive 
 explanation of Suicer, Thes. graee., under the words OeoXoyo';, 
 OeoXor^ia, and OeoXojelv perceives at once how greatly the use 
 of these words was increased and how much more deeply the 
 thinking consciousness entered into the sense of these words, 
 than with the classical writers. That the apostle John was 
 early called the Theologian (o OeoXoyo';'), even in the title of 
 the Apocalypse, cannot properly be explained from his refer- 
 ence to the Logos in the prologue to his Gospel and in his 
 first Epistle ; but indicates that John was esteemed to be more 
 versed in the divine mysteries than any other apostle. This 
 readily accounts for the fact that he is indicated as such in 
 the title of the Apocalypse and not in the title of his Gospel. 
 In a like sense all the writers of the Old and New Testaments, 
 
232 § 56. THE NAME [Div, III 
 
 but more especially the prophets and apostles, are called theolo- 
 gians. Thus Athanasius says, Oratio de incarnatione Verbi, I., 
 p. 62, ravTa Be koI ivapa tS)v aiiTOV tov 'S.mrijpov OeoXoywv av- 
 hp5)v "TTLCTTevcrdai tk Bwarai, evTvyxavwv tok eKeCvwv ypd/i/iacnv ; 
 i.e. one thing and another concerning the Saviour you can 
 also confirm by an appeal to the theologians if you turn to 
 their writings. But shortly after this follows the signifi- 
 cance of theological investigations of ecclesiastical questions. 
 Thus Gregory of Nazianzus was called " the Theologian," not 
 to place him on a level with John, as though to him also divine 
 mysteries had been revealed, but because in the treatment of 
 dogma he always ascended to God, and thus, as Gregory the 
 Presbyter writes, reached the height of dogma (ui/ro? Soyiid- 
 rav'). (See Suicer, I., p. 1360.) 
 
 If thus the word " theologos " itself admitted of a twofold 
 meaning, that of " a speaker in the name of God," and that 
 of "a thinker who in his thinking ascends to God," the 
 word " theologein " was still more pliable. This also signi- 
 fied at first to speak in the name of God; for instance, Tre/it 
 TovTcov Toov hoy p-aTcov 6eo\oyel 'Haaia';, i.e. concerning these 
 things Isaiah speaks as commanded by God. Secondly, to 
 explain any point theologically ; for instance, Adyov elirev 'iva 
 Tr)v reketav inrap^LV aot. rod 'Itjctov Oeo\oy^ar}, i.e. he names 
 Christ the Logos, in order to explain the absolute relation 
 of Jesus to the very essence of God, — a use of this word 
 which already with Justin Martyr obtained more general 
 currency to indicate an investigation which was instituted 
 with a certain dignity of form. Thus, for instance, in his 
 Dial. c. Tr. (ed. von Otto, Jenge, 1876, I. 400 B), "Do 
 you inquire in the spirit of theological discussion why 
 one ' a ' was added to the name of Abraham, and ask with 
 an air of importance why one 'r' was added to the name 
 of Sarah ? " (Ato. tI p,ev ev d\cf>a ttjowtoj Trpoaeredrj tw 'A^paafi 
 ovojxaTi, 0€oXoy€K, Kal Bod tI ev pSi to) ^dppa^ ovofian, ofioia'i 
 KOfjL7ro\oye2<;') ; where from the coupling of KOfnroXoyelv and 
 OeoXoyelv it clearly appears, that in both cases a dignity, a 
 gravity, and a rhetoric are implied, which did not corre- 
 spond to the unimportance of the question. But besides 
 
Chap. I] § 56. THE NAME 233 
 
 these two meanings, which run parallel with those of " theo- 
 logos," the great Fathers of the Christological conflict also 
 used, in the footsteps of Justin, the word "theologein" in 
 the sense of proclaiming one to be God, of announcing one as 
 God. Justin Martyr wrote in his Dial. e. Tryph. (ed. von 
 Otto, Jense, 1876, I., p. 104 C), with the Messianic prophecy 
 in Psalm xlv. 6 sq. in mind, "If, therefore, you say that 
 the Holy Spirit calls any other God (Oeoko'yeiv) and Lord 
 (^KvpioXo'^eiv) except the Father of all the Universe and 
 his Christ," — which manner of speech, both by the sense 
 and by the addition of KvpioXoyelv, leaves no doubt but 
 that deoXoyelv is taken in the sense of calling one God. 
 Thus also we read in Athanasius (Tom. I., p. 1030) : 'Ej' 
 aircuriv oh Bo^d^erai 6 irarfjp OeoXoyovfievo';, iv avTol<; So^dl^erai 
 Koi uto? Kol TO irvevfia to ayiov, i.e. " In all points in which 
 the Father is glorified by being spoken of as God, the same 
 also takes place with the Son and with the Holy Ghost." 
 For the sake of still greater clearness, the word 6e6v is even 
 added, OeoXoyelv nva Beov, as for instance, in Philostorgius, 
 Hist. Heal. XIV., p. 103, to ^i^XCov OeoXoyei 6eov top . . . 
 BrifjLiovpybv aircivTcov, i.e. This book, the Gospel of John, calls 
 the author of all things Crod. Thus also Csesarius, Quest. 
 22, p. 44, says of the Christ, "also when he is incarnate, 
 nevertheless utto t&v •7rpo<^r)T5)v deoXoyetTai, i.e. is he called 
 God by the prophets ; the Latin praedicare Deum.^' And 
 finally there was developed from this the more general sig- 
 nificance of deifying something or making it to be God. For 
 instance, ov irdvTa KaTo, ^vaiv r^iveTai, "va jxr] OeoXoyrjO^ r) 
 <f>vcn<s (Chrysostom, V., p. 891), i.e. "It is by Divine appoint- 
 ment that all things do not happen in accordance with nature, 
 lest nature be taken for God." 
 
 In this way only can we understand the history of the 
 word "theology" in Patristic literature. If a theologian 
 is one who speaks in the name of God, and theologein 
 the act itself of speaking in the name of God, then we 
 understand how " Theology " could mean the Old and the New 
 Testament: T^? TraXaia<; OeoXojtai; koX tt)? vea<; 6eoXoyLa<; ttjv 
 ^Vfijimviav opwv, OavfidaeTui ttjv aX-qOeCav, i.e. "Seeing the 
 
234 § 56. THE NAME [Div. Ill 
 
 harmony of the Old and New Testament, one marvels at the 
 truth" (Theodor. Therap. See Suicer, I., p. 1359). For 
 the word of God comes to us in these two Testaments. If 
 in the second place the word theologein means to explain 
 a point so fully as to trace it back to God, then it is clear 
 how " Theology " could mean : reduction to the mystery 
 of the essence of God. Thus says Theodoret (Qucest. in 
 G-enes. I., p. 3), n hiqirore fj^fj -irpoTeTaxe rfj'i twv 6\mv Srj- 
 fxiovpyia'; 6eo\oyiav ; i.e. " Why did not Moses preface the 
 creation-narrative with an introduction on the mystery of 
 the essence of God ? " If, in the third place, " theologein " 
 was used in the sense of "to declare some one God," then 
 it follows also that " Theology " could signify : the divine 
 appellation. Thus says Pachymeres in his note on Diony- 
 sius Areopagita (Suicer, I., p. 800), ra kolvw ttj OeCa (f)me(, 
 dpjj,o^6vTa ovofiara ■^vcofievrjv iTnypd(j)ei. OeoXoyiav, i.e. the 
 names which in general belong to the divine nature, he 
 calls tJieologia unita. And since in the bitter conflict against 
 the Arians everything hinged on the point of proclaiming 
 Christ as God, "Theology" in this sense became almost 
 synonymous with the Deity of Christ. Thus Gregory of 
 Nyssa speaks of a Kripvaaeiv to fivar-^piov t^? ffeoXoyia';, with 
 his eye on John i. 1, which thus means to say, " to announce 
 the mystery of the Deity of Christ." This Theologia was 
 then placed over against olKovo/xia as the appellation for 
 his human nature. Thus in Theodoret, Oomm. in Heh. iv. 
 14, p. 414: we ought to know riva fiev ttj'; ffeoKoyia';, Tiva hi 
 TTJ? oUovofjiia^ ovofiara, i.e. what names belong to his divine, 
 and what to his human, nature. In connection with this, 
 " Theology " was also used in the sense of the " mystery of 
 the Trinity." The knowledge of God, which as such was 
 the characteristic of Christianity, was contained just in this 
 trinitarian mystery. Thus Athanasius, de Definitionibus, 
 Tom. II., p. 44 : 'Etti tt}? OeoXojLa^ jxCav cj)vcnv ofioXoyovfiev 
 T»)9 07 ta? T/3taSo9, Tjoet? B' vTroaTciaeL';, i.e. " Of the mystery of 
 the Divine Being we confess that in the Holy Trinity there 
 is only one nature, but a threefold hypostasis." Photius, 
 Epist. XXXIV., p. 95, aaTrep eVt T'^? OeoXoyia'; to Tpei<; o/ioXo- 
 
Chap. I] §56. THE NAME 235 
 
 rfelv ov(TLa<; iroXvQeov, i.e. even as it is Polytheistic to confess 
 three substances in the mystery of the Trinity. Theophy- 
 lact, Comm. in Math., c. xxviii., p. 185, elircbv on Bel ^am-TC- 
 ^eiv ek TO ovofjLa ttjs rptafio? r^y deoXoyiav r^fuv irapeBcaKev, i.e. 
 by the command to baptize in the name of the Trinity, 
 Christ has revealed to us the mystery of the Divine Being. 
 And in like sense Gregory Nazianzen uses the word when 
 in Oration I., p. 16, he writes, rpca mn irepl d€o\oyia<; appco- 
 (yrrjiiaTa, i.e. there are three weaknesses with reference to 
 the interpretation of the Divine mystery. 
 
 Thus the development of the term Theology is not doubt- 
 ful. First the word was adopted from the pagan usage 
 to indicate a speaking of the things that pertain to the 
 gods or God, whether materially, as declarations of divine 
 affairs, or simply formally, as a speaking with dignity and 
 with a certain unction. In the conflict about the divine 
 nature of Christ the still living Grecian language-conscious- 
 ness began to use the term OeoXoyelv actively in the sense 
 of calling one God, and thereby OeoXoyia obtained gradually 
 the significance of the confession of the Deity of Christ. 
 Since the Christological conflict speedily assumed a Trini- 
 tarian character, and the confession of the Trinity hinged 
 upon the acknowledgment of the Deity of Christ, Theology 
 began gradually to be interpreted in the sense of the mystery 
 of the Divine Essence as Trinitarian. And finally, by Theol- 
 ogy there began to be understood that which is revealed to 
 us concerning this mystery, since to this extent only we can 
 deal with this mystery. At the point of history when the 
 supremacy of the Church was transferred from the East to 
 the West, and the living word OeoXoyia was lost in the dead 
 barbarism Theologia, this Latin term was understood to mean 
 the revealed knowledge of the mystery of the Threefold 
 Being of God, and by no means a prosecution of Theological 
 departments of study. 
 
 § 57. Theological Modality of the Conception of Theology 
 
 Thomas Aquinas (^Summa Theol. I. 9, i., art. 7) already 
 protested against the abuse of making the nature of Theology 
 
236 § 57. THEOLOGICAL MODALITY [Div. m 
 
 to consist, not in the knowledge of God, but in the knowl- 
 edge of an entirely different object of investigation; and 
 thus against those who assigned, not God, but "another 
 subject for this science, for example, either things and 
 signs, or the works of redemption, or else the whole Christ, 
 that is, both head and members"; for, says he, "all these 
 are treated in this science, but according to their order with 
 respect to God'' ("aliter assignaverunt huius scientiae sub- 
 jectum, sc. vel res, et signa, vel opera reparationis, vel totum 
 Christum, id est, caput et membra," . . . "de omnibus istis 
 tractatur in ista scientia, sed secundum ordinem ad Deum"}.^ 
 So far as this protest directs itself against the soteriological 
 or Christological interpretation of the science of Theology, 
 it is equally pertinent to almost all definitions which in the 
 course of this century have been given of the conception of 
 Theologj'. What he says, on the other hand, of Theology 
 as a study of the Signa et Res, refers in part to Peter 
 Lombard's Sententiae, but principally to Augustine, who, 
 in his Lihri IV. de doctrina Christiana, had followed the 
 division into Signa et Res, — a division which Thomas does 
 not reject, but which in his view does not define the "sub- 
 ject of Theology," or what we would call the olject of 
 Theology. 
 
 The important interest defended by Thomas in this pro- 
 test, a protest to which all earlier Reformed theologians have 
 lent their influence, lies in the requirement that the concep- 
 
 1 Scientiae subjectum here stands for what we would call Scientiae objen- 
 turn. This confusion between the grammatical and the logical antithesis of 
 subject and object is to be laid to Aristotle's credit, who took t6 iiroKeltiepov, 
 i.e. the subject, also for t6 wepl ov 6 X47os ylverai. Compare Prantl, Ge- 
 schichte cler Logik im Abendland, Leipzig, 1867, III. 208 : "An unzahligen 
 Stellen treffen wir fortan (since Duns Scotus, tl308, who first placed them 
 over against each other as termini), bis in das 18th Jahrhundert (d. h. bis 
 Alex. Baumgarten) diesen gebrauch der Worte ' subjective ' und ' objective,' 
 weloher zu dem jetzigen sich genau umgekehrt verlialt : namlioh damalshiess 
 subjectivum dasjenige, was sich auf das Subject der Urtheille, also auf die 
 concreten Gegenstande des Denkens, bezieht ; hiiigegen objective jenes, was 
 im blossen objicere, i.e. im Vorstelligmachen, liegt und hiemit auf Eechnung 
 des Vorstellenden fallt." 
 
 See also Rudolph Encken, Die Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart, Leipzig, 
 1893 : Subjectiv-Objectiv, pp. 25 ff. ; and Trendelenburg, Elementa Logices 
 Aristoteliciae, ed. VIII., pp. 54, 55. 
 
Chap. I] OF THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 237 
 
 tion of Theology must not only be construed abstractly logi- 
 cally, but also theologically. Augustine already tried to do 
 this, though he rarely used the word Theology to indicate 
 the conception intended by us. What in the Western 
 Church also was called Theology, he called Doctrina de Beo 
 or Christian Doctrine; and however strange it may seem, 
 by the word Theology Augustine understands the pagan 
 rather than the Christian conceptions of the Divine. This 
 appears prominently in his Be Oivitate Bei, in which 
 he (Lib. VI., c. 5 sq., ed. Bened. Bass. Ven., 1797, 
 pp. 179-255) discusses the system of Varro, as though 
 there were three kinds of Theology: mythology (theologia 
 fabulosay, which lived in tradition and in the theatre; 
 natural theology (theologia naturalis), which is found 
 in the writings of the philosophers; and State religion 
 (theologia civilis), which was maintained by official public 
 worship. And it is noteworthy that while continually 
 quoting this threefold description of Theology, Augustine 
 nowhere places theologia Christiana, or vera, over against 
 it, but always speaks of Boctrina Christiana. Once only, 
 in caput 8 (p. 203), does he take theologia in its general 
 sense, but still not to express doctrina Christiana, but that 
 after which the doctrina Christiana seeks. In refuting the 
 physiological representations of the philosophers he says: 
 "But all these things, they say, have certain physical, 
 i.e. natural, interpretations, showing their natural mean- 
 ing ; as though in this disputation we were seeking phj^sics 
 and not theology, which is the account, not of nature, but 
 of God." From this we see, that by " Theology " Augustine 
 did not understand the study of our science, nor that sci- 
 ence itself; by him this was called doctrina; but much more 
 the knowledge of God, as the aim of theological study. 
 
 Thus with Augustine already this deeper conception of 
 Theology bore a decidedly theological character. This is 
 seen in his Lihri IV. de doctrina Christiana, where he goes 
 back to God, as Himself the Wisdom (Sapientia), and calls 
 Christ, as the Word of God (Verbum Dei), the first way to 
 God (prima ad Deum via), and then by the side of the 
 
238 § 57. THEOLOGICAL MODALITY [Div. ni 
 
 intellectual method of attaining the knowledge of God, he 
 also emphasizes the way of contemplation (via contempla- 
 tionis) and the seeing of Grod. Thomas Aquinas also 
 occupies this point of view in the main, and in his footsteps 
 also Calvin. Thomas' chief work bears, indeed, the title of 
 Summa theologica, but in his introduction he systematically 
 treats of the saora doctrina, which really is not Theology 
 itself, but circa theologiam versatur. Only rarely does the 
 word theologia occur with him, as, for instance, when in P. 
 i. i. Qu. art. 7, ed. Neap., 1762, I., p. 12^ he says: "But in 
 this science discourse is chiefly made about God, for it is 
 called Theology, as being discourse about God" ("Sed inhac 
 scientia fit sermo principaliter de Deo; dicitur enim theo- 
 logia, quasi sermo de Deo"^. Here, however, he gives us 
 least of all a definition, but derives an argument from the 
 etymology of the word to maintain " God " (6 ^eo?) as the 
 object of the 'sacred doctrine.' The real conception which 
 he attaches to Theology is therefore much more clearly seen 
 from what he says concerning faith, hope and love as the 
 three virtutes theologicae (see I., secundae, qu. 62, art. i. 
 sq.')- Let it be noted also that he did not write as the 
 title of his work : Summa theologiae, but Summa theologica. 
 De Moor, in his Comm. in Marck., Tom. I., p. 9, quotes 
 these words of Thomas: "Theology is taught by God, 
 teaches of God, and leads to God" ("Theologia a Deo 
 docetur, Deum docet et ad Deum ducit ") ; since, however, 
 he does not name the place where he found this citation, it 
 is not to be verified. In like manner Calvin does not give 
 to his dogmatics the title of Epitome Theologiae, but of 
 Institutio religionis Christianae, and translates the word 
 theologia, which he almost everywhere avoids, by notitia Dei 
 (cf. Lib. I., c. i., § i. sg.). The indexes are not trustworthy 
 with reference to this. The index to Thomas as well as 
 to Calvin's Institutes gives a meaning to the word Theology 
 in which the word Theology itself was used neither by Thomas 
 nor by Calvin. 
 
 This distinction, now, which maintained itself for a 
 long time between theological science as sacred learning 
 
Chap. I] OP THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 239 
 
 or instruction (^sacra dootritia, institutio'), etc., and The- 
 ology itself as knowledge of Q-od (notitia Dei), was not 
 trivial ; but tended to interpret the conception of Theology 
 theologically, as this theological conception is more precisely 
 analyzed into the theologia archetypa and ectypa. And this 
 must be maintained. The field of knowledge disclosed 
 'to us in Theology cannot logically be coordinated with 
 the other fields that are investigated by our understanding. 
 As soon as this is done, Theology is already robbed of its 
 peculiar character, and cannot be interpreted except as a 
 part of metaphysics, or as a science whose object of investi- 
 gation is the empirical phenomenon of religion, or, more 
 precisely, the Christian religion. If, on the other hand. 
 Theology is a knowledge which, instead of dealing with 
 created things, illumines our minds with respect to the 
 Creator, and the "origin and end of all things," it follows 
 that this knowledge must be of a different nature, and must 
 come to us in another way. The normae that are valid for 
 our knowledge elsewhere have no use here; the way of 
 knowledge must here be another one, and the character itself 
 of this knowledge must differ from all other science. As 
 within the boundaries of the finite you must follow a differ- 
 ent way to knowledge for the spiritual than for the natural 
 sciences, the way to the knowledge of that which transcends 
 the finite and lies beyond its boundary cannot coincide with 
 the Erkenntnisstheorie of the finite. Hence we have no war- 
 rant for making a logical division and saying : Science inves- 
 tigates nature, man, and God, and the science which does the 
 latter is Theology, simply because the coordination of nature, 
 God and man is false. He who views these three as co- 
 ordinates, starts out logically from the denial of God as God. 
 This was entirely correctly perceived by the Greek Fathers, 
 and in the steps of Augustine by the Western Fathers, in 
 consequence of which, even though without sufficient clear- 
 ness of insight, they refused to place Theology in line with 
 the other -logics or -nomies, and demanded a theological 
 interpretation of the conception of Theology. The force of 
 this theological interpretation was still felt in the second 
 
240 §57. THEOLOGICAL MODALITY [Div. Ill 
 
 half of the eighteenth century, whenever the dogmatic! de- 
 scribed Dogmatics not as a subdivision of Theology or as 
 one of the departments of theological study, but as the 
 theologia propria, to which exegesis, church history, church 
 polity, etc., were added as auxiliary studies. They had 
 already lost the conception of Theology to such an extent 
 that, although not theoretically, they practically applied the 
 name of Theology to the human study which was devoted to 
 this revealed knowledge of God ; but from their limitation of 
 this name to Dogmatics it was evident that they took this to 
 be the study that leads to the right understanding of the real 
 knowledge of God. They were not concerned about all kinds 
 of learning, but about God Himself, and that alone which 
 could bring us a closer knowledge of that God could claim in 
 the more precise sense the name of Theology. It is indeed 
 true, as is shown by the history of Encyclopedia, that the En- 
 cyclopedists gradually began to understand by Theology the 
 complex of the several departments of theological study; 
 but no one will contend that in doing this they contributed 
 to an organic interpretation of the conception of Theology. 
 Of Schleiermacher only it can reall}' be said that, seeing the 
 unskilfulness of the earlier Encyclopedists, he seriously 
 tried to bring Theology, not as a knowledge of God, but 
 taken as a theological science, to a unity of interpretation. 
 It is too bad that he Avent to work at this so unhistorieally; 
 that he paid almost no attention to the development of the 
 conception of Theology in former ages: and still more is 
 it a pity that, mistaken in the idea of the object, he could 
 not attain to an organic interpretation, and advanced no 
 further than to explain it as an aggregate, united by the 
 tendency of these several studies to aid in preparation 
 for the sacred office. By this he cut off the theological 
 understanding from the conception of Theology; and they 
 who have come after him have no doubt superseded his 
 aggregate by an organic conception, and his exceedingly 
 limited object by a broader object, but have not removed 
 the breach between what Theology was originally and what 
 has since been understood by it. The rule continued to be 
 
Chap. I] OF THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 241 
 
 derived exclusively from Logica by which to define the con- 
 ception of Theology, and thus it was impossible to regain 
 the theological conception of this science. This does by no 
 means imply that repristination of the former conception 
 would suffice. The very contrary will appear from our 
 further exposition. All we intend to say, is that here also 
 no progress is possible, unless we continue our work along 
 the line of those threads that were spun for us in the past. 
 
 And in looking back upon this past we find that in the 
 conception of Theology a characteristic theological modality 
 exhibits itself almost constantly; by which we mean that 
 the peculiar character of Theology has exerted an influence 
 also upon the forming of this conception. How far this 
 influence extended can only be shown in the following sec- 
 tions ; but in order to place the significance of those sections 
 in the desired light, it was specially necessary to refer to 
 this point. 
 
 § 58. The Idea of Theology 
 
 He who is called to the fifth story of a large building, 
 and finds an elevator, which without any effort on his part 
 brings him in a moment where he wants to be, will not 
 climb the hundred or more steps on foot. Applied to our 
 knowledge, this implies that common, slow investigation, 
 with its inductions and deductions, is merely the stairs with 
 its hundred steps by which we climb the heights of knowl- 
 edge, while the attainment of knowledge is ever the aim in 
 view. From which it follows that if that same height of 
 knowledge can be reached by a shorter or less laborious 
 way, the former stairs become worthless. This is true hori- 
 zontally as well as vertically. Since now there are railways 
 to all the corners of Europe, no one travels any longer by 
 stage-coach. Though there may be a peculiar pleasure 
 attached to that slow rate of progress, or rather to creeping 
 along the way of knowledge, it is, nevertheless, somewhat 
 morbid to abandon for the sake of this lower pleasure the 
 much higher delight of the knowledge of the truth. Lessing's 
 proverb has led us astray on this point, and therefore the brief 
 
242 §58. THE IDEA OF THEOLOGY [Div. HI 
 
 indication of the only true point of view was necessary. What 
 surprises still await us of locomotion by electricity or through 
 the air are not easily foretold ; but this is certain, that every 
 more rapid communication antiquates the less rapid. This 
 compels us in Theology, also, to distinguish between the 
 conception and the idea of Theology. The conception is 
 bound to the way of knowledge which we travel. The 
 idea, on the other hand, views the end, independently of the 
 question of the way by which this end shall be reached. 
 This was the distinction in view in the formerly generally 
 current division of Theology into a theologia unionis, vis- 
 ionis and stadii. This supplied three conceptions, which 
 found their unity in the idea of Theology. The theologia 
 unionis was that highest knowledge of God, which Christ 
 possessed in His human nature, by virtue of the union of this 
 nature with the Divine nature. The theologia visionis, also 
 called patriae, was the appellation of the knowledge of God 
 which once the elect will obtain in the state of heavenly 
 blessedness. And the theologia stadii, also called studii, or 
 viatorum, expressed that knowledge of God which is acquired 
 here upon earth by those who are known of the Lord. 
 That which was common to them all, and which united 
 these three conceptions, was the general idea of the knowl- 
 edge of God. The aim of Theology, therefore, did not lie 
 in the theological investigation, neither in all sorts of 
 studies and learning, but exclusively in knowing God. All 
 study and learning served only as scaffolds for erecting the 
 palace of our knowledge ; but as soon as the building was 
 finished that scaffolding lost all its meaning, even became a 
 hindrance, and had to be cleared away. And this was more 
 clearly perceived in olden times, than by most theologians 
 after Schleiermacher. The idea of Theology can be none 
 other than the knowledge of G-od, and all activity impelled 
 by Theology must in the last instance be bent upon the 
 knoivledge of God. This is not said in a metaphorical, but 
 in a very exact sense. And this must be maintained as 
 the idea of Theology, when you come to consider also 
 the science of Theology, as it is studied and taught by the 
 
Chap. I] §58. THE IDEA OE THEOLOGY 243 
 
 Theological faculty. By a different notion of the idea, and by 
 lowering your ideal, you degrade theological science itself. 
 According to its idea. Theology does not at first demon- 
 strate that there is a God ; but it springs out of the over- 
 whelming impression which, as the only absolutely existing 
 One, God Himself makes upon the human consciousness, and 
 finds its motive in the admiration which of itself powerfully 
 C[uickens the thirst to know God. Though Theology may 
 be permitted to seek after proofs for the existence of God, 
 by which it may open the eyes of those half-blind, it can- 
 not itself start out from doubt, nor can it spend itself in the 
 investigation of religious phenomena, or in the speculative 
 development of the idea of the absolute. It may do all this 
 when it is convenient and as a dialectic auxiliary, but all 
 this is only secondary ; at most, a temporary bridge, by 
 which itself to reach the other side or bring others there, 
 but its purpose, wading the mountain stream, remains to 
 come to the mountain itself, and in the sweat of its brow to 
 climb the mountain path, until at length the highest peak is 
 reached, the top itself, where the panorama, the knowledge 
 of God, unveils itself. Only when thus interpreted does 
 Theology regain its necessary character, and otherwise it 
 lapses into an accidental dilettantism. Thus only it regains 
 its value, and, apart from every conception of utility or 
 eudemonistic purpose, it recovers an absolute significance 
 in itself. Thus in its very idea it advances beyond the 
 boundary of our present existence, and extends itself into 
 the eternal and the infinite. 
 
 The older Theologians derived this more accurate insight 
 into the nature of Theology and this necessary distinction be- 
 tween the idea and the several conceptions of the one Theology 
 from the Holy Scriptures. In the Scriptures " the knowledge 
 of God " is clearly stated as the forma of " eternal life," and 
 of that knowledge of God several degrees are indicated. 
 The distinction is evident at once between the knowledge 
 of God disclosed to man before he sinned, and that modified 
 knowledge of God given to the sinner. There was a knowl- 
 edge of God for Him who said : " Neither doth any know 
 
244 § 58. THE IDEA OF THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
 willeth to reveal him"; and a knovi^ledge of God for those 
 who could not attain this save by that Son. And finally in 
 the Scriptures a very significant distinction is made between 
 the knowledge of God of those who have been "enlightened" 
 and of those who still "walk in darkness"; between the 
 knowledge of God, already obtained here by those who have 
 been enlightened, and that which shall sometime be their por- 
 tion in the realm of glory. Hence a rich difference of form 
 was found in the Scriptures, but still the same idea was com- 
 mon to all these forms, which idea was and is : to know Q-od, 
 and to know Him as mxn. For in the Scriptures a knowledge 
 of God in the world of angels is also spoken of, which is not 
 entirely lost even in fallen angels, so that "the devils also 
 believe that there is one God " ; but since this knowledge 
 assumes another subject, we need not here take it into ac- 
 count. This treatise deals exclusively with human Theol- 
 ogy (Theologia Jiumana), and for the sake of clearness we 
 leave the other distinctions alone, in order now to study 
 the distinction between our knowledge of God here and in 
 heaven (Theologia stadii and patriae). 
 
 The classical proof-text for this is 1 Cor. xiii. 8-13, where 
 the holy apostle definitely declares, that the gnosis which we 
 now have " shall be done away," since now it is oidy a know- 
 ing "in part"; that in this matter of our knowledge of 
 God there is a "perfect" contrasted to that which is now "in 
 part " ; that when that which is " perfect " is come, a seeing 
 of "face to face" shall come into being ; and that this seeing 
 shall be a "knowing even as also I have been known." 
 Elsewhere also, in Matt. v. 8, in 1 John iii. 2, in Psalm xvii. 
 15, etc., a knowledge of God is mentioned, which shall con- 
 sist in a seeing of Crod; but for brevity's sake we confine 
 ourselves to the utterance in 1 Cor. xiii. Two things are 
 here included. First, a sharp dividing-line is drawn between 
 the knowledge of God which is acquired on earth, and that 
 other knowledge of God which is in prospect on the other 
 side of the grave. But secondly, the relation is indicated 
 which is sustained between these two forms of knowledge. 
 
Chap. I] § 58. THE IDEA OF THEOLOGY 245 
 
 Knowledge does not disappear in order to make room for 
 sight. It is not a hnowing here and a seeing of God 
 there. No, it is a knowing both here and there ; but with 
 this difference, that here it is " in part " and there it shall 
 be "perfect." The seeing, on the other hand, is, here as 
 well as there, the means by which to obtain that knowl- 
 edge; here a seeing "through a glass darkly," there a 
 seeing "face to face." The holy apostle treats even more 
 exhaustively the relation between Theology here and in 
 heaven by indicating the analogy of the child that becomes 
 a man. The child and the man have both a certain knowl- 
 edge, but the knowledge of the child dissolves in that of 
 the man. By becoming a man he himself brings the put- 
 ting away of that which belonged to the child. Thus the 
 unity between the two forms of our knowledge of God is 
 most firmly maintained, and both conceptions of knowledge 
 emphasized as finding their higher unity in the idea of The- 
 ology, which is and always will be : the knowledge of Gfod. 
 That Paul speaks very expressly here of the knowledge of 
 God, and not of " the knowledge of divine things " in gen- 
 eral, appears clearly from the Kadw<; i7rejvd>aOr]v in vs. 12. 
 "Knowing even as also I am known" cannot mean any- 
 thing save knowing Him by whom I am known. 
 
 The objection also that this future seeing of God is merely 
 mystical or contemplative, and that therefore it has nothing 
 to do with our logical consciousness, but falls outside of 
 Theology, is set aside by 1 Cor. xiii. The logical is not a 
 temporal form of our human consciousness, fundamentally 
 fictitious, and therefore bound to pass away. But God Him- 
 self is logical, for in Him also knowledge is assumed, and 
 between our knowledge here and that which shall be ours 
 in eternity, there is no essential, but only a proportional, 
 difference : now in part, then perfect. Similarly the differ- 
 ence between the two modes of knowledge is merely that of 
 the immediate and mediate. Then our knowledge will turn 
 immediately on God Himself, while now we only observe the 
 image of God in a glass, in which it is reflected. Thus the 
 continuity of our knowledge of God is not broken by the pass- 
 
246 §58. THE IDEA OF THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 ing away of present things. "When the knowledge "in part" 
 shall have passed away, the identity of our consciousness 
 shall continue. That same ego, which now can only faintly 
 discern the image of God in a glass, shall presently be con- 
 scious of the fact that it knows that selfsame God whose 
 image it first saw "darkly," and will recognize in the Divine 
 face those very features which formerly it observed in the 
 glass imperfectly and indirectly. From this, at least, we see 
 that the so-called scientific investigation shall sometime faU 
 away; that it bears no absolute character; and that it derives 
 its temporal necessity merely from the condition brought 
 about by sin, and its possibility logically from "common 
 grace" and theologically from the "particular grace" of di- 
 vine illumination. And if this is so, it follows of itself that 
 scientific investigation can never be Theology, and is only 
 an accidental activity amid present conditions and within 
 given boundaries, impelled by the thirst after Theology, or 
 rather by the thirst after the knowledge of God. Hence the 
 higher idea of the knowledge of Grod determines Theological 
 science and not Theological science the idea of Theology. 
 There can, and there will hereafter, be a rich Theology 
 without the aid of a Theological science ; while on the other 
 hand when Theological science withdraws itself from the 
 knowledge of God, it loses all sufficient reason, and can lead 
 no other than a nominal existence. 
 
 The naming of the animals by the original man in paradise 
 presents a partial analogy. In the domain of zoology, also, 
 the real end in view is not scientific study, but knowledge of 
 the animal. In our present condition this knowledge cannot 
 be acquired except by empirical investigation and the draw- 
 ing of conclusions from the data obtained. But if we knew 
 and understood the animal at once, this empirical investiga- 
 tion and this drawing of conclusions would be purposeless, 
 and hence dispensable. And something like this is told us 
 in the story of paradise. There was here really a knowledge 
 of the animal by the "seeing of face to face." To Adam 
 the animals were no enigma as to us, but were known and 
 understood by him ; and therefore he could give them a 
 
Chap. I] § 58. THE IDEA OE THEOIiOGY 247 
 
 name according to their nature. Had this capacity remained 
 intact in us, zoology of course would have assumed an en- 
 tirely different form ; and not in a lesser but in a much 
 higher sense it would still have been zoology. For the 
 knowledge of animals in paradisaical man was not analogous 
 to the vague perception which we now have immediately of 
 the world of sounds or of moral phenomena, but it was logi- 
 cal ; as is evident from the fact that it led to the giving of 
 the name. And in this sense it presents an analogy for 
 Theology in its two different phases. Just as now in zool- 
 ogy scientific study is indispensable if we would obtain 
 a logical knowledge of the animal, in our present dispen- 
 sation Theological study is equally indispensable to obtain 
 the logical knowledge of God. But as in paradise knowl- 
 edge of animals was at the disposal of man without this 
 study, in the dispensation of glory man will similarly attain 
 a much more complete and yet logical knowledge of God, 
 without theological study. This is equally applicable to 
 theologia paradisi and theologia unionis ; but this we pass 
 by because for the sake of clearness we are considering only 
 the antithesis between our knowledge of God " in a glass " 
 here and " face to face " in glory. 
 
 If it is now plain that the theological idea lies in the 
 impulse of our human consciousness to know God, entirely 
 independently of the way in which this knowledge is to be 
 acquired, our object has been gained. The idea of Theology 
 as such is imperishable, but, according to the demands of our 
 condition, it leads us by different ways to our ideal. The 
 way which we must travel is that of theological study, and 
 the science which is born from this study can with entire 
 propriety be called Theology, provided this is not done in an 
 exclusive sense, and this science admits no other motive than 
 to Jcnow or learn to know Grod. Every conception of Theol- 
 ogy which is not subordinated to the idea of Theology must 
 fail. 
 
248 § 59. THE DEPENDENT CHARACTER [Div. Ill 
 
 § 59. The Dependent Character of Theology 
 
 If the idea of Theology lies in the knowledge of Crod, an 
 entirely peculiar character flows from this for all Theology, 
 which distinguishes it from all other knowledge or investi- 
 gations of science. For in all other investigations the in- 
 vestigating subject places himself above the object to be 
 investigated, is the active agent in the investigation, and 
 directs his course in obedience to his own free judgment. 
 And this is both possible and proper with created things, 
 because among all these man ranks first. But when the 
 thirst for knowledge directs itself to Him to whom man 
 and all creation owe their origin, existence, and conscious- 
 ness, the circumstances are materially changed. Then man 
 stands no longer above, but beneath the object of his investi- 
 gation, and over against this object he finds himself in a posi- 
 tion of entire dependence. Our earlier Theologians explained 
 this by distinguishing between archetypal Theology (Theo- 
 logia archetypa) and ectypal Theology (Theologia ectypa) 
 — a distinction which as it was finally defended could not 
 be maintained, but which contains an element of truth that 
 should not be abandoned. For the real thought fundamental 
 to this distinction between archetypal and ectypal Theology 
 is that all personal life remains a closed mystery to us as 
 long as he whose life this is does not himself disclose it to 
 us. And this thought must be maintained. We purposely 
 limit ourselves to personal life in order to exclude the 
 zoological question, even though we readily grant that in 
 animals also a similar mystery presents itself; but this 
 mystery need not detain us now, because the knowledge of 
 man presents already the entirely sufBcient analogy for the 
 knowledge of Crod. With man also the rule applies to each 
 individual that you cannot know him in his personal exist- 
 ence, except he himself disclose the mystery of his inner 
 being. 
 
 And yet as far as man is concerned, appearance might 
 readily deceive us. We quickly form an idea about the per- 
 sons we meet in daily life, and some of us can form a fairly 
 
Chap. I] OF THEOLOGY 249 
 
 accurate idea of a man at the very moment of meeting. 
 Let us observe however : first, that being human ourselves 
 we have a means in our own existence by which measurably 
 at least to understand a fellow-creature. Were we not our- 
 selves man, we would not understand what man is ; as it reads 
 in 1 Cor. ii. 11: "For who among men knoweth the things of 
 a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him?" In the 
 second place, this knowledge which we owe to our mutual 
 relationship, is strengthened by the fact, that as a rule we 
 associate with fellow-citizens, congenial spirits, and those to 
 whom we are united by a certain community of lot. Hence 
 not only our common humanity, but the fact also that the 
 modality of existence is largely common to us all, makes it 
 easy from ourselves to form conclusions concerning others. 
 How important this factor is, we perceive at once when we 
 cross the boundaries of our native land, and especially when 
 we come among other races and into entirely different coun- 
 tries. A Russ or Finn understands very little of the real 
 inner nature of the Red man, and what does a Frenchman 
 understand of the inner nature of a Lapp or Finn ? In the 
 third place, let it be noted that however much there may 
 be something personal in every man, characters divide them- 
 selves into certain classes, which are recognized by certain 
 combinations of phenomena, so that he who knows one or more 
 of these kinds readily understands a great deal of a person, as 
 soon as he perceives to what class he belongs. Fourthly, man 
 is no spirit but a spiritual being, and exists simultaneously 
 psychically and somatically, so that a great deal of his inner 
 life manifests itself without the person being conscious of it ; 
 often indeed against his will and purpose. The look of the 
 eye, feature and color of face, carriage and manners, compos- 
 ure or restlessness in the whole appearance, etc., betray much 
 of what goes on in man. To which may be added, in the 
 fifth place, that in conversation or in writing a man may say 
 to us or to others, something of himself from which very 
 important data may be gathered directly or by inference 
 concerning the mystery of his person. No doubt there are 
 " closed characters," and also " characters that falsify them- 
 
250 § 59. THE DEPENDENT CHAEACTER [Div. Ill 
 
 selves," which you can never fathom, but as a rule you can 
 obtain considerable knowledge of a man, even when he does 
 not purposely disclose to you the mystery of his person. 
 
 If, now, on the other hand, you turn from the knowledge 
 of man to the knowledge of God, you perceive at once that 
 almost nothing of these five means of help is at your dis- 
 posal. Standing before God you do not find an analogy in 
 your own being to His Being, because He is God and you 
 are man. The closer knowledge of your fellow-man which 
 you acquire from your sharing his modality of existence falls 
 entirely away, since the distance between you and the Eter- 
 nal Being discovers itself the more overwhelmingly as your 
 existence specifies itself. The division into kinds is of 
 equally little service, because there is but one God, of whom 
 therefore no conclusion can be drawn from the species to the 
 individual. Unintentional somatic unveiling is equally im- 
 possible with God, since asomatic and only spiritual exist- 
 ence characterizes Him as God. And finallj'', the casual 
 dropping of a remark does not occur with respect to the 
 Eternal Being, since the casual and unconscious doing of a 
 thing is not predicable of God. 
 
 The difficulty which the biographer encounters when he 
 undertakes to sketch the development of a character that 
 belongs to another age, land and surroundings, and of 
 which almost no personal utterances are handed down in 
 writing, repeats itself with the Theologian, only in an abso- 
 lute measure. His aim and purpose is to acquire knowledge 
 of a Being which is essentially distinguished from himself 
 and from all other creatures ; a Being which, by no amount 
 of investigation, he can compel to give knowledge of itself ; 
 which as such falls entirely outside of his reach ; and over 
 against which he stands absolutely agnostically, in accord- 
 ance with the true element of Spencer's Agnosticism. 
 
 Let it not be said, that an infinite number of things are 
 manifest and knowable of God, in the works of creation, in 
 history, and in the experiences of our own inner life ; for aU 
 this leads to a certain knowledge of God, only when God has 
 begun to reveal Himself to me as a God, who exists and exists 
 
Chap. I] OP THEOLOGT 251 
 
 as God. Even though for the moment we do not reckon 
 with the darkening of sin, all that is called " natural revela- 
 tion" would not impart to us the least knowledge of God, 
 if it were not willed by God, and as such make an inten- 
 tional revelation, i.e. a disclosure in part of His Divine 
 mystery. Suppose that on the fixed stars there lived a 
 race of beings, of an entirely different type from what we 
 have ever known; the simple report of what they had 
 done would never advance our knowledge of them, as long 
 as the idea, not to say every conception, of their kind of 
 being were wanting. From the nature of the case this is 
 much more forceful with reference to the knowledge of God, 
 and the contemplation of visible things would avail us ab- 
 solutely nothing, if the sense that there is a God, and of 
 what a God is, were not imparted to us in an entirely differ- 
 ent way. 
 
 In this sense we speak of a dependent character for Theol- 
 ogy. When an absolute stranger falls into the hands of 
 the police, which is no infrequent occurrence anywhere, and 
 steadfastly refuses to utter a single syllable, the police face 
 an enigma which they cannot solve. They are entirely de- 
 pendent upon the will of that stranger either to reveal or 
 not to reveal knowledge of himself. And this is true in an 
 absolute sense of the Theologian over against his God. He 
 cannot investigate God. There is nothing to analyze. There 
 are no phenomena from which to draw conclusions. Only 
 when that wondrous God will speak, can he listen. And 
 thus the Theologian is absolutely dependent upon the pleas- 
 ure of God, either to impart or not to impart knowledge of 
 Himself. Even verification is here absolutely excluded. 
 When a man reveals something of himself to me, I can 
 verify this, and if necessary pass criticism upon it. But 
 when the Theologian stands in the presence of God, and God 
 gives him some explanation of His existence as God, every 
 idea of testing this self-communication of God by something: 
 else is absurd ; hence, in the absence of such a touchstone^ 
 there can be no verification, and consequently no room for 
 criticism. This dependent character, therefore, is not some- 
 
252 § 59. THE DEPENDENT CHARACTEK [Div. Ill 
 
 thing accidental, but essential to Theology. As soon as this 
 character is lost, there is no more Theology, even though an 
 investigation of an entirely different kind still adorns itself 
 with the theological name. In his entire Theology the 
 Theologian must stand in the presence of God as his God, 
 and as soon as for a single instant he looks away from the 
 living God, in order to engage himself with an idea about 
 God over which he will sit as judge, he is lost in phrase- 
 ology, because the object of his knowledge has already van- 
 ished from his view. As you cannot kneel in prayer before 
 your God as worshipper, in any other way except as depend- 
 ent upon Him, so also as Theologian you can receive no 
 knowledge of God when you refuse to receive your knowl- 
 edge of Him in absolute dependence upon Him. 
 
 This deep sense of dependence has ever induced our real 
 theologians, in the days of their power, to place all our 
 knowledge of God as ectypal Theology, in absolute de- 
 pendence upon the self-knowledge of God, Avhich they called 
 archetypal Theology. As the ectype is absolutely depend- 
 ent upon the archetype, is governed and formed by it, 
 thus, they would say, all our knowledge of God is abso- 
 lutely governed by the knowledge which God has of Him- 
 self. Thus they taught that we of ourselves can never enter 
 into the holy place of the Lord, to examine it and gather 
 knowledge concerning it, but that it behooves us to take 
 our stand on this side of the veil, and to wait for what 
 God Himself will communicate to us from this holy place 
 and from behind this veil. This revelation or communica- 
 tion, which is imparted to our knowledge, we may consider, 
 analj'ze, systematize and cast into the form of our con- 
 sciousness ; but in all these operations all active investiga- 
 tion after what is God's remains excluded, all knowledge 
 remains received knowledge, and it is not God Himself, but 
 the knowledge He has revealed to us concerning Himself 
 which constitutes the material for theological investigation. 
 Hence ectypal Theology. 
 
 The objection raised against this division and appellation 
 cannot stand. It has been said, that in this way we 
 
Chap, I] OF THEOLOGY 253 
 
 can also speak of an ectypal zoology, botany, etc. For 
 these parts of His creation are also known to God before 
 they are known to us ; and all our knowledge of the world 
 of animals and plants, etc., is either in harmony with the 
 knowledge God has of them and then true, or in antago- 
 nism with it and then false. This distinction between 
 archetypal and ectypal knowledge is valid in every depart- 
 ment, and therefore may not be claimed as something char- 
 acteristic of Theology. But this objection is altogether 
 inaccurate. For instance, I can order a sketch to be made 
 of a gable-roof, which upon examination is seen to agree 
 entirely with the original drawing of the architect ; but 
 does that prove that this last sketch has been copied from 
 the original drawing ? No, only if this sketch had not been 
 made from the gable, but immediately from the original 
 drawing, would it have been ectypal ; but not now. It is 
 not true, therefore, that our botanical and zoological knowl- 
 edge can be called ectypal. It would be this, if we did not 
 draw this knowledge from the world of animals and plants, 
 but copied it apart of these realities from the decree of 
 creation, as far as it referred to animals and plants. We 
 will not stop to consider the question whether our knowl- 
 edge of the world of angels, of the soul, of the other side 
 of the grave, of the future, etc., is not ectypal ; this ques- 
 tion is in order in the section on the ambitus (circle) of 
 Theology. It is enough if the essential difference is 
 clear between a knowledge which is the result of the 
 active investigation of an object, and that wholly different 
 knowledge which we must first passively receive and then 
 actively investigate- And with the old Theologians we 
 maintain the ectypal character of the knowledge of God, 
 since no man can investigate God Himself, and all the 
 knowledge which we shall have of God can only be a copy 
 of the knowledge God has of Himself, and is pleased to 
 communicate to us. 
 
 Besides the strictly dependent character of Theology, there 
 lie in this ectypal characteristic two suggestions, which must 
 be emphasized. First, that there is no involuntary revela- 
 
254 § 59. THE DEI^ENDENT CHAEACTEE [Div. HI 
 
 tion. This refutes the idea that God may be more or 
 less unconscious of Himself, or that He could be seen by 
 us in His works, without His willing or knowing it. Since 
 this ectypal Theology has its rise only from the fact that 
 archetypal Theology imprints itself in it, there is nothing 
 in the ectype which was not first in the archetype. Every- 
 thing, therefore, from without that mingles itself with the 
 ectype and does not come to it from the archetype, is con- 
 traband and must be excluded. A child may watch his 
 father without his perceiving it or wanting to be watched ; 
 a precocious child can sometimes know his father better 
 than he can know himself ; but nothing of all this can ever 
 take place with reference to God, because all this springs 
 from the imperfection of the father or from the superiority 
 ' of his child, and the very idea of God excludes every pos- 
 sibility both of incompleteness in God and of superiority 
 in His creature. All representations of this sort, therefore, 
 which have crept more and more into Theology, must 
 be banished as impious, since they start out essentially 
 from the exaltation of man above God. The second 
 point, which must be emphasized in the ectypal character 
 of our knowledge of God, is the truth of our knowledge of 
 God. If the ectypal originates by the imprint of the 
 archetypal, the ectypal image is no phantasy, no imagination, 
 but an image in truth. Just as we saw in the antithesis 
 between Theology here and hereafter, that our knowledge 
 of God on earth shall then be done away, and rise again 
 in a higher form of a knowledge "face to face"; but 
 always such, that the truth of our knowledge "in part" 
 shall be the more fully exhibited by the completer knowl- 
 edge in heaven. Our given knowledge of God derives 
 from this its absolute character, not as to its degree of 
 completeness, but with reference to its connection with its 
 object, i.e. with God. God who is, has knowledge of Him- 
 self ; and from this self-knowledge God has taken the knowl- 
 edge given to us. This excludes not only doubt, but also 
 the dilution of subjectivism, as if our formulated statement 
 of the knowledge of God in our confession were unim- 
 
Chap. I] OF THEOLOGY 255 
 
 portant, and without loss of truth could be exchanged for 
 every other confession or placed on a line with it. 
 
 Meanwhile we should guard against anthropomorphism in 
 our representations of this archetypal knowledge of God. As 
 human beings, we do not know ourselves at the beginning 
 of our lives ', gradually we obtain a certain consciousness 
 of our own person, and we frame a certain representation of 
 our personal existence and of our inner being. In in- 
 timate intercourse we can impart this representation of 
 ourselves to others. And in this way it is also possible 
 to speak of a certain archetypal and ectypal knowledge of 
 our person. But if this were applied similarly to God, we 
 would incur a very serious error. "We cannot conceive of 
 a gradually increasing self-consciousness in God, and con- 
 sequently of an existence of God that preceded His con- 
 sciousness. Consciousness in God covers His entire existence, 
 and the word " eternal " is predicable of both in an intensive 
 sense. Hence with God there can be no self-knowledge 
 which has been formed in a human way by observation, 
 analysis, inference, etc. The self-knowledge in God is sui 
 generis, and therefore Divine. If this condemns the admis- 
 sion of all anthropomorphism in the archetypal knowledge, 
 this mode of representation is equally inadmissible in our 
 communication of this knowledge to man. When we com- 
 municate something concerning ourselves to another, it is 
 man who imparts something to man, and thereby deals 
 with analogies that are mutually present, and with similar 
 representations which render the understanding of our 
 communications possible. All this, however, falls away 
 when God approaches man. Then it is not God revealing 
 knowledge of Himself to a Crod, but God imparting His 
 self-knowledge to man. Moreover, in our communications 
 with others concerning ourselves, we are bound to the form 
 of thought, and must take the capacity for knowledge as it 
 is ; but there is no such limitation with God, who Himself 
 created the creature to whom He has determined to impart 
 this self-knowledge, and thus was able to adapt this capacity 
 for knowledge to His revelation. And, finally, it should be 
 
256 § 59. DEPENDENT CHARACTER OE THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 remembered that we can mutually come close to each other's 
 heart, but can never penetrate each other's inner selves ; 
 while the door to the secret and innermost recesses of our 
 being is open to God. 
 
 It was entirely correct, therefore, when in olden times 
 it was additionally stated that ectypal Theology reveals 
 to us the self-knowledge of God according to our human 
 capacity; and that the necessity was felt in the eigh- 
 teenth . century (see De Moor, Comm. in March., Vol. I., 
 p. 29) of limiting archetypal Theology to that self-knowl- 
 edge of God, quam creaturae manifestare decreverat, i.e. 
 '■'■which he had decreed to reveal to the creature." In it- 
 self this was correctly viewed; in order to preserve the 
 image of the type, the ectypal must be equal in extent 
 and form to the archetypal. And yet this further expla- 
 nation has not made the matter itself more clear, but more 
 confusing, — both mechanically and intellectually. In the 
 self-knowledge of God there are not ten parts, six of which 
 he has decided to reveal unto us ; but, though only " as in a 
 glass darkly," the whole image has been reflected to us in 
 Revelation. Neither will it do to interpret the revelation 
 of God's self-knowledge as a merely intellectual communica- 
 tion, independent of Creation and the Incarnation ; for this 
 would cut in Revelation itself the main artery of religion. 
 
 Rather, therefore, than lose ourselves in this inteUectual- 
 istic abstraction, we adopt the names of Archetypal and 
 Ectypal Theology in the originally fuller sense, i.e. as 
 standing in immediate relation to the creation of man after 
 the image of God. As man stands as ectype over against 
 God, the archetype, man's knowledge of God can therefore 
 be only ectypal. This is what we meant when we called 
 Theology a dependent knowledge — a knowledge which is 
 not the result of an activity on our part, but the result of 
 an action which goes out from God to us ; and in its wider 
 sense this action is God's self-revelation to His creature. 
 
Chap. I] §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY 257 
 
 § 60. Ectypal Theology the Fruit of Revelation 
 
 The ectype does not arise unless there is a material that 
 can receive the impression of the archetype, and the act of 
 impressing it on this material has taken place. And though 
 in the preceding section it was maintained that the ectypal 
 knowledge of God did not arise from our observation of 
 God but from self-communication on the part of God, and 
 consequently bears a dependent character, we do not assert, 
 that for the acquisition of this knowledge of God the nature 
 and disposition of the subject are indifferent. On the con- 
 trary, all revelation assumes (1) one who reveals Himself; 
 (2) one to whom he reveals Himself; and (3) the possibility 
 of the required relation between these two. In revelation, 
 therefore, man (and more especially sinful man'), who is to 
 receive it, must be taken into account. If, as was done 
 formerly, we exclusively consider Him who reveals Him- 
 self and that which He reveals, this revelation lies outside 
 of man; the actual perception and assimilation are wanting; 
 and the whole end of revelation is lost. In the second 
 place, it will not do to interpret revelation as an announce- 
 ment or communication of the one subject to the other sub- 
 ject, without taking due account of the fact that the subject 
 God created the subject man, and that God wholly maintains 
 and governs man from moment to moment ; the result of 
 which is, that He does not follow a way of communication 
 that happens accidentally to be present, but that He Himself 
 lays out the way of communication in keeping with His pur- 
 pose. In the third place, it must be kept in view that the 
 revelation of God is not an act of a single moment, but a 
 continuous process, which extends itself across the ages, and 
 in this extension does not purposelessly swing back and 
 forth, bii't propels itself according to the motive contained 
 in its idea, according to the nature of its successive content, 
 and according to the nature of the bed which its stream 
 must form for itself. In the fourth place, this revelation 
 may not be interpreted as an atomistical self-commiinication 
 of God to the several individuals, but must be taken as a reve- 
 
258 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 lation to man in his generations, i.e. to the organic unity 
 of humanity, and only in this organic unity to the single 
 man. And finally, in the fifth place, account must be kept 
 of the special character which this revelation had to assume, 
 both with regard to the act of revelation and its content, 
 and the forming of its channel in the human spirit, in 
 order, in spite of the obstruction of sin, to accomplish 
 its original plan and to realize the purpose implied in its 
 tendency. Though it is thus unquestionably true that in 
 our sinful state we could never attain to a true Theology, 
 i.e. a true knowledge of God, unless the form of revelation 
 were soteriological, it is nevertheless necessary that in our 
 representation of revelation also the fact be emphasized that 
 the soteriological element is ever accidental, bears merely 
 an intervenient character, and remains dependent upon the 
 fundamental conception of revelation which is given in 
 creation itself, and which teleologically looks forward to 
 a state of things in which there shall be no more sin, so 
 that every soteriological act shall belong to a never-return- 
 ing past. 
 
 The first proposition therefore reads : Crod reveals Sim- 
 self for His own sake, and not in behalf of man. 
 
 This only true starting-point for the real study of Revela- 
 tion has been too much lost from view, not only in recent 
 times, but even in the more prosperous periods of sound 
 Theology. Even in the treatment of the dogma of "the 
 necessity of sacred Scripture," the fact of sin was always 
 taken as the point of departure, and thus the starting-point 
 for Revelation was found in the soteriological necessity of 
 causing light to arise in our darkness. A revelation before 
 sin was, to be sure, recognized, but it was never success- 
 fully placed in relation to revelation in the theological 
 sense ; and this was especially noticeable in the mechanical 
 placing side by side of natural and revealed Theology. 
 To repair this omission is therefore a necessity. Every 
 interpretation of Revelation as given for man's sake, de- 
 forms it. You either reduce Revelation to the Creation, or 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF EEVELATION 259 
 
 cause it to occur only after the Creation. If you accept the 
 latter view, you make it intellectualistic, and it can only 
 consist, as the Socinian conceived, of an outward mechanical 
 communication of certain data, commandments, and statutes. 
 Thus, however, true revelation, which is rooted in religion 
 itself, is destroyed. If for this reason you favor the other 
 horn of the dilemma, viz. that Revelation goes back to Crea- 
 tion itself, then the motive for this Revelation cannot be found 
 in man ; simply because man was not yet in existence, and 
 therefore could be no motive. For though it be asserted 
 that, as the apostle Peter says, man was foreknown in the 
 Divine decree before the creation, and that therefore Revela- 
 tion could well point to this foreknown man, the argument 
 is not valid. For in the decree a motive must have ex- 
 isted for the foreknowledge of man himself; and if it be 
 allowed that this motive at least could lie only in God, it 
 follows that Revelation also, even if it found its motive in 
 man, merely tended to make man what he should be for the 
 sake of God, so that in this way also Revelation finds its 
 final end in Crod, and not in man. 
 
 But even this might grant too much. With a little 
 thought one readily sees that Revelation is not merely 
 founded in Creation, but that all creation itself is revela- 
 tion. If we avoid the Origenistic and pantheistic error that 
 the cosmos is coexistent with God; the pagan representa- 
 tion that God Himself labors under some higher necessity; 
 and the Schleiermachian construction that God and the 
 world were correlate, at least in the idea; and if, conse- 
 quently, we stand firm in the sublime confession : " I believe 
 in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth," the 
 motive for Creation cannot be looked for in anything outside 
 of God, but only and alone in God Himself. Not in an eter- 
 nal law (lex aeterna), a fate (^/iolpa^ or necessity (avajKij'), 
 nor in some need of God nature, nor in the creature that 
 was not yet created. He who does not worship God as self- 
 sufficient and sovereign, misconceives and profanes His 
 Being. Creation neither can nor may be conceived as 
 anything but a sovereign act of God, for His own glori- 
 
260 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 fication. God cannot be glorified by anything that comes 
 to Him from without. By His own perfections alone can 
 He be glorified. Hence creation itself is primarily nothing 
 else than a revelation of the power of God; of the God 
 Almighty, who as such is the Creator of heaven and earth. 
 If this is true of creation, and of the self-revelation of 
 God which was effected in the creation, this must be true 
 of all revelation, simply because the cosmos, and every 
 creature in the cosmos, and all that is creaturely, are given 
 in the creation. If you deny this, you make an essential 
 distinction between all further revelation and the revelation 
 in creation ; you place it as a second revelation mechanically 
 alongside of the first; and lapse again into the irreligious, 
 intellectualistic interpretation of revelation. If, on the 
 other hand, farther revelation is not taken except in organic 
 relation to the revelation given in creation, and thus is post- 
 ulated by it, the motive of creation becomes of itself the 
 motive of its manifestation; and all later revelation must 
 likewise be granted to have been given us, not for our sake, 
 but in the last instance for God's own sake. For though it 
 is self-evident that the manner of operation of this revela- 
 tion in every concrete case adapts itself to the disposition of 
 the creature, and in this creature reaches its temporal end, 
 3'et in the last instance it only completes its course when 
 in this operation upon or enriching of this creature it glori- 
 fies its Creator. When this revelation, therefore, leads to 
 the creaturely knowledge of God, i.e. ectypal Theology, this 
 knowledge of God is not given primarily for our benefit, but 
 because God in His sovereignty takes pleasure in being known 
 of His creature ; which truth is thus formulated in Holy 
 Scripture, — ^that God doeth all things /or His Name's sale; 
 sometimes with the additional words: not for your sokes, 
 Israel. 
 
 From this the second proposition follows of itself, that 
 Divine Revelation assumes a creature capable of transposing 
 this Revelation into subjective knowledge of God. 
 
 Revelation by itself would not be able to realize its aim. 
 
Chap. I] THE mUIT OF REVELATION 261 
 
 Imagine that there were no reasonable creatures, and that 
 the creation consisted of nothing but entirely unconscious 
 creatures, incapable of consciousness, the perfections of God 
 revealed in His creation could not be evident to any one but 
 God Himself. This, however, would be a contradiction in 
 terms. He who is Himself the Author of revelation, knows 
 the entire content of His revelation before He reveals it. 
 Hence nothing can become known to Him by His revelation, 
 which at first He did not know. This is possible in part 
 with us. When by the grace of God a poet first carries a 
 poetical creation in his mind, and afterwards reveals it in 
 his poem, many things become known to him in this poem 
 which at first were hid from him. This is accounted for by 
 the fact that this poet was inspired in his poetic creation by 
 a higher power, so that he himself did not know all the 
 obscure contents of his imagination. With God, on the 
 other hand, such cannot be the case, simply because God 
 cannot be inspired by one higher than Himself, and because 
 there is nothing in His Being which He does not see 
 with fullest clearness of vision. This implies that there 
 can be no mystery for God, either in His Essence, coun- 
 sel, or plan of creation; and hence nothing can become 
 revealed or known to God by creation. By creation the 
 contents of His virtues are in nothing enriched ; in no 
 particular do they become more glorious to Himself; hence 
 there would be no revelation in creation or in any later 
 activity of God, if there were no creature to whom all this 
 could become the revelation of a mystery. For though we 
 grant that God Himself sees and hears the beautiful in His 
 creation ; we deny that this display in creation is a greater 
 joy to God than the view of His perfections in Himself. 
 Every effort to seek a necessary ground in this sense for 
 the creation of the cosmos results in cancelling the self- 
 sufficiency of the Eternal Being, and in making God, by 
 His creation, come to the knowledge and possession of His 
 own divine riches; and by a little deeper thought this of 
 itself leads back again to the theory of the world's co- 
 existence with God. 
 
262 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div, III 
 
 The proposition of an unintentional revelation is equally 
 untenable. This often happens with us, because the reve- 
 lation of our person or of our disposition is not always 
 under our control. Not only unintentionally, but some- 
 times against our intention and in spite of our purpose 
 to the contrary, all sorts of things are constantly heard and 
 seen of us, which it was by no means our desire to reveal. 
 But this again you cannot apply to the Eternal Being, with- 
 out lapsing into the anthropopathic representation of His 
 existence. Such unintentional discovery of self to others 
 results from a lack of power or insight, and from a con- 
 sequent dependence upon many human data. Thus the 
 omnipotence and absolute independence of God would be 
 impaired, if in Him you assumed this unconscious, uninten- 
 tional, and in so far accidental, revelation. His revelation 
 postulates both the will and the purpose to reveal Himself, 
 and this is inconceivable, unless there is at the same time a 
 conscious being outside of God, which is able to appropriate 
 what is revealed, and for which this revelation is intended. 
 Though a star is praised for sparkling, which it does with- 
 out knowing it, and a flower for the aroma that flows from 
 its cup without this cup perceiving it, and though, in a 
 similar strain, we praise the native simplicity of a beautiful 
 character that radiates without effort and conscious aim, 
 j'et with no such conception can we approach the Lord 
 our God, for He has nothing that He does not owe to 
 Himself, and in no single particular is He a mystery to 
 Himself. In Him whose is the highest and the most com- 
 plete consciousness, there is no room for the conditions of 
 semi- or total-unconsciousness. What the Oonfessio Bel- 
 gica states in Art. 12, that all created things are "for 
 the service of man, to the end that man may serve his 
 God," applies also to the realm of revelation, since man is 
 the creature, by whom whatever is creaturely on earth be- 
 comes the instrument of revelation of the attributes of God. 
 
 Our second proposition, however, implies more than this. 
 The conscious creature is not only indispensable in order that 
 revelation can be revelation, but that which is revealed must 
 
Chap. 1] THE PRUIT OF REVELATION 263 
 
 also be transposed by man into subjective knowledge of God 
 and of His perfections. That which God reveals is conscious 
 knowledge of Himself, before He reveals it. He is not a 
 Light from which effulgence radiates, while He Himself 
 does not know that light. His self-knowledge is absolute, 
 and the impulse to reveal His perfections arises from His 
 knowledge of them. And therefore this revelation of His 
 perfections does not reach its aim nor point of rest until God 
 is known. Hence, without ever giving themselves to intel- 
 lectualism, the Holy Scriptures always put this knowledge 
 of Q-od in the foreground, and stand in prospect a " know- 
 ing of God as we are known." If Mozart had been a 
 completely self-conscious musician, he would not have been 
 able to develop his compositions otherwise than with the 
 will and aim of finding performers and hearers who would 
 not only hear his compositions and perform them, but would 
 also understand them. And in like manner revelation flows 
 from the archetypal knowledge of God and strives to become 
 ectypal knowledge of God in man. Thus revelation itself 
 is properly no Theology, but flows from the auto-Theology 
 in God Himself and has Theology, i.e. knowledge of God 
 in man, for its result. 
 
 This leads to our third proposition, viz. that man, in order 
 to do this, must be adapted by nature, relation and process to 
 interpret what has been revealed as a revelation of Grod and to 
 reduce it to subjective knoivledge of G-od. 
 
 It was the aim of propositions one and two to show that 
 man did not come into being indifferent as to the manner 
 how, and only afterwards revelation was added to him as 
 an auxiliary, and was therefore adapted to his need; but 
 that, on the contrary, revelation finds its end in God, and 
 our human race was in its creation entirely adapted to this 
 revelation. In this third proposition examine this original 
 and necessary relation between revelation on the one side 
 and the nature, relation and development process of our race 
 on the other. And we point at once to the twofold office 
 
264 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Diy. Ill 
 
 of man in revelation. He is not only to appropriate that 
 which has been revealed, but he is himself a link in that reve- 
 lation. This is exhibited most strongly in his logos, since 
 by his logos he appropriates revelation to himself, and in his 
 logos reflectively (abbildlich) reveals something of the eter- 
 nal logos. If the cosmos is the theatre of revelation, in this 
 theatre man is both actor and spectator. This should not be 
 taken in the sense that, in what is revealed in him, he adds 
 one single drop to the ocean of cosmical revelation, but 
 rather, that man himself is the richest instrument in which 
 and by which God reveals Himself. And he is this not so 
 much on account of his body and his general psychical 
 organization, but chiefly on account of that deepest and 
 most hidden part of his being, in which the creaturely 
 reaches its finest and noblest formation. And if, without 
 lapsing into trichotomy, we may call this finest element in 
 our human being the pneumatioal, we define it as being both 
 the choicest jewel in the diadem of revelation and the instru- 
 ment by which man transmutes all revelation into knowledge 
 of Grod. Both are expressed in the creation of man after the 
 image of God. Oa one hand, one's image is his completest 
 revelation, and on the other hand, from just that creation 
 after God's image originates that higher consciousness of 
 man, by which in him also the logos operates. This is 
 what the older Theology called innate or concreate Theology 
 (theologia innata or concreata), and to which the doctrine 
 of faith must be immediately related. 
 
 To make this clear we must go back a moment to the first 
 man, who, in so far as he represented our entire race, was 
 no individual, and in whose case we do not yet need to 
 reckon with the relation in which we stand to other men. 
 It is evident that, when thus taken, Adam possessed in him- 
 self, apart from the cosmos, everything that was necessary 
 to have knowledge of God. 
 
 Undoubtedly many things concerning God were manifest to 
 him in the cosmos also ; without sin a great deal of God would 
 have become manifest to him from his fellow-men ; and through 
 the process of his development, in connection with the cosmos, 
 
Ciup. I] THE FKUIT OF REVELATION 265 
 
 he would have obtained an ever richer revelation of God. 
 But apart from all this acquired knowledge of God, he had 
 in himself the capacity to draw knowledge of God from what 
 had been revealed, as well as a rich revelation from which to 
 draw that knowledge. Our older theologians called these 
 two together the "concreate knowledge of God"; and cor- 
 rectly so, because here there was no logical activity which 
 led to this knowledge of God, but this knowledge of God 
 coincided with man's own self-knowledge. This knowl- 
 edge of God was given eo ipso in his own self-conscious- 
 ness; it was not given as discursive knowledge, but as 
 the immediate content of self-consciousness. Even in our 
 present degenerate condition, when much of ourselves can 
 only be learned by observation, there is always a back- 
 ground of self-knowledge and of knowledge of our own 
 existence, which is given immediately with our self-con- 
 sciousness. Before the fall, when no darkening had yet 
 taken place, this immediate self-knowledge must have been 
 much more potent and clear. And thus it could not be 
 otherwise but that in this clear and immediate self-knowl- 
 edge there was, without any further action of the logos in 
 us, an equally immediate knowledge of God, the conscious- 
 ness of which, from that very image itself, accompanied him 
 who had been created in the image of God. Thus the first 
 man lived in an innate knowledge of God, which was not 
 yet understood, and much less expressed in words, just as 
 our human heart in its first unfoldings has a knowledge of 
 ideals, which, however, we are unable to explain or give a 
 form to. Calvin called this the seed of religion (semen reli- 
 gionis), by which he indicated that this innate knowledge of 
 God is an ineradicable property of human nature, a spiritual 
 eye in us, the lens of which may be dimmed, but always so 
 that the lens, and consequently the eye, remains. 
 
 In connection with this, now, stands faith, that wonderful 
 iruTTCi, the right understanding of which has been more and 
 more lost by the exclusively soteriological conception of our 
 times. Of course as a consequence of the fall faith also 
 was modified, and became faith in the Saviour of the world. 
 
266 §60. ECTYPAX THEOLOGY [Div. in 
 
 But the form which anything has received as a consequence 
 of sin can never be its proper or original form ; and it is 
 equally absurd to look upon saving faith as a new spiritual 
 sense implanted for the first time by regeneration. Nothing 
 can ever be added to man by regeneration which does not es- 
 sentially belong to human nature. Hence regeneration cannot 
 put anything around us as a cloak, or place anj'thing on our 
 head as a crown. If faith is to be a human reality in the regen- 
 erate, it must be an attitude (habitus) of our human nature 
 as such ; consequently it must have been present in the first 
 man ; and it must still be discernible in the sinner. To prove 
 the latter is not difficult, provided it is acknowledged that 
 ethical powers (sensu neutro) operate in the sinner also, even 
 though in him they appear exclusively in the privative, i.e. sin- 
 ful form. Taken this way, the pistic element is present in all 
 that is called man ; only in the sinner this pistic element as- 
 sumes the privative form, and becomes unfaith (airurTia). If 
 sin is not merely the absence of good (carentia boni), but posi- 
 tive privation (actuosa privatio), aTrio-rta also is not only the 
 absence of faith (absentia fidei), but the positive privation of 
 faith (actuosa fidei privatio), and as such sin. By overlook- 
 ing this distinction our earlier theologians came to speak 
 of the innate knowledge of God (cognitio Dei innata) 
 as an attitude (habitus), which properly invited criticism. 
 Cognitio can be no habitus. But while they expressed 
 themselves incorrectly, they were not mistaken in the mat- 
 ter itself; they simply failed to distinguish between concreate 
 theology (concreata), and faith which is inseparable from 
 human nature. Faith indeed is in our human consciousness 
 the deepest fundamental law that governs every form of dis- 
 tinction, by which alone all higher " Differentiation " becomes 
 established in our consciousness. It is the daring break- 
 ing of our unity into a duality; placing of another ego 
 over against our own ego; and the courage to face that 
 distinction because our own ego finds its point of support 
 and of rest only in that other ego. This general better 
 knowledge of faith renders it possible to speak of faith in 
 every domain; and also shows that faith originates primer- 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OS" REVELATION 267 
 
 dially from the fact that our ego places God over against 
 itself as the eternal and infinite Being, and that it dares to 
 do this, because in this only it finds its eternal point of 
 support. Since we did not manufacture this faith our- 
 selves, but God created it in our human nature, this faith 
 is but the opening of our spiritual eye and the consequent 
 perception of another Being, excelling us in everything, 
 that manifests itself in our own being. Thus it does not orig- 
 inate after the Cartesian style from an imprinted idea of 
 God, but from the manifestation of God in our own being to 
 that spiritual eye which has been formed in order, as soon as 
 it opens, to perceive Him and in ecstasy of admiration to be 
 bound to Him. By faith we perceive that an eternal Being 
 manifests Himself in us, in order to place Himself over against 
 our ego, in the same way in which we discover the presence 
 of light by our eye ; but what this eternal Being is and what 
 it demands of us, is not told us by faith, but by the innate 
 knowledge of God, presently enriched by the acquired. 
 
 The discovery, the perception of a mightier Ego, which is 
 above and distinct from our own ego, is therefore the start- 
 ing-point of all religion and of all knowledge of God. If 
 we were not created after God's image, this manifestation 
 would affect us strangely and cause us fear; but since in 
 virtue of our creation there is an affinity between our own 
 ego and that other Ego revealing itself to us, the manifesta- 
 tion of that mighty Ego affects us pleasantly, it fascinates 
 and satisfies us with a feeling of infinite rest. It appeals to 
 us. And as all revelation finds its completion only in this, 
 this appeal becomes at length a speaking to us. There is 
 fellowship between that peace-bringing Being, that reveals 
 itself to us, and our own ego. He is the heavenly Friend, 
 who does not merely reveal himself as a silent presence, but 
 who, asking for our word in prayer, addresses us in the high- 
 est utterances of spirit, i.e. in the transparent word, and 
 only in thus speaking to us becomes our God, unto whom 
 goes out the worship of our hearts. In this way only does 
 man know his God; not with a knowledge of Him or con- 
 cerning Him, but in such a way that with the deepest utter- 
 
268 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div, lU 
 
 ance of the soul he knows his God personally ; not yet with 
 the full vision, but with something already of the seeing 
 of face to face lost by sin, and only to be perfected in the 
 full unfolding of our nature. Thus there is a revelation 
 of God about us and within us, and the latter culminates in 
 the personal knowledge of the living God, as a God who 
 dwells among and associates with us, and allows us to asso- 
 ciate with Him. He who understands it differently from 
 this separates Revelation from religion, and degrades it to an 
 intellectualistic communication of certain facts or statutes. 
 For the fact must not be abandoned that religion germinates 
 only when it attains unto that which is written of Enoch, 
 viz. that he walked with Crod. Neither knowledge nor pious 
 feeling by themselves can ever be called religion. Only 
 when your God and you have met each other and associate 
 and walk together, does religion live in your heart. 
 
 But even this does not fully construe the conception of 
 innate theology. The distinction between the seed of re- 
 ligion and faith, both of which are increated in our human 
 nature, explains how from the side of God a revelation takes 
 place in us, and how our ego is disposed to observe this 
 revelation in us, but this by itself does not give us any 
 theology yet, i.e. knowledge of God. Even though revela- 
 tion in us on the one hand, and the working of our faith on 
 the other hand, have so far advanced that at length we have 
 perceived God in us and consequently know God, we have 
 as yet no knowledge of God, and hence no theology. I 
 may know a number of persons in the world whom I have 
 met, whose existence has been discovered to me, and of 
 whom I have received general impressions, while yet I 
 have no knowledge of them. That I may have knowledge 
 of him whom I have met, the logical action must first take 
 place. When I have met some one and thus know him, I 
 inquire about him, or seek an interview with him, that 
 I may obtain knowledge of his person. And such is the 
 case here. Though God works and manifests Himself in 
 our being, and though I have the power of faith to per- 
 ceive this inworking and this manifestation, this produces 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 269 
 
 nothing in me beyond perceptions, impressions and feelings ; 
 while I am left to the mysticism of my emotions. If from 
 this mysticism I want to advance to knowledge, and transform 
 revelation into theology, the logical action must enter in 
 between ; perception must pass over into thought ; impression 
 must sublimate itself into a conception; and thus the seed 
 of religion must unfold the flower-bud in the word; viz. the 
 word of adoration. Hence this logical action also was in- 
 cluded in innate theology ; simply because otherwise it could 
 have been no theoZo^ry. This, however, should not be taken in 
 the sense that Adam was created with some sort of a cate- 
 chism in his head ; for logical action presumes subjective 
 action of the human mind. If, therefore, we should speak 
 with entire accuracy, we should say that there was no incre- 
 ated theology in Adam, but that he was so created, that, in 
 his awakening to self -consciousness, he arrived of necessity 
 at this original theology from the data that were present in 
 him. In a literal sense respiration was not increated in 
 Adam, for the first inhalation only came when the creation 
 was completed, while before the creation was ended he could 
 not draw breath. Breathing is an action of the person 
 which comes only when the person exists. Since all the 
 conditions for breathing are given in our nature, and every 
 person born in this nature breathes of himself and from 
 necessity, no one hesitates to acknowledge that respiration 
 is inborn with us all. It were mere prudery, therefore, to 
 object to the expression of innate or concreate theology ; for 
 though ih.Qology is the result of a logical action in the sub- 
 ject, with Adam this logical action took place immediately 
 and from necessity ; and it was by this alone that the 
 receiving of an oral revelation was already possible in para- 
 dise. For it is plain that the entire representation which 
 the Scripture gives us of the intercourse with God in 
 paradise, of the fall and subsequent promise, becomes un- 
 intelligible and falls away, if we assume in Adam exclu- 
 sively the sense of the eternal, and deny him all conscious 
 knowledge of God. 
 Language itself decides the case. Speech without Ian- 
 
270 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Dit. in 
 
 guage is inconceivable, and he who in contradiction to the 
 Scriptures declares that the first man could utter at most a 
 few vague sounds, but was not in possession of language, 
 wholly denies thereby the Christian doctrine of creation and 
 the fall, and consequently of the Salvation in Christ. If, on 
 the other hand the original man, to speak with Heraclitus, 
 possessed a language by </)vo-t9,i the very possession of that 
 language assumes a logical action which is immediate, regu- 
 lar and pure equally with our respiration. And if from 
 the nature of the case this logical action was originally 
 limited with reference to its content to what man perceived 
 in himself, and, in his inner perceptions, the perception of 
 God stood majestically in the foreground, it is evident that 
 the first natural action of the human consciousness could 
 have been no other than the necessary translating into 
 knowledge of God of the inner sensibilities and perception 
 effected in him by God Himself. And on this ground we 
 hold that innate or concreate theology presumes three fac- 
 tors : (1) the inworking and manifestation of God HimseK 
 in Adam's inner being ; (2) faith, by which the subject 
 perceives and grasps this inworking and manifestation; and 
 (3) the logical action, by which of himself and of necessity 
 he reduces this content in his heart to knowledge of Crod, in 
 the form of thought and word. 
 
 From this it does not follow that one of these three fac- 
 tors should fall outside of Revelation. With none of these 
 three factors do we overstep the boundary of creation, 
 and all creation as such belongs to the domain of revelation. 
 This does not need to be shown of the first factor. The 
 action of God in our being is of itself revelation. But this 
 same thing is true also of the second factor : faith. For 
 what is faith but the sympathetic drawing of the image 
 (Abbild) to the original (Urbild) ; and what is there 
 revealed in this faith but that God has created us after 
 
 1 In opposition to the conventional theory of Demooritus, Heraclitus 
 taught that language was produced in us by the impressions received from 
 the objects in or around us. So Democritus taught a language by eiais, he 
 by (pv(Ti%. 
 
Chap. I] THE FKUIT OP KEVELATION 271 
 
 Himself, for Himself, and to Himself? And concerning 
 the third factor, viz. the knowledge which is the result of the 
 logical action, what expresses itself in this but the reflective 
 (abbildliche) working in us of that Logos, which is in God 
 and itself is God? The whole man, therefore, in his exist- 
 ence, in his relation to God, in his communion with, and 
 his knowledge of, God, is originally but one rich revelation 
 of God to mem. At a later period revelation may also come 
 to him from without ; but it begins by being in him, as an 
 immediate result of his creation. 
 
 This innate or connate theology was destined to be en- 
 riched by acquired (acquisita) theology. Not in the sense of 
 addition, as though this increated knowledge would gradu- 
 ally increase by such and such a per cent. Innate theology 
 was rather a completed whole by itself. It constituted all 
 that knowledge of God, which was to be obtained from the 
 immediate communion of God with the individual soul. It 
 completed that knowledge of God, whose principium lies in 
 the mystery of the emotions. But since the creation did not 
 consist of that single soul but of a human race, and of a 
 cosmos as the basis of this entire human race, a revelation of 
 God was also necessary in that cosmos and in that organic 
 unit of humanity; and since the individual soul stands in 
 organic relation to humanity and to the cosmos, its knowl- 
 edge of God had to include both these other spheres of 
 revelation. Even though you conceive a development apart 
 from sin, acquired theology would of itself have been 
 joined to innate theology, as soon as man entered into con- 
 scious relation to the cosmos and humanity as an organic 
 unit. Not for the sake of filling out what was incomplete, 
 but of enriching the knowledge complete in itself with the 
 revelation in both these other spheres. Thus, for instance, 
 to enlarge upon this with a single word, the idea of God's 
 Omnipotence, Wisdom, etc., would never have entered into 
 the consciousness of the soul from the cosmos nor from 
 the universal human life. These ideas lie in innate the- 
 ology, and are given in the idea of Grod as such. Neverthe- 
 less the significance and tendency of these ideas are only 
 
272 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. HI 
 
 clearly seen " since the creation of the world, being perceived 
 through the things that are made." And as to the acquired 
 theology which comes to the individual soul from its relation 
 to the organic unity of humanity, it is evident at once that 
 the Divine is too potent and overwhelming to reveal itself 
 in one human soul. Only in the combination of the whole 
 race of man does this revelation reach its creaturely com- 
 pleteness. Which could 710^ be so if one man were merely a 
 repetition of another, but which leads to that completeness 
 since every individual is a specific variation. Herein also 
 lies the ground for the social character of all religion. The 
 knowledge of God is a common possession, all the riches of 
 which can only be enjoyed in the communion of our race. 
 Not, indeed, as if even outside of religion man is a social 
 being, so that of necessity his religion also is of a social char- 
 acter, for this would reverse the case ; but because humanity 
 is adapted to reveal God, and from that revelation to attain 
 unto His knowledge, does one complement another, and only 
 by the organic unity, and by the individual in communion 
 with that unity, can the knowledge of God be obtained in a 
 completer and clearer sense. 
 
 For this reason reference was made not merely to our 
 nature, and to the relation we sustain to one another, but 
 also to the process or course ran of necessity by human devel- 
 opment. Without sin Adam would not have remained what 
 he was, but he and his race would have developed them- 
 selves into a higher condition. The process as known in 
 reality may be dominated by sin, but even with a sinless 
 existence there would have been a process of develop- 
 ment; and this element must be reckoned with in theologia 
 acquisita. Of course we cannot enter into the particulars of 
 a supposed possibility cut off by sin. This were to lose 
 ourselves in fiction. But in general it may be affirmed, 
 (1) that even without sin human existence would have been 
 a successive existence in time, and consequently an exist- 
 ence in the form of a process; (2) that the entire human 
 race was not in existence at once, but could only come suc- 
 cessively to life; and (3), as is seen from the paradise narra- 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 273 
 
 tive itself, the study of the cosmos would have borne a 
 successive character. Hence in this process there would 
 have been progress, and not simple repetition. Difference 
 of relation to the Eternal Being would have resulted from 
 difference of conditions. The relations among these sev- 
 eral conditions would have been organic. Hence in this 
 process of human development there would of itself have 
 appeared a process of development of the knowledge of God. 
 Yea, this process itself, as history foreordained and ruled by 
 God from step to step, would in turn have become a revela- 
 tion sui generis. In this development of the human race 
 the logical consciousness in man would likewise have ob- 
 tained a development of its own. Thus parallel to the 
 process of history there would have run a history of man 
 as a logical being. In proportion as revelation enriched 
 itself, the instrument would thus have become more potent by 
 which man transmuted the treasures of this revelation into 
 Theology. "We do not say that this would have taken place 
 in the form of our present science. In our human existence 
 everything is so intimately connected, that the modification 
 which our entire existence experienced by sin and by sin- 
 restraining grace, both "common" and "particular," im- 
 presses its stamp upon our science also. Abstraction, which 
 at present is absolutely indispensable to our science, would 
 certainly not have exercised so strong an influence without 
 sin as it does now. But in whatever form common human 
 consciousness might have developed itself without sin. 
 Theology, i.e. the knowledge of God, would have occupied 
 a sphere of its own in the world of thought, and would by no 
 means have been restricted to the secret reverie of individuals 
 upon the sensations of their inmost soul. All revelation 
 proceeds from the Logos (John i. 1-8), and therefore cannot 
 rest content as long as it is not grasped and reflected back 
 by the logical consciousness of individuals and of the whole 
 of humanity, i.e. by the "logos in humanity." In this way 
 knowledge of God would have proceeded immediately from 
 revelation, and in virtue of the organic relation and develop- 
 ment of our race this knowledge of God eo ipso would have 
 
274 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. ni 
 
 assumed a scientific form, even if by another effort of the mind 
 than that from which at present the science of Theology is 
 born. Theology as a science would then have proceeded 
 immediately and of necessity from Theology as the personal 
 and universal knowledge of God, and it would never have 
 entered the mind of any one to understand by the name of 
 Theology anything but that God-knowledge itself. Scien- 
 tific Theology also would rigorously have maintained its 
 character as knowledge of God. The three above-mentioned 
 factors — revelation, faith and the logical action — are and 
 ever will be with acquired Theology also, which develops 
 of itself into scientific Theology, the three constituent ele- 
 ments of ectypal Theology. Without revelation nothing is 
 known; without /az'f A there is no apprehension nor appropria- 
 tion of that revelation ; and without the logical action, that 
 which has been perceived cannot be transmuted into subjec- 
 tive knowledge of God. 
 
 We, however, may not rest content with this supposition 
 of a sinless development. The development is a sinful one, 
 and all closer insight into the nature of Theology must 
 therefore deal with this fact. And yet we do not deem the 
 exposition superfluous of the relation which would have 
 arisen in the case of a sinless development. It is rather a 
 significant fault that in later theological studies this has 
 been too much neglected. We understand what darkness is 
 only from the antithesis of light. Pathology assumes the 
 knowledge of the normal body. And so too the sinful de- 
 velopment of our race and of its world of thought, in relation 
 to intervenient grace, can never be understood except we first 
 leave sin out of account. He only who has before his eyes 
 the straight line understands the crooked line. To note a 
 deviation, I must know where the right path runs. And the 
 negative or privative character of sin makes this also neces- 
 sary with the study of Theology. By the too exclusively 
 soteriological interpretation of Theology we have become 
 unaccustomed to this ; while the theologians, who avoided 
 this danger, weakened the fact of sin, and so lost more or 
 less the whole antithesis. Formerly, however, in the days 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OP REVELATION 275 
 
 when Theology was still taken theologically, this distinction 
 ■was rigorously maintained; and every one who, as theolo- 
 gian, aims again at Theology in its real sense, must return 
 with us to this distinction. 
 
 But neither in this discussion of the Revelation of God to 
 the sinner, any more than in the first part of this section in 
 our explanation of the Revelation of God to man, will we 
 describe the content and form of that Revelation itself. For 
 so far as the form of this revelation is in order in Encyclo- 
 pedia, it falls to be treated in the chapter on the Principium 
 of Theology. Since now, however, we have only just begun 
 to develop the conception of Theology from its idea and 
 history, we cannot concern ourselves with that content and 
 form, but must confine ourselves here to its general character. 
 
 In view of this our fourth proposition reads, that the revela- 
 tion of Giod to the sinner remains the same as the revelation of 
 Crod to man without sin, only with this twofold necessary differ- 
 ence, that formally the disorder in the sinner must be neutral- 
 ized, and materially the knowledge of God must be extended so 
 as to include the knowledge of Grod's relation to the sinner. 
 
 In this connection we need not concern ourselves with the 
 fact that it is grace that speaks in the so-called soteriological 
 Revelation. This belongs properly to Dogmatics and not 
 to Encyclopedia. In passing, however, we suggest that 
 the possibility is conceivable, that after man had become a 
 sinner, God might have continued to reveal Himself as before. 
 The result of this would not have been, as is commonly 
 asserted, that the natural knowledge of God alone would 
 have survived; for, as will be shown later on, this natural 
 knowledge of God also is a fruit of grace, and more particu- 
 larly of ''^ common grace." Imagine that all grace had been 
 withdrawn, so that sin would have been able to develop its 
 deepest energies in the sinner all at once, without any check 
 or opposition, nothing would have remained but spiritual 
 darkness, and all "knowledge of God" would have turned 
 into its opposite. Hence to obtain a clear insight into the 
 
276 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Dir. lu 
 
 modification suffered by the original revelation on account of 
 sin, we must go back to this hypothesis and put the ques- 
 tion, in what condition the three factors of the knowledge 
 of God — revelation, faith and the logical action of the 
 human mind — would exhibit themselves under this con- 
 stellation. 
 
 Revelation, taken as limited to man and interpreted as the 
 inworking and manifestation of God in man's hidden being, 
 does not cease with sin ; nothing can annihilate the omni- 
 presence of God, not even sin; nor can man's dependence as 
 image upon the archetype be destroyed, neither can the mys- 
 tical contact of the infinite and the finite in the human soul be 
 abolished. Thus revelation is continued in the heart of man. 
 That which in his hellish terror drove Judas to despair and 
 suicide, was but the perception of this fearful manifestation 
 of God in the deepest centre of his person. Only this reve- 
 lation, which was originally sympathetic, turns into its 
 opposite and becomes antipathetic. It becomes the revela- 
 tion of a God who sends out His wrath and punishes the 
 sinner. Even in hell the sinner continues to carry in him- 
 self this inworking of God's omnipresence. Because as 
 sinner also he remains forever man and must remain such, 
 he can never escape from that revelation. "If I make my 
 bed in hell, behold, Thou art there." 
 
 The same is true of the second factor, TriarK. Faith also 
 belongs to human nature, consequently the sinner can never 
 rid himself of it; it also turns into its opposite and becomes 
 unfaith (aTrto-ria) ; which must not be understood as a mere 
 want or defect of faith, but always as an active deprivation 
 (actuosa privatio). The energy which by nature operates 
 in faith remains the same, but turns itself away from God 
 and with all the passion at its command attaches itself to 
 something else. This is accounted for by the fact that reve- 
 lation can no longer reach its highest point in the sinner, 
 viz. the personal manifestation of God to the sinner. So 
 that it is limited to the internal operations of God in His 
 anger, and thus to perceptions in the subject of an awful 
 power that terrifies him. This perception can affect faith in 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 277 
 
 two ways: the sinner to whom God can no longer appear 
 personally can either attribute this inworking to some power- 
 ful, terrible creature, and for that reason direct his faith to 
 this monstrous creature itself; or, against this terrifying 
 power in his inmost soul he can seek protection elsewhere, 
 and thus centre his faith upon a creature that is sympathetic 
 to him. After he has become a sinner, man still continues 
 to seek after a something to which to cleave with his faith ; 
 even though, in Diabolism, Satan himself became this to him. 
 
 And finally the third factor, the logical action by which 
 that which faith receives by revelation is raised to subjec- 
 tive knowledge, remains also operative in the sinner, and, 
 cases of idiocy and lunacy excepted, maintains itself in him. 
 The sinner also is impelled to reflect in his consciousness 
 the perceptions which by means of faith he has grasped 
 as real, and placed in relation to an author. Though the 
 stimulus of the logical activity generally operates less 
 strongly in the sinner, since it is the tendency of sin to 
 slacken all activity, yet this is by no means the case with 
 all individuals, and so far as faith has turned into unfaith 
 it can strongly stimulate this activity from sheer enmity 
 against God. Even then, this logical activity does not lead 
 to the knowledge of God, but simply to the erroneous effort 
 to explain the potent and terrible perceptions, actually re- 
 ceived in one's being by the inworking of God, in such a way 
 that God is denied by the intellect, and all such inworking is 
 either explained away or explained from the creature. That 
 which is written of Satan: "The devils also believe and 
 tremble," expresses the condition of the sinner under the per- 
 ception of the inworking of God in his soul ; only with this 
 difference, that the demons, as non-somatic, cannot deceive 
 themselves with reference to the reality of the existence of 
 God, and can work no eclipse of His existence by the sub- 
 stitution of a creature, which is the very thing that man as 
 sinner can do; at least so long as he is upon earth, and 
 especially in connection with the restraint of sin by common 
 grace. 
 
 In case, therefore, that revelation had not been modified 
 
278 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. m 
 
 on tlie part of God, by way of accommodation to the sinner, 
 revelation would have worked nothing in man beyond the 
 sense of the presence of a terrible power that makes him 
 tremble ; faith would have turned into unf aith toward God, 
 and would have attached itself to an antipathetic or sympa- 
 thetic creature ; and the logical activity would have sought 
 an explanation of that perception, but would never have 
 achieved any knowledge of God. There would have been no 
 Theology; and nothing could have been done on the part 
 of the sinner to create light in this darkness. This light 
 could only come from the side of God. 
 
 This implies, as the facts of history show, that there was 
 in fact a modification introduced in the original plan of reve- 
 lation and of the construction from this revelation of a 
 knowledge of God. It was changed, but not by the addition 
 of something new and foreign. This would have worked 
 magically ; it would have stood mechanically by the side of 
 man, and would have been incapable of assimilation. That 
 which is to be knowable to man and is to be known by man 
 must correspond to the disposition of human nature. That 
 which does not approach us in a human perceptible form has 
 no existence for us, and that which is not adjusted to our 
 subjective logos can never become the content of our knowl- 
 edge. Hence revelation to the sinner must continue to ex- 
 hibit that same type to which man is adjusted in his creation. 
 This first, and in the second place there must occur such a 
 modification in revelation as will make it correspond to the 
 modification which took place in man. The nature of the 
 change worked in man by sin governs the change which must 
 follow in revelation. This also affords no room for arbitra- 
 riness or whim. The fundamental type remains what it is 
 in original revelation, and modification in this type must 
 entirely agree with the modification occasioned by sin. In the 
 third place, it must not be lost from view that immediate re- 
 straint of the deadly operation of sin was necessary, in order 
 that such a modified revelation might still be of use. If sin 
 had once worked its absolute effect, there could be no more 
 help against it by revelation. All they who have once re- 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 279 
 
 ceived the hellish character, lie in a darkness which no ray 
 of light can penetrate. And in that case all contact with the 
 light of revelation but leads to sin against the Holy Ghost. 
 All " special " revelation, as it is commonly though not alto- 
 gether correctly called, postulates common grace, i.e. that act 
 of God by which negatively He curbs the operations of Satan, 
 death, and sin, and by which positively He creates an inter- 
 mediate state for this cosmos, as well as for our human race, 
 which is and continues to be deeply and radically sinful, but 
 in which sin cannot work out its end (reXo?). In the cove- 
 nant with Noah especially, which embraced the whole earth 
 and all that has life upon it, this " common grace " assumed a 
 more definite form ; and human life, as we know it, is not life 
 in paradise, nor life as it would be if sin had been allowed 
 to work out its final effects, but life in which evil truly 
 predominates and works its corruption, but always in such 
 a way that what is human as such is not destroyed. The 
 wheel of sin is certainly revolving, but the brakes are on. 
 This is what our churches confessed when they spoke of 
 sparks (scintillae) or remnants (rudera) which still re- 
 mained of the image of God, which did not mean that they 
 have remained of themselves, as though sin would not have 
 extinguished those sparks or destroyed those remnants had 
 it been able to do so; but that by "common grace " God has 
 restrained and curbed for a time the destructive power of sin. 
 In virtue of the Noachic covenant this restraint continues to 
 be applied till the Parousia. Then the brake is taken from 
 the wheel and those sparks also go out into entire darkness. 
 The so-called "special" revelation, therefore, does not 
 adapt itself to the sinner, as he would have been, if sin had 
 worked in him its destruction to the end. Such a sinner 
 would have become satanic, and consequently have passed 
 beyond all possibility of salvation. But special revelation 
 is intended for the sinner who stands in common grace. 
 This is not said in order to postulate in the sinner anything 
 positive, that could ever produce regeneration. Even while 
 standing in common grace the sinner is " dead in trespasses 
 and sin," and in regeneration is absolutely passive; only 
 
280 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. m 
 
 under common grace palingenesis is still possible, while 
 it has become an entire impossibility in the angel absolutely 
 fallen and will be impossible in man when he shall have 
 become absolutely satanic. This refutes the representation 
 that the sinner is a "stock or block," and what we maintain 
 is but the antithesis of the Reformed against the Lutheran 
 representation, in which it was objected to on our part, that 
 every point of connection for grace was wanting in the 
 sinner. Re-creation may never be interpreted as an abso- 
 lute creation. 
 
 With reference now to the modifications which of neces- 
 sity must occur in the fundamental type of revelation, it is 
 evident that these must take place in each of the three 
 factors which lead to the knowledge of God. 
 
 Since God in revelation could no longer appear to the 
 spiritual vision of man, after it had been darkened by 
 sin, that self-manifestation had to be transferred from the 
 mystery of soul-life to the outer world, with the incarnation 
 as its central point, which is by no means the necessary 
 complement of the normal human development, but was 
 demanded only and alone by sin. From this it follows of 
 itself that the method of revelation became inverted. If it 
 began originally in the mystical nature of the individual, 
 that so it might grow into a common revelation to our race, 
 this was no longer possible after the fall. All knowledge, 
 which as a connected whole directs itself from the external 
 to the internal, is bound to the method of first establishing 
 itself in the common consciousness, and from this only can 
 it enter the consciousness of the individuals. And formally 
 it is by these two data that special Revelation is entirely 
 governed; while its material modification could consist in 
 nothing else than that God should no longer reveal Himself 
 to the sinner antipathetically in His anger, but sympatheti- 
 cally, i.e. in His pitying grace. 
 
 So much for revelation itself. On the other hand, the 
 modification effected in the second factor — faith — bears an 
 entirely different character. The faith life of the sinner is 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 281 
 
 turned away from God in cnncTia, and attaches itself to some- 
 thing creaturely, in which it seeks support against God. 
 If, now, this turning of faith into its opposite stood as a 
 psychical phenomenon by itself, this faith could only again 
 be made right. But such is not the case. That faith turned 
 into its opposite took place in connection with the entire 
 change occasioned in the psychical existence of man, and 
 extended not only to the outward act but even to the root. 
 Recovery of the original working of faith is, therefore, only 
 possible by palingenesis, i.e. by bending right again, from 
 the root up, the direction of his psychical life. Potentially, 
 in order from the potential to become actual. In the second 
 place this faith, which was originally directed only to the 
 manifestation of God in the soul, was now to be directed 
 to the manifestation of God in the flesh, and thus become 
 faith in Christ. And in the third place this faith, which 
 originally could turn to unfaith, was now to obtain such a 
 character, that, once grasping God in Christ, it should hold 
 fast forever, and so far as its fundamental tendency is con- 
 cerned, would not again turn back. 
 
 It is not so easy to lay hand on the change, necessitated by sin 
 in the entire scheme of revelation, with reference to the third 
 factor : the logical action. Here, confusion has sprung from the 
 almost exclusively soteriological interpretation of the knowl- 
 edge of God. It was thought that Revelation was exclusively 
 intended to save the elect ; consequently Revelation could not 
 be understood except as directed to the individual person; 
 and this has prevented every collective view of special Revela- 
 tion as a whole. In this way one becomes at once involved 
 in the insoluble antinomy, that in order to be saved the first 
 fallen man in paradise must already have had this Revela- 
 tion in a state of sufficient completeness, and that therefore 
 all that came afterward was really superfluous, since that 
 which was sufficient to save Adam ought also to suffice for 
 Isaiah, Augustine and Luther. From this point of view an 
 historical, progressive and an ever increasingly rich revela- 
 tion is inconceivable. Already in its first form it must be 
 complete ; and what is added at a later date is superfluous 
 
282 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. in 
 
 luxury. If meanwhile you face the fact, that this Revelation 
 has a history, and in part still progresses, and that from 
 this long process a broadly ramified and organic whole is 
 born, you incur the other danger, that in this Revela- 
 tion the saving germ is distinguished from that which has 
 grown around it ; in which way a retreat is suggested from 
 the clearly conscious to the less clearly conscious; which 
 opens the door to boundless arbitrariness; and ends in a 
 return to mysticism, and in viewing all logical action as 
 accidental. Which evil is still more aggravated by the 
 consideration that the humblest-minded people should have 
 the full offer of salvation, and that even children, who die 
 before they have awakened to any consciousness, should not 
 be excluded. And this obliges you to conceive the germ 
 to be so small that even the simplest mind can grasp it, and 
 to place the degree of consciousness so low, yea, even below 
 zero, as not to exclude the infant that dies at its very 
 birth. Thus you see that this exclusively soteriological 
 interpretation of special Revelation tends directlj' to its 
 destruction; for from the nature of the case nothing what- 
 ever remains of an external revelation as the means of sal- 
 vation for the young dying child. Hence it is no help to 
 you, that along with the logical action you point to divine 
 illumination. This may be added to it, but soteriologically 
 can never be the essential condition. And the fact is well 
 known, that this soteriological interpretation of revelation 
 as a revelation of salvation has of necessity led many minds 
 to seek refuge again in the tents of mysticism ; and to deem 
 themselves accordingly authorized to try to their heart's con- 
 tent their anatomical skill upon the H0I3' Scriptures as upon 
 a corpus vile. 
 
 From this difSculty there is no escape, until special 
 Revelation is no longer viewed as directed soteriologically to 
 individual man. Revelation goes out to humanity taken as 
 a whole. Since humanitj"- unfolds itself historically, this 
 Revelation also bears an historic character. Since this 
 humanity exists organically, having a centrum of action, 
 this Revelation also had to be organic, with a centrum of its 
 
Chap. I] THE PEUIT OF E-EVELATION 283 
 
 own. And as individuals partake of this liuman life only in 
 relation to humanity as a whole, so also in relation to this 
 ■whole alone is Revelation of any significance to individual 
 man. By this we do not deny the soteriological aim of 
 special Revelation, but merely assert that salvation of the 
 individual soul is not its rule. Its standard is and will be 
 theological ; its first aim is theodicy. Surely whosoever be- 
 lieves on Christ shall be saved; this is possible first and only 
 because God has sent His Son ; but the aim, and therefore 
 also end, of all this is, to make us see how God has loved 
 Eis world, and that therefore the creation of this cosmos, 
 even in the face of sin, has been no failure. Hence Reve- 
 lation taken as a whole aims at three things : (1) the actual 
 triumph over sin, guilt and death, — a triumph which for 
 the sake of Theology could not be limited to God's plan or 
 counsel, but was bound to go out into the cosmical reality ; 
 (2) the clear reflection of the manifold wisdom of God in 
 the logical consciousness of man; and (3) such a dioramic 
 procedure, that at every given moment of its career it offers 
 all that is necessary for the salvation of the contempora- 
 neous generation and of all persons in that generation. 
 Passing by the first and the third for a moment, we con- 
 sider the second alone as touching directly upon the logical 
 action. The realization of the triumph over sin, guilt and 
 death belongs in revelation to life itself ; the salvation of 
 individuals does not depend in principle upon the logical 
 action, but upon the rectification of faith; and with the 
 logical action, which is the point in hand, the main 
 point is what we called, in the second place, the reflection 
 of the wisdom of God in the logical consciousness of 
 humanity. The subject of this action is not the individual 
 person, but the general Ego of believing humanity — a 
 limitation in which the additional term of "believing" ia 
 no contradiction, if only it is understood how wrong it is ta 
 suppose that the real stem of humanity shall be lost, and 
 that merely an aggregate of elect individuals shall be saved. 
 On the contrary, it should be confessed that in hell there is 
 only an aggregate of lost individuals, who were cut off from 
 
284 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Diy. HI 
 
 the stem of humanity, while humanity as an organic whole is 
 saved, and as such forms the "body of Christ." By "believ- 
 ing humanity," therefore, we understand the human race 
 as an organic whole, so far as it lives, i.e. so far as unbelief 
 has turned again to faith or shall turn. 
 
 In the general consciousness of humanity thus taken, 
 the content, according to the original disposition of our cre- 
 ation, should be formed by individual accretion. Bud by 
 bud unfolds, and thus only is the foliage of the bush gradu- 
 ally adorned with flowers. Without sin the logical action, 
 which translates the content of faith into a clear concep- 
 tion, and thus into knowledge of God, would have gone out 
 from the individuals, and from these single rills the stream 
 would have been formed. Here, also, the way would have led 
 from within outward. This, however, was cut off by sin. 
 As soon as sin had entered in, revelation had to work from 
 without inward, since sin had fast bolted the door which 
 gave access to the manifestation of God in the soul. No 
 sooner had sin gained an entrance than Adam discerned and 
 perceived the presence of the Lord approaching him from 
 without in the cool of the day. And thus the problem 
 arises, in what way the logical action, which is to transmute 
 the content of faith into knowledge of God, can come from 
 without, in order now inversely, from the general conscious- 
 ness, to reach the consciousness of the individual. And from 
 the nature of the case there is no simple solution for this 
 verj' complicated problem, but a very complex one, which 
 can only be fully explained in the chapter on the principiwm 
 of Theology. The lines alone can here be indicated, whose 
 combination and crossing offer the figure for this solution. 
 
 In the first place, then, let us observe that the general 
 subject of the essential ego of restored humanity can be no 
 abstraction, simply because an abstraction is incapable of 
 any logical action. Agreeably to this the Scripture teaches 
 that this general subject is the Christ. As we commonly 
 say that there is a thinking head in an association, group, 
 or party, or that he who forms a school is the essentially 
 thinking head for all his school, so in a much more rigorous 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 285 
 
 sense is Christ the thinking subject of our restored human- 
 ity, in whose common consciousness " the manifold wisdom 
 of God " is to reflect itself. The Church confesses this by 
 honoring him as prophet, and Paul expresses it by saying 
 that Christ is first given us as wisdom (1 Cor. i. 30). Even 
 though it is the Holy Spirit who executes the logical action, 
 it is Christ himself who said : " He shall receive of mine, 
 and shall show it unto you." He is not only the light and 
 the life and the way, but He is also the truth. And Christ 
 can be this, because he is himself the Logos, as the Evan- 
 gelist emphasizes so strongly, and because the logos in man 
 exhibits the image of this Logos of God. If now there were 
 no causal relation between these two, Christ would be 
 inconceivable as subject of the new humanity. Since, how- 
 ever, our logos is reflectively (abbildlich) the counterpart of 
 the divine Logos, and since this Logos is in consequence, 
 also independently of sin, "the Light of the world," thus 
 supporting and animating the logical existence of man, it is 
 in every way conceivable that this Logos should approach 
 individual man from without, for the sake of executing for 
 him and in his stead the logical action, for which he him- 
 self had become disabled, and thus by indoctrination in the 
 literal sense to bring him back again to that logical action. 
 This was implied in the saying of the older theologians, 
 that the Logos had revealed himself to us in a twofold way, 
 viz. in the reality of being by incarnation, and in the world 
 of our consciousness by what, for brevity's sake, we will call 
 inscripturation, without emphasizing for the present the 
 scriptural part. There was a revelation of the Logos, they 
 said, in the flesh, and a revelation of the Logos in the word, 
 or, if you please, in being and thought. And because both 
 these revelations were revelations of the one Logos, they 
 were organically united in him, and together formed one 
 whole. If the incarnation were nothing but a physical 
 fact, without a logical content, this fact could not be taken 
 up into our consciousness as far as its content is con- 
 cerned. And, on the other hand, if the revelation 5y ^^^ 
 word had no background in reality, and no central motive 
 
286 §60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div, III 
 
 in the incarnation, it were nothing but an abstraction. 
 Since, however, the subject of the incarnation is one with 
 the subject of the revealed word, there is not merely har- 
 mony between the two, but organic relation ; and this organic 
 relation is most strongly evident when the incarnate Logos 
 utters even as man the oracles of God. To be sure the Logos is 
 not bound to the organ of his own human nature for revelation 
 by the word ; as organic head of the new humanity he can also 
 speak through the organ of other human persons ; so Peter 
 affirms of the prophets (1 Pet. i. 11, what the spirit of 
 Christ which was in them did signify) and Jesus himself 
 declares of the apostles ; yet the coincidence of the two lines, 
 that of the incarnation (iva-dpKwa-i'i) and of the words (XaXia), 
 in Christ's own manifestation, lends an entirely unique 
 majesty to his word, which does not appear to this extent 
 either before or after him. 
 
 Thus, if it is true of sinless humanity that the " knowledge 
 of God " could gradually ripen in individual persons and from 
 the few enter into the general human consciousness, it is the 
 opposite of this that takes place with sinful, and therefore to 
 be restored, humanity. Christ, as the Head of the Body, is 
 the general subject of restored humanity ^ and the knowledge 
 of God is not only complete in him, but from him it descends 
 to individual believers. It is the same difference that is 
 found in the domain of ethics between the dispensations of 
 paradise and Golgotha. In paradise ethical life is first 
 personal, and then common, and is intended to progress 
 toward perfection. In Christ, on the other hand, holiness 
 is centrally given for his entire mystical body, from him 
 to communicate itself to his members ; while in Christ also 
 an ethical perfection is offered to us which is no more 
 to be acquired, but is now finished. And the same is true 
 of the knowledge of God. This also is first in Christ as 
 our common head and centrum, and descends from him to 
 individual believers ("Neither knoweth any man the Father 
 save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal 
 him." Matt. xi. 27)j and again this knowledge of God 
 in Christ is perfect (" As the Father knoweth me, even so 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 287 
 
 know I the Father." John x. 15). Our older theologians 
 expressed this entirely exceptional position of Christ as our 
 p-opAet by attributing to him the Theologia Unionis, i.e. that 
 "knowledge of God" which resulted from what he him- 
 self described by saying : I and the Father are one. The 
 Christological explanation of this is not in order here, but 
 in Dogmatics. But to show the significance of this fact 
 to special revelation, we here indicate these three points: 
 (1) that the theologia unionis is not taken as an adequate 
 divine self-knowledge, but always as a human knowledge of 
 Crod, i.e. a knowledge as complete as the measure of human 
 capacity will allow, but nevertheless ever bound to this 
 measure. Our eye can only take in light to a limited 
 degree of intensity; stronger light does not lighten us, 
 but blinds our eye, and that degree of light only which is 
 adjusted to our eye gives us entire clearness. In the same 
 way a knowledge of God which exceeds our human limita- 
 tions would throw no light into our darkness, but cause us 
 to see still less. (2) Let it be observed that this knowledge 
 of God as the fruit of Christ's union with the Father was 
 not the result of a dialectical analysis, but was intuitive, 
 and therefore was not acceptable "to the wise and the 
 learned," but intelligible to babes. It is not said, there- 
 fore, that Christ is our knowledge (ywo-i?), much less 
 that he is our understanding (o-wz'eo-w), but that he is our 
 wisdom (a-o^la'). Christ does not argue, he declares; 
 he does not demonstrate, he shows and illustrates ; he does 
 not analyze, but with enrapturing symbolism unveils the 
 truth. The statement that Christ "increased in wisdom" 
 cannot detain us here ; in this instance we merely deal with 
 Christ after his baptism, when the "hear him" had been 
 proclaimed of him. And the objection that Christ con- 
 sulted the Holy Scriptures of Israel has no weight with 
 those who confess, with the apostle Peter, that Christ is 
 also the subject of prophecy. But in whatever way this 
 may be taken, the result remains the same. The Son, who 
 was in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him unto us, 
 and this implies what we postulated: (1) that the knowl- 
 
288 § 60. ECTYPAL THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 edge of God of restored humanity was first in its general 
 subject, i.e. in Christ; and (2) that in this general subject 
 it was perfect. 
 
 If this is the beginning of the logical action by which 
 regenerated humanity turns into knowledge the content of 
 revelation received by faith, it is at once evident that this 
 does not end the logical action. First, there is still want- 
 ing the logical action of the individual, by which he 
 comes to a personal knowledge of God; and, in the second 
 place, the central and complete knowledge of God, which 
 the whole body of Christ possesses in Him who has been 
 given it of God for wisdom, must be radiated from all 
 the combining articulations of regenerated humanity, and 
 must become "understanding" in its dialectical conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 With reference to the first it is necessary that the organ 
 or instrument for this logical action in the sinner shall 
 regain the power which it has lost by sin. Although we 
 are not deprived by sin of the power of thought, and though 
 our law of thought is not broken, the pivot of our thought 
 has become displaced, and thereby our activity of thought, 
 applied to divine things, has a wrong eifect. This is 
 restored by divine illumination, which does not imply that 
 he who has thus been enlightened is to think more 
 acutely. Greater or lesser acuteness of thought depends 
 upon personal conditions which are entirely different. Paul 
 is a more acute thinker than James, and in acuteness of 
 thought Aristotle and Kant excel by far the majority of 
 Christians. If I put a sharp knife in a mowing-machine, 
 but place it too high, so that it cannot touch the grass, all 
 action of the machine is in vain; and with a duller knife, 
 which touches the grass, I will produce ten times as much 
 effect. And such is the case here. As long as the divine 
 illumination remains wanting, the logical instrument in the 
 sinner is out of relation to divine things. It does not touch 
 them, and therefore its action is in vain. The instrument 
 of the logical action is not repaired mechanically; this 
 postulates the palingenesis of our person, which is only 
 
Chap. 1] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 289 
 
 effected by the Holy Spirit in the regenerate. When, how- 
 ever, this divine illumination has once become actual, at 
 least in its beginnings, our consciousness is able to appro- 
 priate to itself logically also the content taken up by 
 faith. Not in the sense that every believer is able to think 
 out in a clear way the entire content of revelation. This 
 is only done by all believers together. After these many 
 centuries, this task is still by no means completed. Person- 
 ally this enlightening simply means that, according to the 
 peculiarities of his person, according to his needs and the 
 measure of his gifts, every believer understands everything 
 that is necessary for confession. Under the influence of 
 divine illumination, this logical action therefore does not 
 direct itself to the entire field of revelation, but to its cen- 
 tral content, while the knowledge which extends itself also 
 to a part at least of the periphery is only the possession of a 
 very few. Moreover, this logical action does by no means 
 effect a clear understanding with all, but gives each the 
 insight suited to the peculiar susceptibility of his person, 
 which is entirely different with a humble day-laborer from 
 what it is with the scholar. But as a result so much 
 knowledge of God in each case is obtained as corresponds to 
 the clearness of each consciousness. 
 
 Next to this individual insight into the content of revela- 
 tion, no less attention should be paid to the logical action 
 which brings the content of revelation to clearness in tha.t gen- 
 eral understanding, which in turn serves and enriches personal 
 knowledge. The foundation for this is laid by apostolic reve- 
 lation, which affords us a more varied and distinguishing look 
 into the wisdom of Christ. This does not imply that the 
 apostles offered us anything that falls under the conception 
 of scientific Theology. He who makes this assertion totally 
 underestimates their authority. But in their writings the 
 lines are indicated along which the logical activity of the 
 so-called scientific Theology must conduct itself through all 
 ages. Thus they indicate what the content of revelation is, 
 
290 §60. ECTYPAIi THEOLOGY [Dit. in 
 
 as well as the relation in which this content as a whole 
 stands to the past, to the antithetical powers, and to personal 
 faith and practice. This apostolic knowledge is, therefore, 
 the complement of revelation itself, since this revelation would 
 be incomplete if it did not itself produce the roots from 
 which the understanding must develop itself. This develop- 
 ment can only follow when it finds its point of departure in 
 revelation itseK. Even then this development is not left to 
 abstract and independent thought, but remains dependent 
 upon the inworking and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The 
 human logos, as weakened by sin, can certainly deal with the 
 content of this revelation, as has been the case in all ages; 
 but as soon as this movement has reached out after something 
 more than a mere superficiality, it has become at once anti- 
 thetical, has placed itself in opposition to revelation, and has 
 sought, and still seeks, logically to destroy it. Hence the 
 development we referred to can only come from that circle in 
 which the divine illumination operates, and the logical action 
 of the circle outside of this can only serve to stimulate 
 the action of those who have been enlightened and to 
 make them careful of mistakes. Since in the circle of the 
 "enlightened" the Holy Spirit operates not merely in in- 
 dividuals, but also in groups and in the whole circle, it 
 is actually the Holy Spirit who, as "the teacher of the 
 Church," interprets the content of revelation, and so en- 
 riches and purifies the knowledge of God ; not, however, by 
 the suppression of logical action, but by stimulating and 
 by employing it as its instrument. The necessary outcome 
 of this is that this working is not perfect; that it propels 
 itself by all sorts of vibrations between truth and error; that 
 it only gradually obtains more firmness, and finally results 
 in the dogma of the Church. 
 
 But even this does not end the task of the logical action. 
 The understanding of Revelation must be taken up into the 
 general understanding, from which of itself the need arises 
 of giving an organic place in the unit of our knowledge to 
 that knowledge of God lodged in the regenerate, and which 
 under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church, in deadly 
 
Chap. I] THE FRUIT OF REVELATION 291 
 
 conflict, has formulated into dogma. Our knowledge of the 
 cosmos and of revelation must not merely be brought into 
 practical harmony for the sake of the life of faith, but in 
 the human consciousness as such it must also become an 
 organic whole, and thus Theology rise as a science: first, 
 in the scholastic sense, so long as it serves no other pur- 
 pose than the justification of the content of Theology at 
 the tribunal of thought; after that, ;polyhistorically, when 
 it swarms upon every sort of flower-bed that stands in less 
 or more relation to Theology; and finally, in the organic 
 sense, when it places its subjective action, as well as its 
 given object, in their relation to our world of thought and 
 the world of other objects. Thus only can that which is at 
 first potential knowledge unfold itself to a complete and 
 actual science. 
 
 But in this process, from start to finish, it is ever and 
 always Theology in its proper sense, i.e. the knowledge of 
 God divinely given, that is taken up into our consciousness, 
 and is reflected from our consciousness (personal as well as 
 general). Hence nothing is significant to Theology, because 
 nothing belongs to it organically, but that which interprets 
 this "knowledge of God" in its origin, content, significance, 
 working and tendency. 
 
 By way of recapitulation, therefore, we arrive at what 
 was stated in our fourth proposition, viz. that ectypal Theol- 
 ogy, as revealed by God Himself, is the same in all its 
 stages ; and that special revelation, i.e. revelation to the 
 sinner, is only modified to the extent that now it can also be 
 known what God is willing to be to the sinner. That, fur- 
 ther, this development of revelation goes hand in hand with 
 an accommodation to the lost condition of the sinner, so that 
 now revelation does not work from within outward, but 
 makes its approach from the outer world to the inner life 
 of man, and that the logical action goes out from the central 
 ego of Christ, and thus only benefits the individual subject 
 in the personal believer. And that finally, for the sake of 
 the assimilation of this knowledge of God by the sinner, his 
 unbelief must be changed to a faith in Christ, which is only 
 
292 §61. CONCEPTION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 possible through, at least a potential, palingenesis of Ms 
 whole being. 
 
 And thus we reach the point which renders the forming 
 of the conception of Theology as science, possible, and which 
 will be considered in the following section. 
 
 § 61. Conception of Theology as Science 
 
 Like every other science, the science of Theology can be 
 spoken of in a twofold sense, viz. either with reference to the 
 intellectual labor expended upon Theology, or with reference 
 to the results of that labor. In the latter sense. Theology as 
 science also remains the knowledge of Grod ; for though its 
 result is not an increase of the knowledge of God, and can 
 only lead to a clearer insight into the revealed knowledge of 
 God, yet every gain in clearness of insight magnifies the 
 worth of that knowledge. The microscope adds nothing to 
 the wing of the butterfly, but enables me to obtain a richer 
 knowledge of that wing. And while the science of Theology 
 adds no new knowledge of God to the knowledge revealed 
 to us, scientific Theology renders my fuller assimilation of 
 its content possible. 
 
 Whether this scientific insight into the knowledge of God 
 is possible and necessary, depends upon the stage of develop- 
 ment which has been reached by the human consciousness. 
 In fact, in the sense in which we now interpret the domain 
 of theological studies as one organic whole, the science of 
 Theology has only been born in our century. Even down to 
 the middle of the last century, while there was a Theology, as 
 Dogmatics, with whicli other studies were connected, yet the 
 necessity was not felt of moulding these into one organic 
 whole, and still less the impulse to conjoin this unit of 
 Theology organically with the other sciences into one archi- 
 tectural whole of science. This was not accidental, but the 
 immediate consequence of the general spirit of the times. 
 This same phenomenon presented itself not only in the 
 domain of Theology, but in the domain of every other 
 science. The Encyclopedia of Theology had already made 
 considerable advances, while all encyclopedical insight into 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY AS SCIENCE 293 
 
 the psychical and medical sciences was still entirelj'- wanting, 
 and in the philological and juridical sciences it had scarcely 
 yet begun. Impelled by its own exceptional position, as 
 well as by the alarming attitude the other sciences assumed 
 against it, Theology was the first to give itself an account 
 of its place and of its calling. For the greater part of the 
 last century, however, this attempt bore an apologetic char- 
 acter ; and only when, by and after Kant, the question about 
 the essence and the method of our knowledge, and conse- 
 quently of the nature of science in general, pressed itself 
 forcefully to the front, in our human consciousness, was there 
 gradually adopted the organic interpretation of Theology as 
 a whole and as one of the sciences in the great unit of the 
 sciences, which is now dominant in the Theological faculty, 
 and is being more widely recognized by the other faculties. 
 Formerly a science of Theology in that sense was not neces- 
 sary, because the human consciousness in general did not 
 feel the need of such an interpretation ; neither was it pos- 
 sible, because the data for such a construction of Theology, 
 and of all the other sciences, cannot be borrowed from the 
 knowledge of God, but from Logic in the higher sense. 
 
 Hence the conception, which was formed of Theology in 
 the academic sense, has certainly been modified. Theology, 
 taken in the subjective sense, was understood to be our 
 human insight into the revealed knowledge of God, and 
 this insight was graded as the subject chanced to be a lay- 
 man, a scholar, or more especially a theologian ; but even in 
 this highest sense Theology was limited to Dogmatics, gen- 
 erally with Ethics included. This learned insight into the 
 revealed knowledge of God was for the most part explained 
 after the scheme of Aristotle or Peter Ramus, and defended 
 against all objections. This study alone was called Theol- 
 ogy, besides which some theologians would study Church 
 History and other similar branches ; but the relation of all 
 these to real Theology was merely mechanical. At present, 
 however, the name of Theology covers the entire realm of 
 these studies; there is no rest until a starting-point for 
 Theology has been found in the unit of science ; and, in this 
 
294 §61. CONCEPTION OF [Div. lU 
 
 connection, the effort is also made to understand organically 
 the essence of Theology itself. 
 
 It is evident that this has given rise to a serious danger 
 of falsifying the nature of Theology. As what used to 
 count as the whole of Theology has been classed as a mere 
 part, the tendency was bound to exhibit itself to seek 
 the heart of Theology no longer in its principal factor, 
 but in its auxiliary departments; and similarly when the 
 articulation of Theology to the organism of science is traced, 
 of necessity its Nature can no longer be explained simply 
 from its own principle alone, but also from the general prin- 
 ciple of science. Both these dangers have shown themselves 
 and have brought their evil with them ; even to such a meas- 
 ure that in the conceptions of Theology, as severally formed 
 in our times, scarcely a trace of the original significance re- 
 mains. This compels us to hold fast, tooth and nail, to the 
 original meaning ; and therefore, starting out from the idea 
 of Theology, we have made a transition from the idea to the 
 conception of Theology, in which the conception of the knowl- 
 edge of God remains the principal part. 
 
 The way in which the several departments of theological 
 study are organically related to this knowledge of Crod can 
 only be shown when we come to consider the organism of 
 Theology; here, however, this organic relation is merely 
 assumed, so that we do not even say which departments of 
 study do and which do not find a place in this organic unit. 
 At present we only speak of a certain group of studies which 
 together have announced themselves as a theological science, 
 and are recognized as such at the great majority of universi- 
 ties. This group of departments offers a scientific treat- 
 ment of all sorts of material, which, however widely they 
 may differ, must nevertheless be bound together by a com- 
 mon motive. This motive neither can nor may be anything 
 else but the idea of Theology itself, and hence must be con- 
 tained in the knowledge of God revealed to us. If for a mo- 
 ment, therefore, we dismiss from our thoughts the division of 
 departments, and thus picture to ourselves the theological 
 science as one whole, "this revealed knowledge of God," and 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY AS SCIENCE 295 
 
 this alone, is its object of investigation. Tliis investiga- 
 tion would be superfluous if this knowledge of God were 
 revealed to us in a dialectic, discursive form. Then, indeed, 
 the human mind would be released from all necessity for 
 assimilating this knowledge of God. But such is not the 
 case. The knowledge of God is revealed to us in a veiled 
 form, just such as was necessary in order that it might be 
 valid for every age and people, for every time of life, grade 
 of development, and condition. Not the dialectically acute 
 Greek, but the mystic-symbolic man from the East, was 
 chosen as the instrument to reveal to us this knowledge of 
 God. Hence a considerable distance still separates this 
 knowledge of God, as it has been revealed, from the world 
 of the entirely clarified human consciousness, and the con- 
 sciousness of man has yet to perform a giant's task, before it 
 has appropriated the treasures of that Revelation with trans- 
 parent purity and has reflected it from itself. 
 
 This labor, therefore, is nevertheless not scientific labor in 
 its entire extent. There are lower grades in the develop- 
 ment of our consciousness, which, though they do not bear 
 the scientific stamp, are yet productive of early fruit. The 
 assimilation of the revealed knowledge of God by our human 
 consciousness has gone through all these grades. There is a 
 labor of thought devoted to this knowledge of God, which 
 has had for its exclusively practical purpose the persuasion of 
 him who stands afar off to confess Christ. There is a labor of 
 thought expended upon this Revelation with no other purpose 
 than to defend it against opposition and heresy. This knowl- 
 edge of God has been reflected upon by the human conscious- 
 ness in the personal application of it to one's own condition 
 and experience of soul. Human power of thought has entered 
 upon this knowledge of God in preparation for preaching 
 and catechizing. No less in the formulation of dogma has 
 human power of intellect labored in the sweat of its brow. 
 And all that national acumen and the spirit of a given age, 
 or the sense of a peculiar confession, could produce in rich 
 variation has been applied with indefatigable diligence 
 and indomitable perseverance to cause the beauty of this 
 
296 § 61. CONCEPTION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 "knowledge of God" to glisten to its utmost in the prism 
 of our human thought. But all this, however excellent and 
 rich, is not yet what we understand by Theology as science. 
 Of this we can speak only when our intellect does not per- 
 form mere menial service for other purposes, but when in 
 our consciousness itself awakens the sense of its higher call- 
 ing, viz. to transmute the mechanic relation between itself 
 and its object into an organic one. Of course, this does not 
 imply that science should exist merely for the sake of knowl- 
 edge, and that in entire self-sufficiency it should lose itself 
 in abstractions. On the contrary, science also, as a sphere of 
 the Logos, is called as a creature of God to serve its Creator, 
 and its high and practical purpose in our behalf is, that it 
 should emancipate us, afford us an independent position in 
 the face of threatening powers, and that thus it should ad- 
 vance our human existence to higher estates. This, however, 
 can only be more fully explained when we come to consider 
 concretely the place of Theology in the whole organism of sci- 
 ence. For the forming of the conception of Theology, it is 
 sufficient if it is seen that the science of Theology can flom- 
 ish as a plant by itself only when our human consciousness 
 takes the reins in its own hands and becomes aware of its 
 sacred calling to melt the ore of this " revealed knowledge of 
 God " into shining gold, in order, apart from every incidental 
 aim, as soon as this task is done, to place the fruit of its 
 labor at the disposal of the higher aim to which its labor es- 
 pecially must be directed. 
 
 But because this science engages itself with theologia, 
 i.e. the knowledge of God, as its object, it could not claim 
 the name of Theology, if it were not included in the plan of 
 Revelation and in the nature of this knowledge of God that 
 the Logos in this higher sense should be one of the means to 
 enrich our subjective insight into this ectypal knowledge of 
 God. For which reason we mentioned the fact, in our dis- 
 cussion of Revelation, that it is also the calling of the logical 
 activity to introduce this knowledge of God into the general 
 subject of re-created humanity. Christ is no doubt this gen- 
 eral subject in its central sense, on which account, as shown 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY AS SCIENCE 297 
 
 above, "wisdom" is given in Him; but this is still entirely 
 different from the "understanding" of the general subject of 
 humanity in the general human consciousness. Only when 
 from the central subject (Christ) this " wisdom " has entered 
 into individual believers and into circles of believers of 
 different times is it possible that, from these individual and 
 social insights into the wisdom of God, a different kind of 
 insight can gradually be formed as "understanding," which 
 cannot rest until it has become adequate to the content of 
 the wisdom which was in the central human consciousness, 
 i.e. in Christ. But even if for a moment we imagine the 
 unattainable ideal that Ihe content of each were adequate, 
 yet the nature of each would be entirely different ; what was 
 "wisdom" in Christ as the central subject would have be- 
 come "understanding " and "science " in the general subject 
 of regenerated humanity; and it is the science of Theology 
 alone that can lead to "understanding" in this given sense. 
 As in every domain science, by the establishing of the gen- 
 eral human consciousness, unveils the possibility of single 
 persons and individual groups, broadening their insight and 
 clarifying it, such is also the case here. The more the sci- 
 ence of Theology succeeds in giving theology to the general 
 subject of regenerated humanity, and thus in bringing this 
 general subject to the knowledge of God, the more clearly 
 does it open the way to the churches and to believers to attain, 
 at least so far as the intellect is concerned, to a fuller knowl- 
 edge of God, and thus to a better theology. Even as science 
 it adds its contribution to the subjective assimilation of the 
 knowledge of God within its appointed sphere, and so derives 
 its right to claim for itself the name of Theology. Thus it 
 presents itself to us as a logical activity, which transfers 
 ectypal knowledge of God from Revelation, as " understand- 
 ing," into the general subject of (regenerated) humanity. 
 
 Meanwhile this qualification of regenerated humanity 
 demands a fuller explanation. God does not love indi- 
 vidual persons, but the world. His election does not aban- 
 don the human race to perdition, merely to save individuals, 
 and to unite these as atoms to an aggregate under Christ; 
 
298 §61. CONCEPTION OF [Div. lU 
 
 but He saves humanity, He redeems our race, and if all of 
 our race are not saved, it is because they wrho are lost are 
 cut off; from the tree of humanity. There is no organism 
 in hell, but an aggregate. In the realm of glory, on the 
 other hand, there is no aggregate but the "body of Christ," 
 and hence an organic whole. This organic whole is no 
 new "body," but the original organism of humanity, as 
 it was created under Adam as its central unity. Therefore 
 the Scripture teaches that Christ is the second Adam, i.e. 
 that Christ in His way now occupies the same place in 
 the human race which was originally occupied by Adam. 
 Hence it is not something else nor something new, but it 
 is the original human race, it is humanity, which, recon- 
 ciled and regenerated, is to accomplish the logical task of 
 taking up subjectively into its consciousness this revealed 
 ectypal Theology, and to reflect it from that consciousness. 
 Whatever a man may be, as long as he does not share the 
 life and thought of this regenerated humanity, he cannot 
 share this task. " The natural man receiveth not the things 
 of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: 
 neither can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned" (1 Cor. ii. 14). Our consciousness is connected with 
 our being. Without palingenesis there is no adaptation of our 
 consciousness conceivable, which would enable it to assimi- 
 late or reflect ectypal Theology, and it is only by the 
 "enlightening," as the result of palingenesis, that our con- 
 sciousness receives the susceptibility for this. As in the 
 general subject of humanity the spirit of man (jo Trvevfia) is 
 the real agent, so in the general subject of humanity, or in 
 the body of Christ, the spirit (Trvevfia) in this body, i.e. the 
 Holy Spirit, is the inner animator. And therefore the 
 science of Theology is a task which must be accomplished, 
 Tinder the leading of the Holy Spirit, by regenerated human- 
 ity, and by those from among its ranks who, being partakers 
 of palingenesis, and enriched by "enlightening," have also 
 in their natural disposition those special talents which are 
 necessary for this intellectual task. 
 
 That the science of Theology is thereby not isolated nor 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY AS SCIENCE 299 
 
 cut off from the common root of all science, can only be 
 explained when we consider the organism of Theology. 
 Here we affirm that in every domain palingenesis revivifies 
 the original man as "a creature of God," and for no single 
 moment abandons what was given in the nature of man. Sin 
 tries to turn the excellencies of this nature into their 
 opposites, but this fatal effect of sin has been restrained by 
 common grace; and where particular grace renders this 
 restraint potentially complete, and at the same time poten- 
 tially recovers original purity, from the nature of the case 
 the action of the Spirit in the sphere of palingenesis remains 
 identical with the action of the Logos in human nature, and 
 joins itself to the common grace, which has called all science 
 into being, at every point of investigation. 
 
 The science of Theology, therefore, is nothing but a 
 specialization of what is given in the idea of Theology. It 
 is not all Theology, neither may all subjective assimilation 
 of ectypic knowledge of God be appropriated by it. Among 
 the different assimilations of this knowledge of God, Theol- 
 ogy as a science occupies a place of its own, which is defined 
 by its nature as an organic member in the unit of sciences. 
 And thus we come to this conception of Theology, viz. that it 
 is that science which has the revealed knowledge of God as 
 the object of its investigation, and raises it to " understand- 
 ing." Or in broader terms, the science of Theology is that 
 logical action of the general subject of regenerated humanity 
 by which, in the light of the Holy Spirit, it takes up the 
 revealed knowledge of God into its consciousness and from 
 thence reflects it. If, on the other hand, the science of The- 
 ology is not taken in its active sense, but as a product, then 
 Theology is the scientific insight of the regenerated human 
 consciousness into the revealed knowledge of God. 
 
 This conception diverges entirely from what the several 
 schools at present understand by Theology as a science; and 
 this compels us, in defence of our definition, to investigate 
 first the several degenerations of Theology as knowledge of 
 Grod, and then the several falsifications of the conception 
 of Theology as science. 
 
300 § 62. DEGENERATIONS OY [Div. Ill 
 
 § 62. Degenerations of Theology as "Knowledge of God" 
 
 The idea and significance of Theology has been corrupted 
 in two respects : on the one hand with reference to Theol- 
 ogy as "knowledge of God," and on the other with reference 
 to Theology as "science." This section treats of the first 
 kind of degeneration, and the following of the falsification 
 of Theology as science. 
 
 With reference to the degeneration of Theology, taken in 
 the sense of "knowledge of God," we must begin with 
 Natural Theology (theologia naturalis), since only in view 
 of this natural knowledge of God can there be any question 
 of Theology with those who reject special revelation (reve- 
 latio specialis). It is common in our times to seek the tie 
 which unites the higher life of pagan nations to our own, in 
 religion. A general conception of religion is then placed in 
 the foreground. It is deemed that in this general sense 
 religion is present in almost all these nations. Affinity is 
 observed among their several religions, but also a gradual 
 difference. In all this it is thought that a process is percep- 
 tible, and it is by means of this many-sided process that the 
 Christian religion is brought into relation to these lower 
 forms. We do not take this way, because religion and 
 knowledge of God are not the same, and it is in the latter 
 that Theology finds its only point of departure. Religion 
 can be interpreted as a sense, a service, or an obligation, but 
 in none of these is it identical with the " knowledge of God." 
 This is most strongly emphasized by the pious agnostic who 
 claims himself to be religious, and yet on principle excludes 
 all knowledge of God. The loss from sight of this specific 
 difference between religion and Theology accounts for the 
 fact, that even in the science of Theology religion has been 
 put in the place of its original object. 
 
 This compels us to seek the tie that binds us to pagan 
 nations, not in the phenomenal side of their religious life- 
 expressions, but, along with Scripture, in natural Theology; 
 which at the same time offers this advantage, not to be 
 despised, that we need not confine ourselves to the national 
 
CiiAP. I] THEOLOGY AS "KNOWLEDGE OF GOD" 301 
 
 forms of ritual, but can also deal with the theology which, 
 outside of these rituals, can be observed in their mysteries 
 and in their poets and philosophers. It is well said, that 
 even the most repulsive idolatry stands in organic relation 
 to the purest revelation. There is a generic unity, which in 
 former times was too greatly lost from sight, and is still 
 overlooked too much, especially by Methodism ; overlooked 
 also in the work of missions. The purest confession of 
 truth finds ultimately its starting-point in the seed of re- 
 ligion (semen religionis), which, thanks to common grace, 
 is still present in the fallen sinner ; and, on the other hand, 
 there is no form of idolatry so low, or so corrupted, but has 
 sprung from this same semen religionis. Without natural 
 Theology there is no Abba, Father, conceivable, any more than 
 a Moloch ritual. In so far, then, we agree in principle with 
 the present day Science of Religion (Religionswissenschaft). 
 On the other hand, we place ourselves in direct opposition to 
 it, as soon as it tries to fill in the interval between this Abba, 
 Father, and the Moloch ritual with the undulations of a grad- 
 ually advancing process. There is here no transition nor 
 gradual development, but an antithesis between the positive 
 and negative working of a selfsame power. With natural 
 Theology it is the same as it is with faith and ethics. Ethi- 
 cal life knows only one normal development, viz. that to 
 holiness; but over against this positive stands the negative 
 development along the line of sin. Sin is an " actual depri- 
 vation," and not merely a want (carentia), and therefore it is 
 virtue turned into its opposite, and such by the negative work- 
 ing of all the glorious power which by nature belongs to the 
 ethical life. Likewise unbelief, as shown above, is no want 
 of faith, but an actuosa privatio fidei, i.e. the power of faith 
 turned into its opposite. And in the same way idolatry 
 also is- no outcome of the imagination, nor of factors in 
 the human consciousness that gradually develop themselves, 
 but of an actuosa privatio of the natural knowledge of God. 
 In the idolater both the motive and the content of this natu- 
 ral theology are turned into their opposites. It is the same 
 wheel, turning itself on the same pivot, but in a reverse or 
 
302 §62. DEGENERATIONS OF [Div. IH 
 
 averse direction. The Christian Religion and Paganism do 
 not stand related to each other as the higher and lower 
 forms of development of the same thing ; but the Christian 
 relio-ion is the highest form of development natural theology 
 was capable of along the positive line ; while all paganism 
 is a development of that selfsame natural theology in the 
 negative direction. Christendom and Paganism stand to 
 each other as the plus and minus forms of the same series. 
 
 From this it appears that natural theology is not taken 
 by us in that worn-out sense in which, at the close of the 
 seventeenth century, a barren scheme of individual truths 
 was framed, which was made to stand as natural theology 
 alongside of the supernatural. Natural theology is with 
 us no schema, but the knowledge of God itself, which 
 still remains in the sinner and is still within his reach, 
 entirely in harmony with the sense of Rom. i. 19 sq. 
 and Rom. ii. li sq. Sin, indeed, is an absolute dark- 
 ening power, and were not its effect temporarily checked, 
 nothing but absolute darkness Avould have remained in and 
 about man ; but common grace has restrained its workings to 
 a very considerable degree ; also in order that the sinner 
 might be without excuse. In consequence of this common 
 grace there remain the rudera or sparks of light in the sinner, 
 and the curse upon nature has not yet come in such measure 
 but that " invisible things " are clearly seen, because under- 
 stood by the things that are made (Rom. i. 20). Hence the 
 condition of man and his world are not such as they would 
 have been if sin had at once accomplished its end; but, 
 thanks to common grace, both are of such a character that 
 knowledge of God is still possible, either by way of tradi- 
 tion, or as the result of personal insight, such as has been 
 found in generous measures in the midst of paganism, in its 
 mysteries as well as with its poets and philosophers. But, 
 and this is the point, instead of clinging fast to this, the 
 sinner in general has played a wilful game with this fruit 
 of common grace, and consequently his "foolish heart" has 
 become entirely "foolishness" and "darkness." And only 
 as result of this abuse which the sinner has made of natural 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY AS "KNOWLEDGE OF GOD" 303 
 
 theology, God at last has " given him over, " as Paul reiterates 
 it three times in Rom. i. God has let go His hold upon 
 him; and in consequence of this desertion of God the curse 
 of self-degradation and of brutishness has come upon pagan- 
 ism, and now constitutes its real mark. 
 
 Hence two mistakes have here been made, and two errors 
 are to be guarded against. Our older theologians have too 
 greatly ignored paganism, and have explained it too ex- 
 clusively from a demoniacal motive, and thereby have not 
 allowed the organic relation to show itself sufficiently, 
 which unmistakably exists between true and false theology, 
 as the normal and abnormal working of one and the same 
 impelling principle; while, on the other hand, it is the 
 error of our times to abandon the antithesis of true and false, 
 to identify the two, and to prefer the form of the process of 
 development to this organic relation. If formerly they 
 failed per defectum, we now fail per exeessum. And true 
 insight into the organic relation between true Theology and 
 Paganism is only obtained when the antithesis is fully rec- 
 ognized between the positive and negative development of 
 common grace. There is here also an antithesis between 
 true and degenerate development, which the more they 
 progress, the farther they separate from each other, — an 
 antithesis which is in no single particular a lesser one than 
 that between good and evil, as both expressions of the one 
 ethical principle implanted in us all. 
 
 "We do not deny that a process has taken place ; only this 
 process is twofold. As at the fork in the road where good and 
 evil separate a twofold process begins, of which one leads to 
 an ever richer revelation of that which is holy, and the other 
 to an ever sadder exhibition of that which is demoniacal in 
 sin, such also is here the case. From the times of Abraham 
 the lines of true and false theology separate. Not as 
 though this antithesis did not exist before; but because at 
 this point the two manifestations assume each an historic 
 form of its own. And from this point we have on the one 
 hand a development of true theology, which reaches poten- 
 tially its acme in Christ, and on the other hand also a 
 
304 §62. DEGENERATIONS OF [Div. Ill 
 
 deterioration of false theology, which in a negative sense 
 must likewise run its course to the end. In another 
 volume this will be more fully explained. Here we can 
 only locate the point of view where one must stand, in order 
 that the organic relation between our own confession and 
 that of Paganism may fully exhibit itself again, and at the 
 same time the danger be avoided of weakening the distinc- 
 tion between these two to a relative difference. 
 
 To preclude the possible objection, that the theology of 
 Greek philosophy stands higher and approaches nearer to 
 the truth than the Animistic and Fetishistic forms of 
 paganism, we observe: first, that it should not be consid- 
 ered proper to link the theological representations of a negro 
 tribe to those of a people so highly cultured as that which 
 gave being to Greek philosophy. The hypothesis that all 
 nations have begun with Animism, and have gradually 
 mounted the several rounds of the scale, is entirely unsup- 
 ported. Our second observation is, that dissimilar magni- 
 tudes cannot be compared, and hence the cultus-forms of 
 any people cannot be compared to the theological teach- 
 ings (theologumena) of philosophers. For comparison the 
 cultus-forms of paganism must be contrasted with the practi- 
 cal religion of these philosophers, and their theological teach- 
 ings with the ideas concerning the infinite and its workings 
 which are fundamental to the cultus-forms of the nations 
 of lower standing, or of the Greeks. By which comparison 
 it appears at once that the philosophers had no cultus-forms, 
 and obtained them only when in'Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, 
 etc., they had adopted elements from the Christian religion. 
 This shows that Natural Theology operated in them more as 
 an intellectual power than as a devotional impulse, — a fact 
 which of itself leads to our third observation, viz. that 
 however high, from an intellectual point of view, the theo- 
 logical teachings of Greek philosophy may stand, in the main 
 they exhibit a much stronger deterioration of the true 
 knowledge of God, inasmuch as they destroyed the feeling 
 of dependence, in place of which, in Stoicism, they substi- 
 tuted human self-sufficiency. In the negro, who trembles as 
 
Cbap. I] THEOLOGY AS "KNOWLEDGE OF GOD" 305 
 
 he kneels before his Fetish, there is more of the fear of God 
 than in the proud philosopher, who reasons about the gods 
 (or about to Oelov) as about powers, of which he will deter- 
 mine what they are. In the negro there is still a consider- 
 able degree of vitality of the seed of religion, while in the 
 self-sufficient philosopher it is dead. He reasons ; in how- 
 ever imperfect a way, the negro worships. 
 
 As Christian Ethics not only deals with the positive 
 development of good, but reckons as well with the negative 
 development of evil, Chi-istian theology also is not to con- 
 fine itself to the study of true theology, but must also deal 
 with false theology in paganism; and this it must do not 
 merely for the sake of making obvious the monstrosity 
 of pagan representations, — this, indeed, would not be a 
 proper interpretation of its task, — but rather that it may 
 show that this paganism also is born of natural theology, 
 and discover the law which this false development has 
 obeyed. There is no single datum in idolatry, which is 
 inherent in it, but has sprung from natural theology. Of 
 course this does not underestimate the inworking of tradi- 
 tion from paradise, nor the influence exerted by Israel. 
 When the antithesis between true and false theology is 
 sharply seen, the true must have preceded the false, and 
 idolatry can be nothing else than deterioration; which 
 implies of itself that, as with all deterioration, some 
 elements of the originally pure development still co- 
 operate. And with reference to the inworking of special 
 revelation, it should not be lost from sight, that from the 
 days of Abraham, the people of revelation have ever been 
 in touch with the surrounding nations, and that extensive 
 journeys, for the sake of finding out what other nations 
 taught concerning Divine things, suited entirely the spirit 
 of the ancients. With this purpose in view the passes of 
 the Himalaya were crossed from China to the Ganges. Add 
 to thjs the great significance and calling of the empire of 
 Solomon, and the fact that the prophets appeared long be- 
 fore the Greek philosophers, and it betrays little historical 
 sense, when a priori all effect of Israel upon paganism 
 
306 §63. FALSIFICATIONS OF [Div. ni 
 
 and pagan philosophy is denied. But this after-effect of 
 tradition, as well as that possible inworking of Israel, are 
 accidental. They are not inherent in the contrary process 
 of natural theology in its deterioration. Hence this pro- 
 cess itself must be investigated, not for the sake of paying 
 homage to the theology of paganism as such, but to show 
 that the religious life of these pagan nations was founded 
 upon some theology, which as such was not invented, but 
 is the necessary result of the sinful development of natural 
 theology. 
 
 Islam occupies here a somewhat separate position. Just 
 as with Gnosticism and Manichseism, we here deal with a 
 unit of theological representations which has special revela- 
 tion back of it, and partly included in it. This presents 
 three factors for our consideration. First, the contrary 
 development of natural theology, which here also forms 
 the pagan background. Secondly, the contrary devel- 
 opment of supranatural theology, which had an entirely 
 peculiar career. And, thirdly, the syncretistic element, 
 which united these deteriorations into one. Islam is not 
 merely pagan, nor is it merely heretical, but both together, 
 and hence it occupies an entirely peculiar place among the 
 deteriorations of true theology, in which it now stands alone, 
 simply because Manichgeism, Gnosticism, etc., as religious 
 societies, have passed away. On the other hand, Islam, as 
 such, is allied to those theological representations that have 
 become current again, especially since the beginning of this 
 century, and which have embroidered the flowers of Christian 
 revelations upon the tapestry of a radically pagan philosophy. 
 With this difference, however, that these philosophic deteri- 
 orations have not established religious communions, but have 
 invaded the Church of Christ. 
 
 § 63. Falsifications of the Conception of Theology 
 
 The falsifications of Theology as science bear an entirely dif- 
 ferent character. By these we do not refer to the heretical di- 
 vergencies, such as Protestants assert of Romanism, and Rome 
 in turn affirms of Protestantism. With every heretical diver- 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OE THEOLOGY 307 
 
 gence both sides occupy the same point of view as to natural 
 theology; from both sides it is confessed that their theology 
 is derived from special Revelation ; and the difference arises 
 only from the diverging views of this special Revelation. In 
 speculative and empiric theology, on the other hand, one is 
 met by a falsification, which, from principle, denies all 
 special Revelation, and thus in reality takes counsel with 
 natural theology. Both forfeit thereby the right to the 
 name of theology, because in this way speculative theology 
 reaUy ends in Philosophy, and empiric theology disappears 
 in Naturalism. Natiiral Theology can exhibit itself as a 
 regnant power only when human nature receives the beams of 
 its light in their purity and reflects them equally completely. 
 At present, however, the glass has been impaired by a liun- 
 dred cracks, and the receiving and reflecting have become 
 unequal, and the image that was to reflect itself is hindered 
 in its clear reflection and thereby rendered untrue. And 
 for this reason you cannot depend upon natural theology as 
 it works in fallen man; and its imperfect lines and forms 
 bring you, through the broken image, in touch with the reality 
 of the infinite, only when an accidens enables you to recover 
 this defective ideal for yourself, and natural theology re- 
 ceives this accidens only in special revelation. Speculative 
 and empiric theology are correct, therefore, in their reaction 
 against methodistic superficiality, which actually annuls 
 natural theology, and accepts special revelation by faith 
 as something entirely independent by itself. While, on the 
 contrary, it is only by the natural knowledge of God, by 
 the semen religionis, that a special revelation is possible for 
 us, that our consciousness can unite itself to it, and that 
 certainty can be born of its reality in our sense. Yea, to 
 speak still stronger, we may say that special theology is 
 merely temporal, and natural theology eternal. This is not 
 stated more boldly than the Scriptures justify, when they 
 explain the mutual relation between the special priest- 
 hood of the Aaronic ceremonial and the natural priesthood 
 of Melchizedek. Melchizedek appears as one standing en- 
 tirely outside of the special revelation; he is a priest-king, 
 
308 § 63. PALSIFICATIONS OF [Dit. Ill 
 
 who has natural theology only, together with a weakened 
 tradition of the once blessed paradise. Aaron, therefore, on 
 whom shone the full light of special revelation, stands far 
 above him in knowledge of God, in loftiness of religion, and 
 in purity of priestly ritual. With a little less thought one 
 would have been tempted to place Aaron's priesthood far 
 above that of Melchizedek, in order to find the ideal high- 
 priesthood of Christ in Aaron, and not in the order of 
 Melchizedek. And yet revelation, in both Old and New 
 Testaments, teaches the very contrary. Aaron's ceremonial 
 bears merely a temporal character; Melchizedek's office is 
 eternal; and Aaron disappears in Christ, in order that in 
 Christ Melchizedek may reappear. Thus Aaron's service 
 merely fulfilled the vocation of rendering the service of 
 Melchizedek possible again, and enabling it to resume its 
 original significance. And this is the point of view which 
 dominates also the relation between "natural theology" and 
 " particular grace." Undoubtedly the content of special reve- 
 lation is much richer than the meagre content which natu- 
 ral theology now offers fallen man ; and it is also evident 
 that without its accidens in special revelation this natural 
 theology is no help to you whatever. Aaron's service was 
 much richer than that of Melchizedek, and without the 
 Aaronic ordination Melchizedek's offering missed every aton- 
 ing' merit. But this does not take away the fact, that 
 natural theology always remains the originally real one, and 
 that special revelation can never be anything else than acci- 
 dental. Hence, when it comes to a state of purity, when sin 
 shall have been eradicated so that its very memory shall no 
 longer work its after-effects in the creation of God, then all 
 the riches of special revelation shall merely have served the 
 end of bringing natural theology back again to its original 
 lustre, yea, of causing it to glow with a brightness which 
 far excels its original lustre. In the prophetic domain of the 
 knowledge of God, also, Aaron disappears, and Melchizedek 
 returns with all the glory of the original creation. This is 
 the deep significance of the oath sworn by the Lord in Psalm 
 ex., concerning the priest after the order of Melchizedek. 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 309 
 
 Jesus Himself spoke of a future in which His disciples would 
 no more ask Him anything, because the Father Himself loved 
 them. And in the perspective of 1 Cor. xv., when God 
 shall be "all in all," the entire special revelation has receded; 
 the object for which it was given has been obtained; and with 
 reference also to the knowledge of God, the "all in all" 
 expresses nothing else than what once existed in paradise. 
 Though this deeper truth was not recognized by Schleier- 
 macher, the spiritual father of subjective empiricism, and 
 by Hegel, the master thinker, who founded the school of 
 recent speculative theology, they perceived it, nevertheless, 
 suiificiently clearly to vindicate the primordial authority of 
 natural theology. Calvin saw deeper than both, when he 
 compared ectypal theology, as thanks to common grace it 
 still exists in and for the sinner, to a book the writing of 
 which had become blurred, so that it could only be deci- 
 phered with a glass, i.e. with the help of special revelation. 
 In this figure the thought lies expressed, that the theology 
 which reflects itself as such in our nature, is ever the real 
 theology, which, however, must be augmented and be ex- 
 plained, and which without this assistance remains illegible ; 
 but which, even during and after this help, always remains 
 the true divine writing. So also it is foretold in prophecy, 
 when Jeremiah declared that there was a time coming in 
 which the outward special revelation would be ended, and 
 every one would bear again in his heart the divine writing, 
 and all should know the Lord from the least unto the oldest. 
 This, too, is only the representation that the outward special 
 revelation merely serves for a time, and that it has no other 
 tendency than to lift natural theology from its degeneracy. 
 Natural theology is and always will be the natural pair of 
 legs on which we must walk, while special revelation is the 
 pair of crutches, which render help, as long as the weakened 
 or broken legs refuse us their service. This indeed can be 
 frankly acknowledged, even though it is certain, that as long 
 as our legs cannot carry us we can only walk by means of 
 the crutches, so that during this abnormal condition our legs 
 do not enable us to walk truly in the ways of the Lord, 
 
810 §63. FALSIFICATIONS OF [Div. Ill 
 
 but only our crutches, i.e. not natural theology, but only 
 special revelation. This last point has been less denied 
 than entirely abolished by Schleiermacher, as well as by 
 Hegel, and in so far we deny that the subjective-empiric 
 and the speculative schools, which they called into life, are 
 able to offer us any real and actual theology. But this does 
 not destroy the fact that the motive which impelled them con- 
 tained an inward truth. After the Reformation orthodoxy 
 withdrew itself all too quickly from general human life. It 
 became too greatly an isolated phenomenon, which, however 
 beautiful in itself, was too much disconnected ; and when it 
 undertook to distil a kind of compendium from the so-called 
 natural theology, and in all its poverty to place this by the 
 side of the rich display of special revelation, it belittled this 
 natural theology to such an extent, that rationalism could not 
 fail of its opportunity to show itself and to administer reproof; 
 while orthodoxy, removed from its basis, was bound to turn 
 into inwardly thin supranaturalism with its external sup- 
 ports. Thus there was no longer a scientific theology worthy 
 of the name. All that remained was, on the one hand, a mysti- 
 cism without clearness, and on the other hand a barren frame- 
 work of propositions and facts, without the glow of life or 
 of reality. This was observed with great sharpness of 
 vision by Schleiermacher, as well as by Hegel, and both 
 endeavored to find again, in the reality of life, a So? ^oi ttou 
 cTTco (starting-point) for religion, and thus also for theology. 
 They did this each in his own way : Schleiermacher by 
 withdrawing himself into human nature, as religious and 
 social in character ; and Hegel, on the other hand, by ex- 
 tending the world of human thought so broadly, that theol- 
 ogy also found a place in it. From subjectivity, i.e. from 
 mysticism, Schleiermacher came to theological thought, Hegel, 
 from the thought of man, hence from intellectualism, to re- 
 ligion. Thus together they grasped natural reality by the 
 two handles which this reality presents for religion. Natu- 
 ral theology includes two elements : first, ectypal knowledge 
 of God as founded in the human consciousness, and secondly, 
 the pistic capacity of man to grasp this ectypal knowledge 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 311 
 
 with his inner consciousness. Hegel made the ectypal 
 knowledge of God to appear in the foreground of human 
 consciousness ; Schleiermacher, on the other hand, started 
 out from the pistic capacity increated in the inner nature 
 of man. Hence it is not surprising in the least, that both 
 formed a school of their own, and that only by their initia- 
 tive theology revived again as a science. They indeed 
 abandoned the isolation to which theology had fled. Each 
 in his way restored religion and theology to a proper place 
 of honor in human life and in the world of thought. By 
 their work the " unheimisch " feeling of confusion in the 
 face of reality was taken away from the theologian ; he had 
 again a standing. The thirst after reality could again be 
 quenched. And that even orthodox theologians, whose 
 earnest effort it was to maintain by far the greater part of 
 the content of special revelation, sought refuge in the two 
 schools need not surprise us, for the reason that the strength 
 of each lay not so much in their positive data, as in their 
 formal view, which to a certain extent was also adapted, if 
 needs be, to cover an orthodox cargo. With respect to this 
 formal part, Schleiermacher and Hegel even supplemented 
 each other. If in Schleiermacher's subjective school the- 
 ology was threatened to be sacrificed to religion, and in 
 Hegel's speculative tendency to be glorified as the sole 
 substance of religion, it was evident that those who were 
 more seriously minded foresaw the future of theology in the 
 synthesis of both elements. There were two sides to natu- 
 ral theology, and only in the combination of Schleiermacher 
 and Hegel could natural theology again obtain a hearing in 
 its entirety. 
 
 But this whole effort has ended in nothing but bitter dis- 
 appointment. Not, as already said, as though in these two 
 schools men began at once to cast the content of the special 
 revelation overboard. On the contrary, Schleiermacher and 
 Hegel both did not rest content with the meagre data of 
 natural theology, but made it a point of honor to demand 
 the exalted view-point of the Christian religion for its own 
 sake, and, so far as they were able, to vindicate it. What 
 
312 § 63. FALSIFICATIONS OF [Dit. Ill 
 
 good was this, however, when they were bent on explaining, 
 at any cost, this ideal view-point of the Christian religion 
 from the normal data? They no doubt acknowledged the 
 considerable interval between this ideal religion and the 
 imperfect religious expression outside of the Christian do- 
 main, but they refused to attribute this to the supernatural, 
 and thus to what seemed to them the abnormal action of 
 the living God. The interval between the highest and 
 the lowest "was not to be taken any longer as an antithesis, 
 but was to be changed into a process, by which gradually 
 the highest sprang from the lowest. Thus each in his way 
 found the magic formula of the process. From Theism they 
 glided off into Pantheism. For thus only was it possible to 
 maintain the high honor of the Christian religion, and at 
 the same time to place this exalted religion in organic rela- 
 tion to the reality of our human existence. And this was 
 the thing that avenged itself. For from the meagre data 
 of natural theology they were not able to operate along 
 straight lines, and thus even these fundamental data were 
 falsified. This became especially apparent in the school of 
 Hegel, when in their way his younger followers tried to 
 systematize religion, and soon rendered it evident that, 
 instead of vindication, the result, which in this school they 
 reached by strict consequence, was the entire undermining 
 of historic Christianity and of all positive religious data. 
 What Hegel thought he had found was not religion, but 
 philosophic theology, and this theology was no true "knowl- 
 edge of God," but a general human sense, in which the im- 
 manent Spirit (der immanente Geist) gradually received 
 knowledge of himself. This did not find archetypal knowl- 
 edge in God, but in man, and ectypal knowledge in the 
 incomprehensible God. Hence it was the perversion of all 
 Theology, and the inversion of the conception of religion 
 itself, and both dissolved in a philosophic system. 
 
 Though at first the subjective-empiric school of Schleier- 
 macher appeared less dangerous, and though it did not 
 lead to those repulsive consequences in which the yomig 
 Hegelians lost themselves, yet even this did not escape its 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 313 
 
 Nemesis, and with fatal necessity tends more and more to 
 Naturalism. . It did not come to religion from the sphere of 
 thought, but sought its connecting point in human nature. 
 Man, not as individual, but taken as an integral part of the 
 organism of humanity, presented himself as a subject with 
 certain emotions and perceptions, and bearing a religious char- 
 acter; from these perceptions and emotions, by virtue of the 
 "social instinct" (Sociale Trieb), which is peculiar to man 
 as an organic being, sprang a certain desire after religious 
 communion (Verein); and since man inclines to take up his 
 emotions and perceptions into his consciousness, there was 
 gradually born of this selfsame subjective mysticism a 
 world of religious representations. Only with these ethical 
 premises at his disposal, does Schleiermacher come to the 
 phenomenon of the Christian Church, which, both by way of 
 comparison and in principle, seems to satisfy the highest 
 aspirations these premises inspire. Faithful to his natural- 
 istic interpretation he concedes that it is the vocation of the 
 Church to remain the leader of this ethic-social process in 
 humanity. This requires elucidation of insight. And so 
 he arrives at an interpretation of theology which is nothing 
 but an aggregate of disparate sciences, which find their bond 
 of union ad hoe in the phenomenon of the Church. 
 
 We readily grant that Schleiermacher did not mean this 
 naturalistically. His purpose was to save the ideal life 
 of humanity. But we maintain, that this whole inter- 
 pretation sprang from the naturalistic root, and is chargeable 
 with the naturalistic tendency, which became more strongly 
 evident in his followers. Of the three data which he deals 
 with, — human nature, God and thought,— he takes human 
 nature alone to be autonomic. All that he teaches of God, 
 is not merely bound in its form of expression to the data of 
 our nature, but the content also is the mere reflection of 
 subjective perceptions ; man is and remains the subject, that 
 is, thinks and speaks, and in his presence God obtains 
 no autonomic position. The reality even of the existence 
 of God appears to the very end to be dependent upon the 
 reality which vindicates itself in the subject man. The 
 
314 § 63. FALSIFICATIONS OF [Div. Ill 
 
 same is true with reference to the factor of thought. With 
 Schleiermacher, thought is the result of being, not in the 
 absolute sense, but of being in man and of that which 
 springs from this being of man. Actually, therefore, 
 human nature alone and its phenomena are real for Schleier- 
 macher; from this nature only you come to God as to its 
 projection; and thought exercises so little independent 
 power, that the unconscious senses, feelings and perceptions 
 not only govern our entire thought, but even repress it, 
 and already prepare the primacy of the will of later date. 
 With this, however, Schleiermacher as a theologian had 
 passed the handle entirely out of his hands. It is self- 
 evident, that the autonomic study of human nature held the 
 mastery also over the future of theology. If that physio- 
 logical and psychological study should lead to materialistic 
 results, the whole of Schleiermacher's religion would fall 
 away. Or, where the result was less disappointing, yet so far 
 as the method is concerned, the physiological factor was bound 
 to dominate entirely the psychological factor, and this would 
 also include everything that relates to religion under the 
 power of the naturalistic view. In this wise the Christian 
 religion was bound to be reduced to the product of all pre- 
 ceding religious development; that preceding religious de- 
 velopment could at length be nothing more than the necessary 
 development of a psychological peculiarity; that psycho- 
 logical peculiarity, in turn, must be the result of the fun- 
 damental data in our human nature; that human nature 
 could be nothing else than the product of the unbroken 
 development of organic nature; that organic nature could 
 not differ essentially from the inorganic nature; so that 
 finally, everything that is high and holy in the Christian 
 domain has been brought under the power of the evolution 
 theory, and the theologian has to be informed by the 
 naturalist where to look for the origin of the object of his 
 science. 
 
 Thus, in both schools, everything that had so far been 
 known by the name of theology was in principle destroyed. 
 There were no longer two, God and man, the former of whom 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OE THEOLOGY 315 
 
 has imparted knowledge of Himself to the latter; there 
 was, in fact, nothing else but man, in whom alone, according 
 to the speculative school, "the Ever-Immanent Spirit" (der 
 ewigimmanente Geist) came to consciousness of himself; and 
 who according to the subjective-empiric school, experienced 
 subjective perceptions, from which he formed for himself sub- 
 jective representations of a religious character. Neither in 
 one school nor in the other was there any more question of an 
 extrahuman God, nor room for a theology which should be 
 able to introduce actual knowledge of that God into the 
 general human consciousness. The abandonment of the name 
 Theology, and the substitution in its room of the name of 
 Science of Religion, was nothing but the honest consequence of 
 the fundamentally atheistic point of view which was held. 
 Is atheistic too strong a word in this connection ? It is, when 
 by atheism we understand the denial of the spirit and 
 perceptions of the infinite; but not, when we interpret it 
 as the refusal longer to recognize the living God, who has 
 made Himself known to us as God. Though both schools 
 held to the name of God, they both afterward denied that 
 we have the right to reckon with the reality of the living 
 God, as a personal, self-conscious Being, who from that 
 self-consciousness reveals Himself to us. And from that 
 time on, the object that engaged the investigator in this 
 domain was no longer the reality Qod, but religion. With 
 reference to the eternal Being everything had become prob- 
 lematic; the religious phenomenon was the only certain 
 thing. There revealed itself in human nature and in his- 
 tory a mighty factor, which was known by the name of reli- 
 gion. It was possible to trace and to study the historic and 
 ethnologic development of this factor; psychologically, also, 
 an explanation of this religious phenomenon could be sought ; 
 and in this perhaps at length sufficient ground could be 
 found to assume a general agent as cause of this phenome- 
 non; but no venture could be made outside of this phe- 
 nomenal circle. The vov/xevov remained problematic. 
 
 That nevertheless most students shrank from the imme- 
 diate adoption of this radical transition, had a threefold 
 
316 § 63. PALSIFICATIOlSrS OF [Diy. Ill 
 
 cause, — the hi«toric form of our theological faculties, the 
 existence of the Christian Church, and the exalted character 
 of the Christian religion. By far the larger number of 
 theologians of name do not reach their destination except in 
 the theological facult3^ That faculty, as an historic institute, 
 is bound to the theological name, and more particularly still to 
 Christian Theology. The revolution which has taken place 
 on theologic ground must of necessity either modernize these 
 faculties entirely, or perhaps occasion their disappearance, 
 and the transfer of their chairs to other faculties. But this is 
 not done at once. Every academic institute is conservative. 
 And since one cannot wait for this, and meanwhile is not 
 willing to abandon the influence of the chair, one adapts 
 himself to the inevitable, and continues to call himself a 
 theologian, and to speak of theological study, even though 
 in the main he has broken with theology, in the historically 
 valid sense of the word. The second reason, why the name of 
 theology has been maintained, lies in the Christian Church. 
 For her sake the Ministers of the Word must be educated. 
 If it were not for her, there would be no question after 
 pupils for this faculty. Dilettant theologians are becom- 
 ing ever more scarce. And thus one had still to adapt 
 himself to practical needs in these departments. From a 
 scientific point of .view the study of other religions might 
 promise richer harvests ; but almost no one would frequent 
 the lecture-rooms where exegetical readings were given from 
 the holy books of other religions. And thus the scientific 
 standard had to be abandoned, and for the sake of practical 
 needs the old theological tracks are still continued. This is 
 indeed an unenviable position, in which self-respect is re- 
 gained in part only by the consideration of the third cause 
 mentioned above, that is, the relative excellency of the Chris- 
 tian religion. Even when, after the fashion of botanists, we 
 treat religion as a flora of poorer and richer types, it is but 
 natural that fuller study should be devoted to the religious 
 plant of higher development ; and, as such, homage is paid 
 to the Christian religion. Not generally any longer as the 
 highest, for Buddhism, and even Islam, are placed by its side; 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 317 
 
 and much less as the highest conceivable, for in ethics Christ 
 is thought to be far excelled, and it is maintained that further 
 development is not at all impossible. But in general the 
 Christian religion still counts as one of the higher develop- 
 ments ; especially as that development, which is of greatest 
 interest to us historically, and which, so far as the lower 
 classes of people are concerned, is even yet the only one that 
 claims our general notice. And thus it comes to pass, that 
 this faculty is still called theological, and is still regulated 
 with a view to the training of Ministers of the Word for 
 the Christian Church, and, though the other religions are 
 reviewed, the Christian religion is still the main study pur- 
 sued. This is done, in antagonism with principle, for the 
 sake of secondary considerations ; and it is for this reason 
 that the ancient name of Theology is still borne, though 
 now as a misnomer, and that the only fitting name for what 
 is really meant, that of "science of Religion" (Religionwis- 
 senschaft), remains still banished from the official curricu- 
 lum. 
 
 In order to restore harmony to a certain extent between 
 name and matter, it has been tried in more or less conserva- 
 tive circles, to define Theology as " the science of the Chris- 
 tian religion"; which, however much better it may sound 
 than Schleiermacher's prudish and unnatural definition, is 
 nevertheless equally unable to stand the test of criticism. 
 Is there likewise a science of English history ? Of French 
 philosophy? Of Greek art? Of course not. The science 
 of history devotes a chapter to England's national past; the 
 history of philosophy devotes a separate investigation to that 
 which has been pondered and reflected upon by French 
 thinkers; and the history of aesthetics engages itself espe- 
 cially with Greek art ; but no one will undertake to represent 
 these parts of a broader object as a proper object for an 
 independent science. Hence, in the religious domain also, 
 there is no separate science of Parseeism, of Buddhism, of 
 Israelitism, of Christianity, or of Islam. He who takes one 
 of these phenomena as such as object of investigation, may 
 not take it outside of its relation to correlated phenomena. 
 
318 § 63. FALSIFICATIONS OF [Div. m 
 
 and can take no stand except in a science which embraces 
 these correlated phenomena as a whole. It is unscientific, 
 therefore, to speak of a "science of the Christian religion." 
 If I confess a Revelation, which has no correlates and which 
 is a phenomenon of an entirely singular kind, it may well 
 be the object of an independent science. But if one views 
 the Christian religion as one of several religions, even 
 though it is comparatively the highest of all religious 
 developments known to us, he is as unable to create an 
 independent science of the Christian religion as the botan- 
 ist is to speak of a special science of the cedar. If, on the 
 other hand, with other more or less orthodox theologians, 
 we assert that the Christian religion is distinguished from 
 all other religious phenomena by a special specific revela- 
 tion, its distinguishing element is not in the religion, but 
 in the revelation of Christianity, and hence this revelation 
 must be the object of this science. 
 
 This was felt by Hodge, the champion of scientific 
 orthodoxy in America, and therefore he tried to escape from 
 the dilemma by choosing the facts of the Bible as the object 
 of his theology. His intention was good, for in the main 
 he was correct in saying that the Holy Scriptures offer us 
 no scientific theology, but contain the facts and truths, 
 "which theology has to collect, authenticate, arrange and 
 exhibit in their internal relation to each other" (Syst. 
 Theology, I., p. 1). And yet we may not rest content even 
 with Hodge's definition. For in this way the conception of 
 " ectypal Theology " is lost, and from all sorts of facts we 
 are to conclude what must follow from them with respect to 
 the Being of God. His combination of "facts and truths" 
 overthrows his own system. He declares that the theologian 
 must authenticate these truths. But then, of course, they 
 are no truths, and only become such, when I authenticate 
 them. His idea was, of course, to save theology as a positive 
 science, and to do this in a better way than they who took 
 the "Christian religion" as the given object; but it can 
 scarcely be denied that he succumbed to the temptation of 
 placing Theology formally in a line with the other sciences. 
 
Chap. I] THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY 319 
 
 All the other sciences have the data of nature and of history 
 for their object, and Theology, in like manner, has the data 
 of this supernatural history. There were two spheres, two 
 worlds, which have become object of a proper science each. 
 That the distinction between God as creator and all the rest 
 as His creature draws the deep boundary-line between the- 
 ology and all other science, could not be established in this 
 way. The authentication of his "facts" brought him logi- 
 cally back again under the power of naturalistic science. 
 And though as a man of faith he bravely resisted this, his 
 demonstration lacked logical necessity. 
 
 Our result is that, though still called by the name of 
 theology, the entire subsequent development of theological 
 study has actually substituted an utterly different object, 
 has cut the historic tie that binds it to original theology, 
 and has accomplished little else than the union of the sub- 
 divisions of psychology and of historic ethnology into a new 
 department of science, which does not lead to the knowledge 
 of God, but aims at the knowledge of religion as a phe- 
 nomenon in the life of humanity. Along this way also the 
 return was made to natural theology, and whatever was 
 still valid as " Christian revelation " was cited to legiti- 
 matize itself before the tribunal of natural theology. The 
 harmony between the results of these modern investigations, 
 and those derived in former ages from natural theology in 
 India and elsewhere, could therefore arouse no surprise in 
 the least. This only should be added, that the exchange of 
 theologia naturalis for religio naturalis accounts for the loss 
 with us of what the Vedanta still maintains, viz. the divine 
 reality, which corresponds to the impressions and percep- 
 tions of the religiously disposed mind. 
 
 § 64. Deformations of Theology 
 If the effort to obtain Divine knowledge from natural 
 theology, without the help of special revelation, was bound, 
 after the fall, to effect the entire deterioration of the knowl- 
 edge of God ; and if, on the other hand, the effort to substi- 
 tute religion as object of investigation for the " knowledge of 
 
320 § 64. DEFORMATIOXS OF THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 God"' Wiis bound to falsify the conception of theology; the 
 evil worked within the theological domain by what we call 
 its deformations, the results of schism and heresy, is of an 
 entirely different character. The difference is still clearly 
 evident between what is called Protestant, Romish and 
 Greek or Eastern Theology; and though on Protestant 
 ground the antithesis between the Lutheran and Reformed 
 type of docti-ine is less significant than before, it is self- 
 deception to suppose that it has become extinct; while, 
 on the other hand also, the variegations of the mystic- 
 apocal3'ptic and the pietistic-methodistic mode of teaching 
 still maintain themselves in ever wider Protestant circles. 
 The illusion that the former confessional differences have 
 had their day, in order gradually to make room for a general 
 Protestant sense, scarcely held itself intact for a quarter of 
 a century. It was evident all too soon, that this indiffer- 
 ence to confessional standards sprang from an unhistoric ten- 
 dency and was fed by an exceedingly serious hypertrophy of 
 the philosophic element. Almost eveiywhere, therefore, we 
 see the revival of confessional standards in theology, the 
 moment it escapes from the arms of philosophy, and, for the 
 sake of defending its position, is bent upon the recovery of 
 its independence. This, however, makes it necessary, just 
 as our fathers did before us, to deal with the deformations 
 of Theology. 
 
 This conception of deformation excludes, on our side, two 
 untenable points of view : first, the sceptical, which attributes 
 no higher worth to Protestant Theology than to the Romish 
 or Eastern, and evermore tends to place these in a line; and 
 secondly, the absolute, which counts out every other theology 
 but its own as worthless, and franklj' declares them to have 
 originated with the Evil One. 
 
 The sceptical point of view falls short in faith, decision 
 and courage of conviction. Here, in reality, one takes truth 
 as something that lies beyond human reach ; hence one's own 
 confession also is valued no higher than as an effort to express 
 truth, which from the nature of the case has met with ill suc- 
 cess. One feels his way in the dark, and hence must readily 
 
Chap. I] §64. DEFORMATIONS OF THEOLOGY 321 
 
 concede others the right of doing the same. Their confes- 
 sion and yours contain equally little or much of worth, just as 
 you please. They are variations of the same theme. Each 
 of these variations enrich and complement, and you stand 
 personally higher, just in proportion as being less narrow in 
 the attachment to your own confession, you have an open eye 
 and ear to rejoice in all expressions of life. This is not 
 meant to be taken eclectically, for since you have no favorite 
 flower, you gather no bouquet from the several confessions, 
 but simply walk among the several flower-beds to enjoy what- 
 ever is beautiful in this confessional garden. All this lacks 
 seriousness of purpose. From this view-point every form of 
 confession becomes an article of luxury. Confessional life 
 aims no longer at truth, but serves as a kind of poetry. 
 In the life of his emotions one experiences certain pious per- 
 ceptions ; one also seeks a certain mystical communion with 
 the hidden world of the infinite ; and in so far as one accepts 
 the reality of that world, he is seriously minded; but he has 
 no faith in what he himself expresses or in what he hears 
 others say concerning it. It does not become us, it is said, 
 to do anything but stammer. No significance, therefore, 
 should be attached to the sounds, forms, or words which we 
 speak, as though these expressed the higher reality. At most 
 these sounds have the worth of a musical character. They 
 give utterance to our better feelings, and presently aid to 
 revive them again. But for this very reason, the song 
 which another sings from Ms heart is equally beautiful. 
 There is no more truth to be confessed. All that remains 
 is a pious, sesthetic en joyment of what has been stammered 
 by man in all manner of ways concerning the truth. A 
 Calvinistic prayer, which drinks in encouragement for higher 
 life from the fountain of eternal election, impresses, from this 
 point of view, equally strongly as the Ave verum corpus of 
 the Romish worshipper, as he kneels before the uplifted 
 host. 
 
 This sceptical point of view, therefore, should not be 
 confounded with the mystical antithesis, which opposes all 
 dogma, all confessions and also all special revelation. This 
 
322 § 64. DErOEMATIONS OF THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 mystic antithesis springs from the tendency to let being 
 triumph over consciousness, and, while it apparently an- 
 tagonizes barren intellectualism, in reality it opposes every 
 modification which by virtue of religion must be brought 
 about in our world of thought. It is said that our so-called 
 modern ethical tendency sets no store by conceptions; but 
 from the nature of the case this is not so. No one can get 
 along without thought ; without a life with consciousness no 
 human life is conceivable ; every one goes out from certain 
 general conceptions ; and, voluntarily or otherwise, in those 
 who live in higher spheres those general conceptions form a 
 system, i.e. they stand in a certain relation to each other. 
 As an actual fact, therefore, the conflict against "barren 
 intellectualism " banishes all influence of revelation or even 
 of religion from the development of our woidd of thought; 
 while eventually the world of thought, which from natural 
 reason has become common property, is permitted to assert it- 
 self as unassailable and self-evident. With these men it is 
 ever the old conflict between the primacy of the consciousness 
 and of the will, while our entire higher life is subsumed by 
 them under the will. With the deformations of theology, 
 however, we need not take this into account ; since all such 
 efforts end in an entire falsification of the conception of 
 theology, and as such belong to our former paragraph. 
 The sceptics, on the other hand, whom we here speak of, 
 occupy the selfsame view-point with us of special revela- 
 tion; with us they feel the need of holding dogma in honor, 
 and readily agree that no church can get along without con- 
 fessional standards ; only, to all these confessions together 
 they attribute nothing but a relative value. The truth is 
 not contained in one confession, nor in all the confessions 
 taken together; to push propaganda, therefore, of one con- 
 fession above another is entirely void of motive. Going 
 from one church to another, except for the sake of marriage 
 or of national interests, has no significance. And the poor 
 martyrs who faced death for the sake of their convictions, 
 died like naive victims of a confessional mistake. 
 
 If thus in this confessional scepticism the energy of con- 
 
Chap. I] § 64. DEFORMATIONS OF THEOLOGY 323 
 
 viction is wanting, the confessional absolutists, on the other 
 hand, sin through the excess of conviction, when they anathe- 
 matize everything that falls outside of their own confession. 
 This ground was not held by the Reformers and the learned 
 divines who theologically expounded the confession of the 
 Reformers. Even Calvin is clearly conscious that he builds 
 on the theology of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas ; and he 
 who reads the original Lutheran and Reformed dogmatists, 
 perceives at once that they make constant use of what has 
 been contributed by Romish theologians. But in the sub- 
 sequent period this usage has become extinct. Every church 
 withdraws itself within its own walls ; and finally it seems 
 that there is no theology for the dogmatist, but that which 
 rests upon his own confession. Hence, not only in the case of 
 every antithesis, is one equally firm in cleaving to his own 
 conviction, and in rejecting whatever opposes it; but also 
 every suggestion is banished that, at least in that which is 
 not antithetic, some theologic depth, development and truth 
 may lodge with the opponent. The Romish theologians 
 carry this confessional absolutism to the farthest extreme. 
 With the Lutheran theologians this absolutism is quickly 
 carried into practice, even at the expense of Reformed 
 theology. The Reformed theologians alone have longest 
 reacted against this confessional absolutism. If the confes- 
 sional sceptic knows little besides irenics, and if in his eyes 
 all controversy is folly, the absolutist, on the other hand, is 
 averse to all irenics, and controversy or polemics is his only 
 point of contact with the confessions of the other churches, 
 which he considers simply false. 
 
 But it is readily seen that neither this sceptical nor this 
 absolutist point of view is in harmony with the claim of 
 theology. Not the sceptical, for if theology is " the knowl- 
 edge of God," and if, consequently, theology as a science 
 can have no other object than to introduce that revealed 
 knowledge of God as clearly as possible into our human 
 consciousness, personal conviction must ever be the starting- 
 point of all theology. Taken generically, theology is, and 
 always will be, knowledge, and for this reason there can be no 
 
324 § 64. DEFORMATIONS OF THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 theology where the conviction that one knows is wanting. 
 Confessional indiiferentism is in irreconcilable conflict with 
 this, for many things may lie in the farthest circumference 
 of each one's conviction which are not attached to his 
 personal consciousness ; but these do not belong to our con- 
 fession. But that which one confesses, one must mean; of 
 this we must be certain ; if necessary, the greatest sacrifice 
 must be made for this ; if needs be, the sacrifice of life. That 
 now this confessional conviction in the Lutheran Church is 
 different from that in the Eastern, and in the Reformed than 
 in the Church of Rome, certainly does not depend upon our 
 personal preference. This difference is connected, rather, 
 with our position in life and genealogy. No objection should 
 ever be raised on tbat account, however, against the reality 
 of our conviction, since the entire world of our representa- 
 tions, those of the non-religious kind also, are determined 
 by the circle from which we spring and the age in which 
 we live; the Pelagian only may encounter some difficulty 
 here, because lie does not believe in a divine plan, which 
 determines our whole position; but, for the rest, no con- 
 viction ever strikes deeper root than when it has been 
 prepared atavistically in us. He, therefore, who has in this 
 way obtained his conviction as one with his life, does not 
 ascribe its possession to his own excellencies, but renders 
 thanks for it to the grace of God. A true theologian, there- 
 fore, will and must hold for real and true the theology 
 which he embraces, and to the further development of which 
 he devotes his life, and should not hesitate to consider all 
 other theology to be deformation. A Lutheran theologian, 
 who is not firmly convinced of the truth of his own confes- 
 sion and who has no courage to denounce all theology which 
 is opposed to it as deformation, has lost his way. The same 
 is true of the Romish theologian. And we as Reformed 
 theologians stand equally firm in our unshakable conviction 
 that the track, along which we move, runs the most accu- 
 rately, and that every other track leads to lesser or greater 
 deformation. 
 
 But though from his own point of view no single theolo- 
 
Chap. I] §64. DEFOKMATIONS OF THEOLOGY 325 
 
 gian should shrink from this qualification of deformation, 
 this conception of deformation contains, on the other hand, 
 an element of appreciation, and therefore a sentence against 
 confessional absolutism. Deformation passes judgment on the 
 imperfection of the form, but honors the essence. Whether 
 this deformation is the outcome of schism, and consequent 
 onesidedness, by the contraction of the energy of truth at one 
 single point; or whether it has found its origin in heresy, i.e. 
 in the adoption into one's confession of elements that are 
 foreign to the truth, can make no difference. In either case 
 you acknowledge that there is a " knowledge of God, " and 
 that that which calls itself theology is truly possessed of the 
 theologic character. It is still commonly accepted in the con- 
 fessions that there is an ectypal knowledge of God, that in 
 the natural way this cannot lead the sinner to saving results, 
 and that there is a special revelation to supply this want. 
 The canonical books also of the Old and New Testaments 
 are honored by all these churches together as the Divine 
 documentation of this revelation. Difference only begins 
 with the addition to these Scriptures of the apocrypha, of 
 tradition, of papal inspiration, of the mystic inspiration by 
 the internal light (lumen internum), etc. Thus from either 
 side we are abundantly able to show how the deformation 
 originated with the other; and this is the point of attack; 
 yet this does not destroy what is common in all confessions 
 and theologies. 
 
 And if this opens the way to the appreciation and use 
 of what has been prepared also by theologians of other con- 
 fessions, in what is common to us all, it leads at the same 
 time to still another consideration. Even Rome does not 
 deny that charismata are also at work outside of her church; 
 and where in this way even Rome maintains a unity, our 
 Protestant principle includes the open recognition of the 
 correlation of the other churches with ours. No single con- 
 fessional group claims to be all the church. We rather 
 confess that the unity of the body of Christ extends 
 far beyond our confessional boundaries. The theological 
 gifts that operate outside of our circle may supply what 
 
326 §64. DEFORMATIONS OF THEOLOGY [Diy. m 
 
 we lack, and self-sufficient narrow-mindedness alone will 
 refuse such benefit. With us irenics go ever hand in hand 
 with polemics. Firmly and unshakably we stand in our 
 confession, that the track along which we move is the most 
 accurate known to us, and in virtue of this conviction we 
 do not hesitate a moment to mark the divergence of the 
 tracks of others as deformation. Against all such deformity 
 we direct our polemics. But we are equally conscious of 
 the fact that we alone do not constitute the Church of 
 Christ in the earth; that there is a conviction of truth 
 which operates also outside of our circle; and that in de- 
 spite of all such deformation divine gifts continue to foster 
 a theologic life worthy of the name. Hence our irenics. 
 
 To us, therefore, there is no theology as such, which, 
 exalting itself above all special theologies, is the theology 
 in the absolute sense. Such a theology would effect at once 
 a new confession and call into life a new church organi- 
 zation; simply because one can hold no different conviction 
 as theologian than as church member. But this would 
 reverse the order of things. The Church does not spring 
 from theology, but theology has its rise in the life of the 
 Church. And if the objection is raised, that in this way 
 theology is robbed of its character of universal validity and 
 thus becomes unscientific, we answer : (1) that for universal 
 validity the acceptance of all individuals is not demanded, 
 but only of those who are receptive to the truth of a matter 
 and are well informed of it ; (2) that every convinced theo- 
 logian in the presence of his opponent also appeals from the 
 mind that has been ill-informed (male informatum) to the 
 mind that is to be better informed (melius informandum). 
 The fact that unity of conviction, which is fairly common 
 with the material sciences and rare with the spiritual 
 sciences, is altogether wanting with the highest, viz. theol- 
 ogy, is no plea against theology, since it merely shows that, 
 as it touches that which is most tender, it of necessity stands 
 highest, and consequently has most to endure from the 
 ruin worked by sin in our spiritual life. 
 
 On this ground we maintain the confessional character of 
 
Chap. I] § 65. RELATION OF THEOLOGY TO ITS OBJECT 327 
 
 theology, since otherwise either the unity of our theological 
 thinking is lost, or the integrity of our theological convic- 
 tion. To us who are members of the Reformed Churches 
 the more exactly defined object of theology is, the knowl- 
 edge of God, as given in the Reformed or purified confession. 
 
 § 65. The Relation of Theology to its Object 
 
 Thus far the course of thought has run smoothly. Knowl- 
 edge of God is the crown of all that can be known. Knowledge 
 of God is inconceivable, except it is imparted to us by God 
 Himself. This knowledge, given us by nature in our crea- 
 tion, has been veiled from and darkened in us by the results 
 of sin. Consequentljr it now comes to us in the form of a 
 special revelation, and we have received the divine illumina- 
 tion, by which we can assimilate the content of that revela- 
 tion. And science is called in, to introduce this knowledge 
 of God, thus revealed, into our human thought. Just here, 
 however, a very serious misinterpretation is possible, which 
 must needs be prevented. It can be represented that it is 
 only science that places the revealed knowledge of God 
 within the reach of the pious. In which case it is science 
 that investigates the special revelation; the results of this in- 
 vestigation are gradually more fully established ; that which 
 is established is brought to the knowledge of all ; and thus 
 the knowledge of God is made universal. This entirely 
 intellectualistic way excludes, meanwhile, the spiritual ex- 
 perience of the Church in its entirety, as well as of indi- 
 vidual believers. Taken in this way, scientifically theolog- 
 ical study must have preceded all faith, and the knowledge of 
 God would only have come within our reach after theology 
 had as good as finished its task. This, however, is incon- 
 ceivable, since theology is born of the Church, and not the 
 Church of theology. Reflection does not create life, but 
 sua jure life is first, after which reflection speaks its word 
 concerning it. And thus spiritual life became manifest 
 in the Church of Christ, and as the result of Revelation 
 practical spiritual knowledge of God had been the rich pos- 
 session of thousands upon thousands, long before the idea of 
 
328 §65. THE RELATION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 a scientific theology was suggested. It cannot even be said 
 that scientific theology presented the forms of thought 
 which led to the formulations of dogma. Those formula- 
 tions were much more the product of the conflict for truth 
 which took place in the life of the Church, and therefore 
 they have borne much more an ecclesiastical than a scientific 
 character. The knowledge of God, held by the Church, did 
 not remain naively mystical, until science analyzed this 
 mj^sticism. But sharp and clear thinking was done in the 
 Church as such, long before the science of theology as such 
 had won a place for itself. The Church has not lived uncou- 
 sciously, but consciously, and so far as the personal life of 
 believers is concerned, no urgency for a closer scientific 
 explanation has ever been observed. 
 
 Much less can it be said that scientific theology is called 
 to add more certainty to the confession of the Church and to 
 demonstrate its truth. The desire to have theology perform 
 this service, so entirely foreign to it, has not originated in 
 times of spiritual prosperity and healthful activity of faith, 
 but was always the bitter fruit of the weakening of faith, and 
 consequently was ever incapable of checking the decline of 
 the life of the Church. The Church that has leaned on the- 
 ology, instead of presenting its arm to theology for its support, 
 has always lost the remnant of higher courage which re- 
 minded it of better days, and has always degraded itself to a 
 dependency upon the school. No, the need of scientific the- 
 ology does not spring from the need of the soul, but always 
 finds its motive in our human thought. There is a world of 
 thought which binds man to man, and which, notwithstanding 
 the change of individuals, passes on from generation to gen- 
 eration. Only a few, however, live in that world of thought 
 with such clear consciousness as to feel themselves at home 
 there. But they also who do not enter in so deeply, derive 
 general representations from this world of thought which are 
 the common property of all and thereby render the mutual 
 correspondence among minds possible. And this world of 
 thought cannot resist the impulse to take all things up into 
 itself, and therefore also this knowledge of God ; and of this 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY TO ITS OBJECT 329 
 
 impulse theology as a science is born. This seems to be other- 
 wise, when we observe that the practical purpose of the first 
 theological studies was to defend themselves apologetically, or 
 to train preachers for the Church ; but appearance must not 
 mislead us. The actual need, expressed in these attempts, was 
 to seek a point of support for one's propaganda in the world 
 of thought that was common to Jews and heathen. It was 
 soon learned that with one's preaching pure and simple no 
 gains were made. Hence the need was felt of something of 
 a more transparent character, to supply which the content 
 of the faith was gradually interpreted in the language of our 
 thinking consciousness. In proportion as the significance of 
 this effort after clearer consciousness was more sharply seen, 
 the sense also gradually awakened of a vocation, which, inde- 
 pendent of necessity and defence, should cause the content 
 of the revealed knowledge of God to shine likewise in this 
 world of thought. By obedience to this, that content was 
 not brought closer to our heart, but was presented with more 
 clearness to our consciousness. The distance was lessened 
 between our general conceptions and the content of that reve- 
 lation. The confession of that content became more trans- 
 parent and accurate, and though this scientific theology was 
 unable to add one grain to the content of this knowledge of 
 God, it has unquestionably heightened the pleasure of our 
 possession. The Church, therefore, has not hesitated to 
 profit by it ; and though there is no single pearl in her con- 
 fession which she owes theology as such, since all her pearls 
 are gathered from the depths of spiritual life, it is equally 
 certain that she would not have been able to string these 
 pearls so beautifully in her confession, had not the light of 
 theology illumined her spiritual labor. From clearer con- 
 sciousness to go back to mystic darkness, is obscurantism ; 
 and since theology has also made the scientific torch to burn, 
 no church that wants to avoid being wilfully " blind " can 
 afford to act as though this torch had never been lighted, but 
 must duly take it into account. In this wise, moreover, the- 
 ological science is no abstraction. On the contrary, it springs 
 of necessity from the life of the Church, upon which it exerts 
 
330 § 65. THE EELATION OF [Div. in 
 
 an influence in all the stages of its development. What we 
 protest against is, that theology should be thought to exist 
 merely for the sake of rendering this auxiliary service, and 
 that the Church by itself should be considered not to be able 
 to do without it. Spiritually the Church has prospered long 
 centuries without it, and in so far can never be dependent 
 on it. But on the other hand, again, theology should not be 
 explained from utility. That it did originate, is accounted 
 for by the nobility of our human thought, which canwoi rest, 
 so long as there is still a single domain within reach which 
 it has not annexed to itself. Thinking man, converted to 
 God, has felt himself called to cause the honor of God's truth 
 to shine also in the world of our representations and concep- 
 tions. If that which God causes us to perceive of Himself 
 were limited to a mystic esthesia, we might philosophize 
 about this phenomenon, but we would never be able to ana- 
 lyze this perception theologically. Since, however, at sun- 
 dry times and in divers manners God has spoken unto the 
 fathers, and thus light upon Grod has arisen in our conscious- 
 ness, that revelation itself has impelled a scientific investi- 
 gation, and Christendom would have done violence to the 
 impulse of its consciousness if it had lived without theology. 
 Theology, therefore, like every other science, aims at as 
 complete and accurate a knowledge of its object as possible. 
 It too is born from the thirst after insight and clearness, 
 and cannot rest so long as there is still a possibility of mak- 
 ing the insight into its object more clear. Theology should 
 not be denied this ideal character of all science, and there- 
 fore its motive should ever be sought in knowing God, and 
 not in knowing religion or Christianity. Religion and Chris- 
 tendom by themselves are excellent and important subjects, 
 but as such they do not cover a necessary department in 
 our consciousness. But this is entirely different with respect 
 to the Eternal Being. In every human consciousness of 
 higher development, or at least in the general consciousness 
 of humanity, there is a vacant space, which can only be filled 
 by the knowledge of the Eternal One. If, therefore, as was 
 shown above, theology is to find its object only in the re- 
 
Chap. I] THEOLOGY TO ITS OBJECT 331 
 
 veahd, ectypal knowledge of Crod, this should never he taken 
 in the sense of scholastic learning. The motive for all the- 
 ology is and ever will be the knowledge of the Eternal 
 Being, not now in the interest of the needs of our heart, and 
 not, as a rule, for the practical purposes of life, but solely 
 in the interest of the world of our thought. More than 
 this it cannot give. As a science, it is and always will be 
 intellectual work, and can never be anything else. Only as 
 far as the revealed knowledge of God has a logical con- 
 tent, is theology able to master it. Outside of the domain 
 of our thinking it is powerless; but when the matter con- 
 cerns this thinking, it is indisputably the province of theol- 
 ogy to do it. 
 
 But if in this way we concentrate its calling upon the criti- 
 cal examination of the self-revelation of the Eternal Being 
 to us sinners, we do not mean that it is merely to explain from 
 this revelation what relates exclusively to God and to His 
 Nature. It must be strictly theological, so that from the be- 
 ginning to the end of its epic God Himself is the hero ; but as 
 was observed by the older theologians, one can treat of God 
 both in the direct and oblique cases (de Deo in casu recto et 
 obliquo). Not only, therefore, that which in revelation deals 
 with the being of God, but also His attributes, activities, 
 and creations, so far as these contribute to the knowledge 
 of God, should be taken up in the investigation ; nature, 
 therefore, as well, and history, i.e. from the theological side ; 
 and man likewise, provided he is taken as created after the 
 image of God, and thus interpreted theologically. And as 
 knowledge of a powerful thinker is deemed incomplete 
 for his biography, unless you include his ideas concerning 
 the significance of man, the great problems of life, and the 
 development which awaits us in the future, it is self-evident, 
 that it belongs to the knowledge of God, to investigate what 
 He declares concerning man, His relation to the children of 
 men, and His counsel which shall stand. The emphasis, 
 which we put upon theology, as theology, tends by no means 
 to impoverish it ; we take it that its content is thereby greatly 
 enriched ; we only claim that whatever shall belong to its 
 
332 § 65. RELATION OF THEOLOGY TO ITS OBJECT [Div. Ill 
 
 content must be governed by one and the same leading 
 thought, which leading thought is the knowledge of God. 
 This provides at the same time a standard, as shall be shown 
 later on, by which to bring perspective into the Scripture ; 
 provided we avoid the errors of distinguishing between 
 Scripture and the Word of God, and of concentrating the 
 significance of the Scripture upon the religious-ethical. The 
 knowledge of God alone teaches you to distinguish between 
 eminent, common, and less important interests in the Script- 
 ure. Only that which you have made your own theologi- 
 cally, you possess as part of revelation ; while that which 
 to your sense is not connected with the knowledge of the 
 Eternal Being, lies still outside of it. 
 
 Even this, however, does not entirely determine the rela- 
 tion of theology to its object. All this concerns exclusively 
 the content of Revelation, and does not yet reckon with the 
 revealed knowledge of God as such. Thus far a dogmatic- 
 ethical study might develop itself, but this would not provide 
 room for a theology in the broader unfolding of all its depart- 
 ments of study. Only with the organic construction of 
 theology as a scientific unity can it be shown more accu- 
 rately of every department, in what relation it stands to the 
 knowledge of God, and what place, therefore, belongs to 
 such a department in the theologic unit. To this, then, we 
 refer ; but it is necessary here to indicate, in broad outline, 
 from whence theology derives these many departments of 
 study. It will not suffice to say, that they have appeared 
 de facto, neither will it be enough to emphasize the signiii- 
 cance of these departments as preparation for the preaching of 
 the Word. To be capable of being scientifically interpreted, 
 the unit of a science must spring from the root of its object, 
 or, at least, its object must be its motive. This object here 
 is : the revealed knowledge of God, or the theologia ectypa reve- 
 lata. From this it follows, that we are not simply to deal 
 M'ith the content of this revelation, but also that this revela- 
 tion as such must be investigated ; that the activity must 
 be traced, which has gone out from this revelation ; and that 
 the relation must be traced between revelation and our 
 
Chap. I] § 66. SACRED THEOLOGY 333 
 
 psychic data, in order to make action from our side possible 
 ■with that revelation. He who is to make a scientific ex- 
 amination of a mineral spring, is not permitted to rest con- 
 tent with an analysis of its ferruginous quality, but is bound 
 to inquire into the history of this spring, to watch the action 
 of its waters, and to experiment as to how its content is best 
 applied. Apply this to the revealed knowledge of God, and 
 you perceive at once, that the theological science cannot deem 
 its task completed, when it has analyzed the content of reve- 
 lation, but the revelation itself and the action that went out 
 from it, together with the method demanded by its applica- 
 tion, must be studied in their relation to each other. With 
 the strictest maintenance, therefore, of the theologic character 
 of our science, nothing prevents a view of the relations 
 of the several departments of study. For instance, what is 
 church history but the broad narrative of the effects which 
 the ectypal knowledge of God has exerted in the life of 
 nations? Meanwhile we content ourselves with the simple 
 indication of it here. This relation can only fully be 
 explained in the closing sections of this voKime. 
 
 § 66. Sacred Theology 
 
 Before we enter upon the study of the principium of 
 Theology, we insert here a brief explanation of the ancient 
 epithet of Sacred before Theology. Not that we should insist 
 on this title, or that to our idea this title implies any special 
 merit, but because the purpose of its omission is the secular- 
 ization of theology, and for this reason it has an essential 
 significance as an effort to destroy the distinguishing char- 
 acter of theology. The habit of speaking of Sacred The- 
 ology has the indorsement of the ages. At the Reformation 
 the churches found it in this form, and they felt themselves 
 bound to reverence and maintain it. The first mention of 
 the omission of this title appears, after the conflict had 
 begun against a principium proprium for theology ; and 
 the dislike which the effort to restore this ancient title to 
 theology creates in many people, is identical with the dis- 
 like which is shown by those same people for every 
 
334 § 66. SACREB THEOLOGY [Div. HI 
 
 representation of a special revelation. As the omission of 
 Sancta was no accident, our effort is equally intentional, to 
 renew the use of that name in our Reformed circles. By in- 
 serting Sancta before Theologia we desire it to be clearly 
 understood, that we take no part in the secularization of 
 Theology, but maintain that it has a sphere of its own. 
 
 The Church of Christ has borrowed from the Holy Script- 
 ures this word sacred as a prefix to whatever stands in imme- 
 diate relation to the special revelation. This prefix is con- 
 stantly used in the Old, as well as in the New, Testament. 
 The spot of ground at the burning bush is called holy ground, 
 because there the holiness of the Lord revealed itself to 
 Moses. The vHp in Israel, or the congregation of the people, 
 is called holy. In Exod. xvi. 23 it speaks of "the holy 
 sabbath unto the Lord." The people itself is called an 
 "holy people," and its members are called "holy men" 
 (Exod. xxii. 31). In a still more pregnant sense the altar 
 is called " holy " and " whatsoever touches the altar " (Exod. 
 xxix. 87), which refers to places and buildings, as well as to 
 persons, their garments, tools and acts. Jerusalem itself is 
 called the "holy city" (Neh. xi. 1). Holy, therefore, is the 
 definite epithet not only for what is in heaven, with all the 
 liosts of angels, but equally for that which on earth is chosen 
 of God for His service. Thus the Psalmist speaks of "the 
 saints that are in the earth." " God's faithfulness is in the 
 assembly of the holy ones." Thus the Proverbs speak of 
 the knowledge the people of God received by higher light, as 
 " the knowledge of the holy" (A. V. ix. 10 and xxx. 3); and, 
 in short, without a closer study of the idea of ^""nj^, it may 
 be said that in the Old Testament this title of "holy" is 
 attached to everything that transmits the special revelation, 
 flows forth from it, or stands in immediate relation to it. 
 
 That it will not do to explain this prefix, " holy," simply 
 from the symbolic and typical character of the Old Dispen- 
 sation, appears from the entirely similar use of " holy " in 
 the writings of the New Covenant. Here also we find 
 Jerusalem spoken of as the "holy city" (Math. iv. 5; xxvii. 
 58 and Rev. xi. 2 ; xxi. 2 and xxii. 19). Christ also 
 
Chap. I] § 66. SACRED THEOLOGY 335 
 
 speaks of "the holy angels" (Luke ix. 26). Christ himself 
 is called "that holy one that shall be born of Mary." The 
 men of God of the Old Covenant are spoken of as the " holy 
 prophets." The members of the Church of the New Cove- 
 nant, from the Jews as well as from the heathen, bear 
 the almost fixed name of "the saints," so that ol ayioi 
 was provisionally the technical name for those who subse- 
 quently were called "the Christians." In an entirely similar 
 sense the books of the Old Covenant are spoken of as the 
 " Holy Scriptures." The kiss, with which the partakers of the 
 ayciTrai greeted each other, receives the name of "holy kiss." 
 Children born of believing parents receive the same hono- 
 rary title. Like the prophets of the Old Covenant, the apostles 
 and prophets of the New Dispensation are called " AoZy apostles 
 and prophets." Believers on the Lord are called a "holy 
 people," a "holy priesthood." Their prayers come up before 
 God as " the prayers of the saints " ; the martyr's blood is 
 " the blood of the saints " ; and the Gospel itself is announced 
 as "the holy Gospel." 
 
 In connection with this use of language the Church of 
 Christ has introduced this epithet of " holy " into her public 
 utterances ; and not only the Romish Church, but the churches 
 of the Reformation as well, spoke of the " holy church," of 
 the "holy prophets," the "holy apostles," the "holy Script- 
 ures," the "holy Gospel," the "holy sacraments," "holy 
 Baptism," "holy Communion," and thus likewise of "sacred 
 Theology " and the " sacred ministry." This use of language 
 was constant, and, at least in this limited sense, met with no 
 opposition. This only manifested itself when the Romish 
 church applied this epithet of "holy" distinctively to indi- 
 vidual persons of a higher religious standing. This opposi- 
 tion, however, was not unanimous nor logical. Even where 
 the so-called Romish saints were passed by, it remained 
 invariably the custom to speak of "Saint Augustine," "Saint 
 Thomas," etc. These were inconsequences, however, to which 
 men were led by the accustomed sound, and which represented 
 in the case of no writer in the days of the Reformation any 
 intentional principle ; in addition to which it is observed 
 
336 § 66. SACRED THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 that Reformed theologians offended less in this respect than 
 many a Lutheran. 
 
 This does not mean that by this reformatory correction the 
 use of the ancient Christian church was restored in all its 
 purity. Originally, indeed, the name of holy (0710?) was a 
 general distinction, to discriminate between what was within 
 and what without. Everything that had entered holy ground 
 was considered holy ; everything outside was spoken of as 
 "lying in wickedness"; but in the Scriptures of the New 
 Testament no such distinction occurs between a lower and 
 higher holiness within the bounds of the Church. The error 
 of the Romish Church lies in the application of this title to this 
 non-Scriptural distinction. While in the Holy Scriptures all 
 confessors of Christ are called saints, the Romish Church 
 deprived the people at large of this title, and reserved it for 
 a special class of Christians, either for the clergy in general, 
 or for those under higher vows, or for those who, as church 
 fathers and teachers, held a special position ; or finally, 
 in its narrowest sense, for those who were canonized. The 
 Reformation opposed this non-Scriptural distinction, but 
 lacked courage to restore the name of saint in its original 
 significance to all believers. Spiritualistic apocalyptic circles 
 tended toward this ; from the side of Protestantism also, 
 in addresses, etc., the whole congregation were again called 
 "a holy communion" (eine heilige Gemeinde); poets fre- 
 quently followed this use of language ; but the Reforma- 
 tion has not restored the name of saint as a general term for 
 every Christian. It preferred rather to abandon the name 
 in its general sense, than by the use of it to encourage the 
 Romish misuse. 
 
 From this, however, it is evident that there was no super- 
 ficial work done in the days of the Reformation, and that the 
 representation that by speaking of "holy Scripture," "holy 
 Gospel," "holy Baptism," etc., they merely imitated Rome, 
 rests on a misunderstanding. The reformers did most care- 
 ful work. There were cases in which the epithet "holy" 
 was purposely dropped ; but others also in which this prefix 
 was purposely kept ; and to this last category belongs the 
 
duAT. I] § 66. SACRED THEOLOGY 337 
 
 word ^^ Sacred" before Theology. If it is asked what was 
 meant by this qualification of theology, no special reason 
 seems to have been given. As in the Proverbs " the knowl- 
 edge of the holy " was spoken of, it was thought proper that 
 that knowledge and science, whose principium lies in the 
 Holy Scriptures, should be distinguished from all other 
 knowledge ; and thus it may be said, that in the sixteenth 
 century Sancta theologia chiefly indicated the antithesis be- 
 tween that which came to us from profane literature and 
 from the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 At present, however, this general indication will not suf- 
 fice. The significance of this epithet for the object, the 
 subject, and the method of theology should be more accu- 
 rately analyzed. And with reference to the object, the prin- 
 cipium proprium of theology stands certainly in the fore- 
 ground. What we understand by this " proper principle " 
 of theology, we will endeavor to explain in the following 
 chapter ; here it is merely remarked that the ectypal knowl- 
 edge of God, in which the science of theology finds its 
 object, does not come to us in the same way, from the same 
 fountain and by the same light, as our other sciences. There 
 is a difference here, which in its deepest root reduces itself 
 to a straightforward antithesis, which places two principles 
 of knowing (principia cognoscendi) over against each other. 
 The particular principium of theology characterizes itself by 
 the entrance of an immediate, divine action, which breaks 
 through what is sinful and false, in order in the midst of 
 these false and sinful conditions to reveal unto us, by a light 
 of its own, what is true and holy in antithesis to what is sin- 
 ful and false. The heathen antithesis between profane and 
 sacred has no application here. That was simply the pride 
 of the initiated that expressed itself at the expense of the 
 uninitiated. The odi profanum vulgus et arceo is refuted 
 and censured by the character of everything that is holy in 
 the Scriptures, and we might wish that our theologians 
 would never have employed the word profane as an antithe- 
 sis. In Scripture the antithesis is between the special source 
 and the natural, which is more sharply emphasized by the 
 
338 § 66. SACRED THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 antithesis between what is wicked, foolish and satanic, and 
 what is true, holjr and divine. But however much this 
 proper principium of tlieology, far from underestimating the 
 natural principium, rather takes it up in itself, as the next 
 chapter will show, the antithesis between the normal and 
 abnormal, the general and special, and between that which 
 is bound by sin and that which surmounts sin, of these " two 
 sources of knowledge," can never be destroyed. To empha- 
 size this antithesis, the word " sacred " was used in simple 
 imitation of the Scripture, and in this entirely Scriptural 
 sense our science was called Sacred Theology. 
 
 If thus the principal motive for the use of this word 
 " sacred " lies in the peculiar character of the object of the 
 science of theology, a second motive was added in conse- 
 quence of the peculiar quality which in the investigation 
 of this object was claimed as a necessity in the subject. This 
 was on the ground of 1 Cor. ii. 14, that "the natural man 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are 
 foolishness unto him " ; and also because he who stands out- 
 side of palingenesis "cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 Hence, there was not simply an antithesis to be considered 
 between the object of this and of all other sciences ; but a 
 similar antithesis also presented itself in the subject, that was 
 to take this theology up into itself and presently to repro- 
 duce it. Not every one can engage in this work, but only 
 they who are spiritually minded. No intellectual relation is 
 possible in the domain of this science, between those to whom 
 this theology is " foolishness," and the others to whom it is 
 the "wisdom of God." They only, who by virtue of palin- 
 genesis are partakers of spiritual illumination, have their eyes 
 opened to see the object to be investigated. The others do 
 not see it, or see it wrongly. By reason of the lack of affin- 
 ity between subject and object, every deeper penetration into 
 the object is impossible. The rule that " in thy light we see 
 light " finds here its special application. No blind man can 
 be our guide in the domain of optics. Though it is entirely 
 true, therefore, that in the science of Theology the ego of the 
 general human consciousness is the general subject, yet this 
 
Chap. I] §66. SACKED THEOLOGY 339 
 
 ego is here incapable of its task, unless the darkening worked 
 by sin in his consciousness is gradually withdrawn. 
 
 This leads, in the third place, to the conviction that the 
 science of theology is not governed by the general human 
 mind, such as it now operates in our fallen race, but only to 
 that extent in which this universal human mind has been 
 animated by the Soly Grhost, i.e. also to a difference in 
 method. Only later on can this point be fully explained. 
 At present let it be said that that same Holy Spirit, who 
 offers us the Holy Scriptures and the Church as the result of 
 His activity, is the real Doctor ecclesiie, who enables us to 
 grasp the truth from the Scriptures, and from our conscious- 
 ness to reflect the same in scientific analysis. As it advances 
 in the course of centuries, there is coherence and steadiness 
 of progress in the science of theology, and a decided unity 
 of effort, even though individual theologians are not con- 
 scious of it or able to determine its course. But while this 
 unity of effort in the course of centuries is determined in the 
 other sciences partly by the inherent Logic, and by natural 
 events keeping pace with it, theology derives this determi- 
 nation of its process from a Logic which presents itself in 
 light pneumatically only, in connection with events which 
 flow from the dealings of Christ with his Church. Hence, 
 this leading of the Holy Spirit as subject of theology makes 
 itself felt in a threefold way. First, through the Church, 
 which has the formulation of dogma in hand, and with it the 
 choice of the course to be taken, and which effects this formu- 
 lation of dogma oifloially, i.e. as the instrument of the Holy 
 Spirit. That in this the Church is not an infallible organ, 
 and the reason for it, will be explained later on. We here 
 content ourselves with pointing to this mingling of ecclesi- 
 astical power in the development of theology, as one of the 
 actions of the Holy Ghost. Secondly, this action of the Holy 
 Spirit presents itself in the logical development of those ten- 
 dencies opposed to the truth, which, without any fault or 
 purpose of its own, the Church has had to resist successively, 
 and which only subsequently prove themselves to have been 
 the means of revealing truth in its logical relation. Not 
 
340 § 66. SACRED THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 from the Church, but rather from without comes the frequent 
 impetus, which stimulates and necessitates spiritual thought, 
 and yet the thinking born from this is not aphoristic, but 
 logical and organically coherent. And in the third place 
 this action of the Holy Spirit is evident from the pro- 
 ductiveness of theology in times when the operations of the 
 Spirit in the Church are powerful, and from the poverty 
 and meagreness which are seen in contrast, as soon as those 
 operations of the Spirit withdraw themselves from the 
 Church. Subjectively this can be expressed by saying that 
 theology has flourished only at the times when theologians 
 have continued in prayer, and in prayer have sought the 
 communion of the Holy Spirit, and that on the other hand 
 it loses its leaf and begins its winter sleep when ambition 
 for learning silences prayer in the breast of theologians. 
 
 In this sense, both with reference to its object, and to the 
 extent in which it concerns its subject, and its method as 
 well (in virtue of the leading of the Holy Spirit as Doctor 
 ecclesiae), the peculiar character of theology demands that 
 its peculiarity shall be characterized also by its title of Sacred 
 Theology. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL, REGULATIVE, AND DISTINCTIVE PRIN- 
 CIPLE OP THEOLOGY, OR PEINCIPIUM THEOLOGIAE 
 
 § 67. What is here to he understood hy Principium 
 
 When theology abandoned its proper and original char- 
 acter, it also ceased to speak of a principium of its own ; 
 and gradually we have become so estranged from the earlier 
 theological life, that it is scarcely any longer understood 
 what our old theologians meant by the principium theolo- 
 giae. This principium of theology is not infrequently taken 
 as synonymous with fons theologiae, i.e. with the fountain 
 from which the science of theology draws its knowledge. 
 Why is this wrong ? When I speak of the fountains of a 
 science, I understand thereby a certain group out of the 
 sum of phenomena, from which a separate whole of science 
 is distilled by me. For the Zoologist these fountains lie in 
 the animal world, for the Botanist in the world of plants, 
 for the Historian in many-sided tradition, etc. But how- 
 ever much in each of these domains of science the fountains 
 may differ, the principium of knowing (cognoscendi), from 
 which knowledge comes to us with these several groups of 
 phenomena, is ever one and the same. It is, in a word, the 
 natural man who hy his reason draws this knowledge from his 
 object, and that object is subjected to him as the thinking 
 subject. If now I proceed in like manner on theological 
 ground, formaliter at least, then my principium of knowing 
 remains here entirely the same that it is for the botanist or 
 zoologist, and the difference consists only in the difference 
 of the object. Whether I seek that object in God Himself, 
 or in the Christian religion, or in religious phenomena makes 
 no fundamental difference. With all these it is still the 
 thinking man who subjects these objects to himself, and by 
 
 341 
 
34:2 § 67. WHAT IS HERE TO BE UNDERSTOOD [Div. HI 
 
 virtue of his general principium of knowing draws knowl- 
 edge from them. For, and I speak reverently, even when 
 I posit God Himself as the object of theology, this God is 
 then placed on trial by the theologian, and it is the theologian 
 who does not cast himself down in worship before Him, 
 saying, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," but of his 
 own right (suo jure) investigates Him. The result, indeed, 
 has shown that he who has taken this attitude, has either 
 entirely revolutionarily reversed the order of things and 
 placed himself as critic above his God, or has falsified the 
 object of theology and substituted for it religious phe- 
 nomena ; a method which seemed more innocent, but which 
 actually led to a like result, since from this standpoint 
 " knowledge of God " remained wanting, and want of knowl- 
 edge of God is little else than intellectual atheism. 
 
 The propounding of a special principium in the theologi- 
 cal sphere (even though we grant that this was not always 
 done correctly), viewed in itself, was little else than the 
 necessary result of the peculiar character of theology. If 
 the object of theology had stood coordinate with the objects 
 of the other sciences, then together with those sciences 
 theology would have been obliged to employ a common 
 principium of knowing. Since, on the other hand, the object 
 of theology excluded every idea of coordination, and think- 
 ing man, who asked after the knowledge of God, stood in a 
 radically different relation to that God than to the several 
 kingdoms of created things, there had to be a difference in 
 the principium of knowing. With every other object it was 
 the thinking subject that took knowledge ; here it was the 
 object itself that gave knowledge. And this antithesis is 
 least of all set aside by the remark, that the flower also pro- 
 vides the botanist with knowledge concerning itself. This 
 replaces a real manner of speech by a metaphorical one. 
 The flower indeed does nothing, and the whole plant, on 
 which the flower blooms, is passive. Even though it is 
 maintained that the flower exhibits color and form, this is 
 by no means yet the knowledge of the flower, but merely 
 so many data, from which this knowledge is gathered by the 
 
Chap. II] BY PEINCIPIUM 343 
 
 botanist. Hence our speaking, with reference to theology, 
 of a special principium of knowing of its own, is the result 
 of the entirely peculiar position, in which here the knowing 
 subject stands over against God as the object to be known. 
 Theology, taken in its original and only real meaning, as 
 » knowledge of God," or as " the science of the knowledge of 
 God," cannot go to work like the other sciences, but must 
 take a way of its own; which not merely in its bends and 
 turns, but in its entire extent, is to be distinguished from 
 the ordinary way of obtaining knowledge (via cognitionis), 
 and therefore assumes a principium of laiowing of its own 
 as its point of departure. 
 
 Even if the fact of sin were left out of account, and the 
 special revelation were not considered, formaliter a princi- 
 pium of its own must still be claimed for theology. This 
 claim may be more sharply accentuated by these two facts, 
 but it may never be represented as though the necessity of 
 a source of its own were only born formaliter from sin. 
 This necessity does not merely lie in the abnormal, but in 
 the normal as well, and must ever find its ground in this 
 fact, that God is God, and that consequently the Eternal 
 Being cannot become the object of creaturely knowledge, 
 as coordinate with the creature. Let it be supposed that 
 the development of our race had taken place without sin ; 
 man would nevertheless have known the things that may 
 be known of God, from the world of his heart and the world 
 round about him, but not as the fruit of empiricism and the 
 conclusions based thereon. From the finite no conclusion 
 can be drawn to the infinite, neither can a Divine reality 
 be known from external or internal phenomena, unless that 
 real God reveals Himself in my consciousness to my ego ; 
 reveals Himself as Grod ; and thereby moves and impels me 
 to see in these finite phenomena a brightness of His glory. 
 Formaliter, neither observation nor reasoning would ever 
 have rendered service here as the principium of knowing. 
 Without sin, this self-revelation of the Divine Ego to my 
 personal ego would never have been, even in part, the fruit 
 of Theophany, or of incarnation, but would have taken 
 
344 § 67. WHAT IS HEBE TO BE UNDERSTOOD [Div. HI 
 
 place normally in my personal being, and in such a way 
 that even then the way by which knowledge is obtained 
 would have divided itself into two, one leading to the 
 knowledge of those objects which, being passive, I subject 
 to myself, the other leading to the knowledge of that one 
 Object, to which I myself am passively subjected. That 
 " faith " assumes its peculiar office here, and that, as belong- 
 ing to our human nature, it may turn into unfaith, but can 
 never fall away, has been remarked before. In this place 
 it is enough to note the distinction, that formaliter the 
 thinking subject can obtain his knowledge from a twofold 
 principium : either from himself, by going to work actively, 
 or, if he must remain passive, not from himself but from a 
 principium, the impulse of which proceeds from the object, 
 in casu from God, and only thus operates in him. 
 
 From this it already appears that the proposition of the 
 old theology, — Principium theologiae est Sacra Scriptura, 
 i.e. the Sacred Scripture is the Principium of Theology, — 
 has nothing in common with the representation of a few 
 remaining supranaturalists, who still grant that the Script- 
 ure spreads light upon much that otherwise would be dark 
 to us. The very word principium indeed, which may never 
 be mistaken for fons or phenomenon, claims, that by 
 nature this principium stands in organic connection with 
 the real nature of theology. But, as was observed above, 
 the peculiar character of theology, and therefore also the 
 special nature of its principium, is accentuated still more 
 by sin. Under its power it continued not merely a fact 
 that the thinking subject stood passively over against God 
 as object; but in addition to this, the normal means, for 
 receiving in the passive sense this knowledge of God, could 
 no longer operate accurately, and therefore failed of the 
 desired effect. By nature man could not take knowledge 
 of God actively, and as sinner he could no longer let him- 
 self even passively be given this knowledge of God by God. 
 This modification in man and in his relation to God could 
 issue only in one or the other result, viz. that either the sinner 
 should live on without "knoAvledge of God," or that from 
 
Chap. II] BY PRINCIPIUM 345 
 
 the side of God there should proceed an activity to impart 
 this knowledge to sinful man, in keeping with his need as 
 sinner. The latter then, however, took place outside of 
 the life that sprang of itself from the creation principiuni 
 and the knowledge connected with it ; it was a special prin- 
 ciple (proprium quid), which only stepped in between pro- 
 visionally, and was destined to disappear again, as soon as 
 the normal development of our race had reached its final end. 
 In this way this self-revelation of God to the sinner was 
 also materialiter an action from a special principium in 
 God ; from this principium in God this action went out to 
 the world and to the sinner ; and as soon as man thus 
 operated upon began to give an account to himself of the 
 common phenomena of, and of this abnormal process in, his 
 life, from the nature of the case the principium of all the 
 rest would lie in creation, while the principium of this 
 entirely special action is found in a re-creative act of God. 
 It made no difference that, along with this action, existing 
 elements from creation were employed. Such elements were 
 then assimilated by the active principium and rendered ser- 
 viceable to it, just like the chisel in the hands of the sculptor, 
 or as a board sawn from a tree, which serves for the hull 
 of a ship. If in theology, therefore, as such formaliter, 
 there lay the claim that it springs out of a principium of 
 knowing of its own, this principium of Theology is distin- 
 guished, by and in consequence of sin, from the principium 
 of knowing in the domain of the other sciences materialiter 
 also, and hence concerns both the formal and the material 
 principium. 
 
 In part it may even be maintained, that the principium 
 of being (essendi) is also included here. That self-revela- 
 tion of God to the sinner is possible even without a pre- 
 ceding regeneration, is shown in the case of Balaam ; but 
 this exception does not make the rule ; the general rule is, 
 that regeneration precedes spiritual illumination. The " en- 
 lightened " of Heb. vi. 4 do not stand in the same line with 
 the "enlightened" of Eph. i. 18. The latter only are "spirit- 
 ual" and "have received the things of the Spirit of God." This 
 
346 §67. WHAT IS HERE TO BE UNDERSTOOD [Div. Ill 
 
 regeneration is not an element in knowing (cognoscere),but 
 in being (esse), and if account is taken of the fact that the 
 whole revelation of God, though directed by the Logos, 
 nevertheless proceeds through an entire series of events and 
 wonders, and finally culminates in the essential incarnation 
 and all it carries with it, then it is evident that the dis- 
 tinction between theology and the other sciences not only 
 formally touches the principium of faith, and materially the 
 " good word of God " (^KaXbv 6eov prjfia), but also penetrates 
 into our real being (esse). This explains the fact that the 
 Theosophists, and in part the Mystics in the tracks of the 
 former, have sought to obtain the knowledge of God along 
 this way of being (via essendi). And this difference in the 
 real being (esse) miist indeed be taken into account, at 
 least so far as it concerns its modality. He who neglects 
 to do this, annuls regeneration, and thereby undermines aU 
 faith in miracles. Meanwhile it must not be lost from sight 
 that the distinction in the essential forms no fundamental 
 antithesis. Sin is no essence (esse), but a modality of it 
 (to esse) ; and consequently regeneration, which annuls and 
 conquers sin, can create no other essence, but can merely 
 reestablish from its perverted modality the original real 
 being (esse) into its ideal modality. He who deems that 
 this touches the essentia itself, and not its modus simply, 
 becomes a Manichjean. And if it be said that we must 
 take account of "the powers of the world to come," etc., 
 we answer, that from the beginning there has been an 
 organic connection between the creature in his present and 
 eternal condition. Even with the most radical metamor- 
 phosis there could never be a change of the essence. If, 
 then, it is beyond doubt, that, on account of regeneration 
 and miracles, real being (esse) must also be considered, no 
 two principles of being stand over against each other ; in 
 the realm of nature, as well as in the realm of grace, it is 
 and remains the original principium of being, even though 
 this principium operates in the two in different ways. Very 
 properly, therefore, TYieosophy has been dismissed, and the 
 full emphasis has been put on T\).&ology as such. 
 
Chap. II] BY PKINCIPIUM 347 
 
 This has made it customary to seek the proper principium 
 of theology immediately in the Holy Scripture, by which 
 was meant of course simply the material principium of 
 knowing (principium cognoscendi materiale). The knowl- 
 edge of God, which God Himself had communicated by 
 numerous facts and revelations, and which under his guid- 
 ance was embodied in the Holy Scripture, was the gold which 
 theology was to delve from the mine of the Holy Scripture. 
 Meanwhile this could not be intended otherwise than as an 
 abbreviated manner of speech. A principium is a living 
 agent, hence a principium of knowledge must be an agent 
 from which of necessity knowledge flows. And this of course 
 the Bible as such is not. The principium of knowledge 
 existed before knowledge had emerged from this princi- 
 pium, and consequently before the first page of Scripture 
 was written. When, nevertheless, the Sacred Scripture is 
 called the sole principium of theology (principium unicum 
 theologiae), then the Scripture here is taken as a plant, 
 whose germ has sprouted and budded, and has unfolded 
 those buds. It is not, therefore, the naked principium, but 
 the principium together with what it has brought forth. 
 Speaking more accurately, we should say that the material 
 principium is the self-rev elation of Grod to the sinner, from 
 which principium the data have come forth in the Holy 
 Scriptures, from which theology must be built up. Since, 
 however, theology can only begin when Revelation is com- 
 pleted, we may readily proceed from the ultimate cause (prin- 
 cipium remotum) to the proximate (proximum), and say that 
 theology sprang from the completed revelation, i.e. from the 
 Scriptures, as the proximate cause, while that revelation 
 itself originated from the ultimate cause of the self-revela- 
 tion of God. 
 
 It is unfortunate, however, that in olden time so little 
 attention was paid to the formal principium. For now it 
 seemed altogether as though the still darkened understand- 
 ing was to investigate the Scripture as its object, in an. 
 entirely similar way to that in which this same under- 
 standing threw itself on plant and animal as its object. 
 
348 §68. REPRESENTATIONS CONCERNING [Div. Ill 
 
 At first this compelled the understanding to adapt and 
 accommodate itself to the autliority of the Holy Scripture, 
 which then still maintained a high position. But, in the 
 long run, roles were to be exchanged, and the neglect of 
 the formal principium Avas to bring about a revision of 
 the Scripture in the sense of our darkened understanding, 
 as has now actually taken place. For if faith was consid- 
 ered under Soteriology, and in connection with faith the 
 " illumination," what help was this, as long as theology itself 
 was abandoned to the rational subject, in which rational 
 subject, from the hour of his creation, no proper and 
 separate principium of knowing God had been allowed to 
 assert itself ? 
 
 § 68. Different Representations concerning the Operation of 
 this Principium 
 
 In the first section of this chapter, it has been shown 
 that the possession of a special principium of knowing is 
 indispensable to theology, for the reason that God is never 
 a passive phenomenon, so that all knowledge of God must 
 ever be the fruit of self-revelation on His side. Hence it 
 is the distinct nature of the object of theology which ren- 
 ders a special principium of knowing necessary. This is 
 essentially agreed upon, without distinction, by all who still 
 hold fast to theology in its original sense. Not by those who, 
 though they have adopted an entirely different object for their 
 science, still call themselves theologians ; but by the theo- 
 logians of all churches and tendencies, who, in whatever 
 else they may differ from each other, are still agreed in this, 
 that theology is bent upon the knowledge of the living God, 
 and that from God Himself alone this knowledge can come to 
 us. Among all these, there is no difference of view concern- 
 ing this ultimate cause (principium remotum). 
 
 It is different, on the other hand, when it is further 
 investigated in what way this principium of God's self- 
 revelation has operated or still operates. The confession 
 is still almost universal that this self-revelation lies at 
 our disposal in the Holy Scripture ; but while one group 
 
Chap. 11] THE OPERATION OF THIS PRINCIPIUM 349 
 
 affirms : In the Holy Scripture and nothing else, another 
 group asserts that the apocryphal books as well, and tradi- 
 tion, yea, the papal inspiration also, claim our attention ; 
 those who are mystically inclined tend to supersede the 
 Scriptures by personal inspiration ; and minds that wan- 
 der off yet farther point you to a Word of God in nature, 
 in history, in the conscience, or in the ideal disposition of 
 your heart. Two things must be carefully distinguished. 
 There is, on the one hand, the question whether by sin the 
 self-revelation of God is compelled to take a temporary 
 side-road, in order, when sin shall have been entirely over- 
 come, to resume again its original way, or whether in the 
 sinner, also, the internal address of God is still heard in 
 sufficiently clear accents. This touches the relation of nat- 
 ural theology to specially revealed theology, and can pass 
 into the question whether natural theology is not sufficient 
 for the sinner ; a matter which in turn is connected with 
 the doctrine of sin. If the reality of sin is finally denied, 
 by dissolving its antithetic character and by viewing it as 
 a stage in a continuous process of development, then it is 
 evident that there is no longer any question of the darken- 
 ing of our knowledge of God by sin. This, however, is not 
 the point that is in order in this section. Here we assume, 
 therefore, that the reality of sin is acknowledged, that the 
 darkening of our knowledge of God by sin is confessed, 
 so that without a special revelation no sufficient knowledge 
 of God for the sinner is deemed obtainable. If this is 
 accepted, then we come to face an entirely different question: 
 viz. how this special revelation is to be conceived. 
 
 The most general conception under which these represen- 
 tations can be grasped is that of inspiration, i.e. of an inwork- 
 ing of the Spirit of God upon the mind and heart of the 
 sinner, by which God makes Himself known to him, and com- 
 municates His will or His thoughts. For the present we pass 
 by the quantitive element in this inspiration ; we take it now 
 only qualitatively; in which case it is clear that fundamentally 
 it is one and the same conception, whether I speak of theop- 
 neusty in the prophets and apostles, of an internal light in 
 
350 §68. EEPRESENTATIONS CONCERNING [Div.III 
 
 the mysticism of the emotions, or of a papal infallibility. 
 The prophet, the mystic, and the bishop of Rome are all 
 sinners, and of each of these three it is affirmed, not that they 
 conceive or imagine something concerning God of themselves, 
 but that there has gone out or goes out upon them an opera- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit, which eo ipso, as wrought by God, 
 bears the divine mark of genuineness. In the application only 
 do these inspiration, internal light and infallibility differ. 
 The most general conception of this inspiration is that of the 
 mysticus. He is the individualist ; takes, therefore, every 
 sinner by himself ; and now thinks that God, being desirous to 
 reveal Himself to sinners, could scarcely do this in any other 
 way than by communicating Himself separately to every 
 sinner, and thus make Himself known by each. This repre- 
 sentation is both the most primitive and simple. Entirely 
 aphoristically God makes Himself known first to A and then 
 to B. That they should know of each other is not necessayy. 
 Every one spiritually sick sits as it were in a cell of his own, 
 and in this separated cell receives the visit of the heavenly 
 Physician. Thus it goes on from year to year, and from age 
 to age. This inspiration repeats itself in land upon land. 
 In the main it is always the same, and can only vary accord- 
 ing to age, sex, nationality, needs of the soul, etc. With all 
 these variations the type of this inspiration remains unchange- 
 able. It is ever God Almighty turning Himself to the indi- 
 vidual sinner, and making Himself known in His eternal 
 mercies. The truth of this mysticism lies naturally in the 
 high estimate of the personal element in religion, and in 
 preaching that not only every individual person must come 
 to his God, but also, that Grod must reveal Himself to every 
 individual, so that the secret walk with God may be found by 
 every one for his own soul. As a fundamental principle of 
 theology (principium theologicum), on the other hand, this 
 representation of the internal light (lumen internum) is of 
 no use whatever, simply because it rests on fiction. If it 
 were true, if the Lord our God did give to each one personally 
 not merely a disposition, an emotion, a perception, but a real 
 knoivledge of God, then he who has been thus mystically in- 
 
Chap. II] THE OPERATION OF THIS PKINCIPIUM 351 
 
 spired should be able to speak just like the prophets of old, and 
 the witness of one should confirm the witness of another. 
 Such, however, is not the case. You never receive from 
 these mystics a clear communication of what has been revealed 
 in this way to enrich our knowledge of God. For the most 
 part they even avoid clear language, and hide themselves 
 behind indefinite expressions of feeling and sounds with- 
 out rational sense. And where they go a little further and 
 come to the communication of definite representations, you 
 always notice one of two things : either they borrow the 
 content of their communications from the Holy Scriptures, 
 or fall back entirely into natural theology, and treat you to 
 philosophemes well known from other quarters. From this 
 it appears that the pretended communication of knowledge 
 of God, which they claim to receive, is the fruit of self- 
 deception. The Holy Spirit simply does not work along 
 this individual way, at least not now, after the Scriptures 
 are completed. What the Holy Spirit personally does, is to 
 direct faith to the revealed knowledge of God, to explain and 
 apply this revealed knowledge of God to the heart according 
 to its particular need, and also to quicken in the soul a lively 
 sense of truth ; but along this individual way He does not 
 impart an increase of content. 
 
 With a clear understanding of this, the best known mystics 
 have modified this monotonous-individual conception of inspi- 
 ration. This conception was not interesting enough, there- 
 fore they have inclined to perpetuate the prophets' mantle. 
 Not every child of God has received such an inspiration, 
 but only a few. As in former times among the twelve 
 tribes there were no twelve prophets of influence at once, 
 but generally a single "man of God" appeared in a given 
 period, so the work of God is carried on now. Hence there 
 are present-day prophets ; not many, but a few ; now here, 
 then there. These men of God receive special inspirations, 
 which do not tend so much to enrich our knowledge of God, 
 but rather serve to make prophecies concerning coming dis- 
 asters, to establish the claim that all God's people shall sub- 
 ject themselves to such a mystical prophet, and to regulate 
 
362 §68. REPKESENTATIONS CONCERNING [Div. Ill 
 
 life and religion according to his orders. This, then, is no 
 longer the theory of an individual, internal light in every 
 child of God, but the representation that prophetic inspira- 
 tion, as an extraordinary instrument, was not merely tempo- 
 ral and local, but is ever continuous. With this conception 
 the Holy Scriptures are always assumed as existent; from 
 those Scriptures material is drawn ; and only the temporal 
 and local application of what was revealed in those Scriptures 
 is vindicated for the mystical fanatic. The tendency reveals 
 itself indeed again and again to soar paracletically above the 
 revelation of the Scriptures, and Montanistically to wander 
 off ; but this is almost always the sure sign of approaching 
 dissolution. As soon as the break with the Scripture is 
 entire, the spiritual authority of what was mystically in- 
 spired is ended. 
 
 They who seek the proximate cause (principium proximum) 
 exclusively in the Holy Scriptures, do not deny the mystical 
 inworkings of the Holy Spirit upon individuals, but maintain 
 that this mystical iuworking as such never leads to knowledge 
 of God, and therefore can only be added by way of explana- 
 tion and application to the knowledge of God obtained else- 
 where. With this they do not deny, that an inspiration 
 Avhich brings knowledge of God is possible, but they assert 
 that this is not general but exceptional, and is not primarily 
 for the benefit of individuals but organically for the good 
 of the whole. It remains to them therefore an open ques- 
 tion, whether God the Lord could have followed the mystic 
 individual way of communicating the knowledge of Him- 
 self ; but it is certain that God did not take this way, and 
 that His not taking this atomistic way is in close harmony 
 with the entire method of knowledge in our human race. 
 Our race does not know by adding together what is known 
 by ^ -f ^ + C, but knows organically. There is a process in 
 this knowledge. This knowledge developing itself in pro- 
 cess is the common property of all, and each one takes part in 
 this treasure according to the measure of his susceptibility. 
 This organic conception of our human knowledge lies, there- 
 fore, in the very creation of our race, and it does not surprise 
 
Chap. II] THE OPERATION OF THIS PRINCIPIUM 353 
 
 US that God the Lord has also revealed His divine knowledge 
 for the sinner in an organic way. Hence inspiration is no in- 
 shining of God's Spirit in the human spirit that endlessly 
 repeats itself, but an action from the side of God which 
 is limited to a definite period and bound to definite condi- 
 tions. That which is revealed of the knowledge of God 
 within this given period of time and in connection with 
 those conditions forms one whole ; not by the addition of one 
 revelation to the other, but in virtue of the fact that the 
 one rich thought of God develops itself ever more richly 
 from one germ. And since now this process has been ended, 
 so that this revealed knowledge of God has been brought 
 within the reach of our race, there can of course be no more 
 real inspiration, and the individual and organic working of 
 the Holy Spirit which follows after, can have no other ten- 
 dency than to lead and to enlighten the Church in the spir- 
 itual labor which it must expend upon this revelation. This 
 organic interpretation, then, brings with it that whatever you 
 confess concerning the Holy Scriptures is only valid when 
 they are completed, so that during the ages which intervened 
 between Paradise and Patmos, the self-revelation of God 
 to His people bore in part a different character. From 
 this point of view distinction is made between the first 
 period in which the tree begins its growth, and that other 
 period, when year by year the tree casts its fruit into your 
 lap. Thus inspiration appears as a temporal activity, which 
 effects a result, organic in nature, and of an organic signifi- 
 cance for our entire race. It has had a beginning, and also 
 an ending ; and the benefit we derive is no longer a con- 
 tinuous inspiration, but the fruit of the finished inspiration. 
 Not as though this fruit is simply cast at the sinner's feet, 
 for him to do with as he pleases. On the contrary, there 
 are operations of the Holy Spirit, by which He renders the 
 use of this fruit possible for the sinner. Illumination, the 
 witness of the Holy Spirit, the sacred office, the leadership 
 of the Church, etc., all exert an influence on this. In the 
 sphere of the new life all these operations of the Holy Spirit 
 are no longer abnormal, but normal, and therefore may never 
 
354 §68. REPRESENTATIONS CONCERNING [Div. HI 
 
 be placed in a line with the ever abnormal inspiration. In- 
 spiration, therefore, is here taken in connection with all sorts 
 of otiier operations of the Holy Spirit, as an abnormal, tem- 
 poral, organic process, the fruit of which lies before us in 
 the Holy Scripture. The desire to draw the boundary lines 
 sharply here between the normal and the abnormal, ex- 
 pressed itself most clearly in the rejection of the apocrypha. 
 The third point of view, that of the Romish Church, does 
 not differ essentially from this. Rome also rejects the 
 mystic-atomistic character of inspiration, and interprets it 
 organically. Rome also af&rms a difference, though in a 
 weaker form, between the first growth and the later life of 
 this plant. The abnormal character of inspiration is equally 
 certain to Rome as to us. About the authority, therefore, 
 of the Holy Scripture, you will not readily come in contro- 
 versy with Rome. But the point of view held by Rome 
 differs entirely from ours, when Rome does not bring special 
 inspiration to a close with Patmos, but continues it tiU the 
 present day in the Church, even in the bishop of Rome e ca- 
 thedra loquente. This exerts a twofold influence. First, as 
 far as it adds to the content of the Holy Scriptures, and 
 again, in so much as the Church absolutely interprets the 
 Scripture. Since the prophets and apostles are no more 
 among the living, but the Church always is, it is evident 
 that neither prophets nor apostles can exercise any com- 
 pulsory authority in the Church, while by its official inter- 
 pretation the Church has it always in her power to interpret 
 the utterances of prophets and apostles as she likes. It 
 should be observed, not only that from this view-point inspi- 
 ration is always continuous, but also that the inspiration of 
 the past becomes of secondary significance, compared to the 
 inspiration of later times. And this is what Rome has come 
 to, by weakening the difference between the normal and the 
 abnormal. The operations of the Holy Spirit in the sphere 
 of the new life through the ordained ministry and the coun- 
 cils of ecclesiastics are placed on one line with the inspira- 
 tion of Moses, David or Isaiah ; the apocrypha share the 
 authority of the canonical books; and on the other side, the 
 
Chap. II] THE OPERATION OF THIS PEINCIPIUM 355 
 
 applying and expository operations of the Holy Spirit are 
 ■withdrawn from the individual life and concentrated in that 
 which is official. 
 
 We pass by the small differences from each of these three 
 points of view which occur in Greek, Lutheran, and Baptist 
 Theology. In this section it was our only purpose, where 
 the ultimate cause (principium remotum) is fixed, to distin- 
 guish the conceptions which had been formed of the manner 
 in which the Divine energy, in revealing itself to sinners, 
 had reached its result. This process has been represented 
 either as mystic-atomistic or as organic. The first has been 
 done by all fanatics, the latter by all churches. But though 
 all the churches have agreed in the organic interpretation of 
 Revelation, they have separated in this : namely, one group 
 has conceived inspiration not merely as organic, but temporal 
 as well, and consequently as completed ; while Rome still 
 thinks that inspiration is continuous in the organism of the 
 Church. 
 
 § 69. The Relation between this Principium and our Con- 
 sciousness 
 
 For the present, we leave the further study of the differ- 
 ent conceptions that are formed of the working of this 
 principium, in order to go back to the more weighty ques- 
 tion of the connection between this principium and our 
 consciousness — a question the answer to which lies for 
 us in the qualification of this connection as immediate. 
 There is no third something, that guarantees to our con- 
 sciousness the reality of this principium. The working of 
 this principium upon our consciousness is direct. This is 
 really self-evident, since every principium finds its peculiar 
 character in this, that it is itself ground, and therefore 
 allows no ground under itself ; but in the case of the prin- 
 cipium of theology ideas have been so confused, that a 
 separate study of it cannot be omitted. For the sake of 
 clearness we start from the ultimate cause, i.e. from special 
 inspiration. Grod from His own mind breathes (inspirat) 
 into the mind of man, more particularly into the mind of 
 
356 § 69. THE RELATION BETWEEN [Div. Ill 
 
 sinful man, and that, too, in a special manner. This, and 
 nothing else, is the principium, from which knowledge of 
 God comes to us sinners, and from which also theology 
 as a science draws its vital power. That besides this 
 inspiration there is also manifestation, and that both inspi- 
 ration and manifestation are related to what, thanks to 
 common grace, has remained in and about us of natural the- 
 ology, is neither denied by this nor lost from sight, and will 
 appear later on. To prevent misunderstanding, however, 
 the principium must here be taken as simply as possible; 
 and then this principium lies in God, in so far as He from 
 his Divine consciousness inspires something into the con- 
 sciousness of the sinner. Imagine this act of God away; 
 say that it does not exist; deny this agency, which goes out 
 from God ; and no theology remains. All that remains is 
 poetry, conjecture, supposition; but you have no more 
 theology. It will not do to say "est Deus in nobis, agi- 
 tante calescimus illo," for this is nothing but an emotion 
 in your feelings, a vibration of a Divine power in your 
 inner life, a something that can very well take place, repeat 
 itself and continue, without effecting any knowledge of 
 God in 3'ou. For this very reason this inspiration of Grod 
 into the human mind, as often as it takes place, is sufficient 
 unto itself. Who on earth can know what takes place 
 between God and my heart, but myself; and how can I 
 know that that which works in me goes out from God to 
 me, except God Himself gives me the certainty of convic- 
 tion concerning this ? The sense of this stands entirely in 
 line with every other primordial sense, such as with the 
 sense of our ego, of our existence, of our life, of our calling, 
 of our continuance, of our laws of thought, etc. All that 
 God gives me in the natural way, to constitute my sense 
 as a human being, I not merely receive from Him, but by 
 Him alone is it guaranteed to me. When this sense of cer- 
 tainty becomes weak, I become sceptical, I lose my higher 
 energy of life, and end in madness, and no human reason- 
 ing can restore to me the lost certainty of my human start- 
 ing-point. The only difference here is, that the general 
 
Chap. II] THIS PRINCIPIUM AND OUE CONSCIOUSNESS 357 
 
 principles of my consciousness are common to me with 
 almost all men, while with the inspiration of Gf-od into the 
 mind of the sinner, one has it and the other has it not, 
 so that these two stand over against each other. He who 
 has it not, must deny it ; and he who has it, is often shocked 
 by the contradiction of him who has it not. This, however, 
 is not the case with inspiration only. In many other 
 domains one knows an inner impulse, which is foreign to 
 another. Think of the poet, the virtuoso, the hero, and 
 the adventurer. The want of general consent is no proof 
 of want of foundation, and often works the effect, that con- 
 viction becomes the more firmly founded. Contradiction 
 can weaken, but it can also strengthen. The question only 
 is, whether there is sufficient ground for the fact of its 
 being present in one and absent in the other. Therefore, 
 the Reformed theologians have ever considered theology 
 also to rest upon the election. If one reasons that all 
 men are entitled to the same thing, and that every sinner 
 has the right to equal gifts of grace, then the fact "that 
 all men have not faith " (2 Thess. iii. 2) is an " offence " to 
 us; and this weakens our sense of what God works upon 
 and in our soul. Hence there is nothing to be done about 
 it, that one man is more deeply sensible of this than another, 
 and that even this sense of God's inspiration appears much 
 more clearly in one age than in another. Human supports 
 avail nothing here. When the fogs are too dense, the sun 
 cannot penetrate to us in its full splendor ; as soon as they 
 lift or lessen, the light of itself shines again more brightly in 
 our eyes; and the law remains intact: in thi/ light shall we see 
 light. The conflict concerning the reality of inspiration may 
 safely, therefore, be ended. Because it is primordial, it cannot 
 be demonstrated ; and because it is sufficient unto itself and 
 admits of no proof, it cannot be harmed by counterproof. 
 And it was seen by our fathers entirely correctly, in so far 
 as they founded their confession of the Scripture ultimately 
 upon no other testimony than the witness of the Holy 
 Spirit. All that you add to this may serve as a support to 
 the side-wall, but is never, either wholly or in part, the 
 
358 § 69. THE RELATION BETWEEN [Dit. in 
 
 foundation for the building. If, therefore, our knowledge 
 of God is only derived from the self-communication of God, 
 i.e. is the fruit of inspiration, then God as inspirer (Deus 
 inspirans) must be the principium, the first agent in our 
 knowledge of God ; and the finding of a something hack of 
 this principium, from which it should follow or flow, is 
 simply inconceivable. 
 
 The objection, indeed, may be raised, that in this way 
 two principles, entirely separated from each other, operate 
 in our consciousness : on one side God as Creator (Deus 
 creans), and on the other God as inspirer (Deus inspirans), 
 and more particularly in a special manner (modo speeiali). 
 And this we readily grant. This is, indeed, unnatural, 
 and, in a sense, does violence to our consciousness. A two- 
 fold source of knowledge in our consciousness is not in 
 accord with the original demand of our consciousness ; and 
 he who lives and thinks strongly, can never cease from the 
 effort to make those two one, or to cause one of those two 
 to disappear. Indeed, this duality of principium is no slight 
 obstacle in the way of the assurance of faith, with reference 
 to the special principium. Almost all doubt arises from this 
 dualism. Furthermore, the result must be, that finally this 
 duality shall fall away again, and that the unity of principium 
 shall be restored in our consciousness. Such, indeed, it shall 
 be in the state of glory. In the status gloriae there shall be 
 " no more temple in the city," but also no more Bible in the 
 oratory. A Bible in the oratory is a sign that you yourself 
 are still a sinner in a sinful world. Sinner or no sinner, 
 therefore, is the question which here, too, is decisive ; in 
 him who is still sinless or who is no longer a sinner, no con- 
 flict, no duality in his consciousness can operate from the 
 side of his God ; and in him, therefore, no second principium 
 of Divine knowledge can be added to the original natural 
 principium. But if you reckon ■ivith sin, then, of course, it is 
 not sufficient that you recognize the incompleteness of our 
 human conditions ; or acknowledge that a great distance still 
 separates your ideal of love and holiness from your actual 
 nature ; neither is it sufficient that you heap all sorts of 
 
Chap. II] THIS PRINCIPIUM AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 359 
 
 reproaches upon yourself, and wliet the sword against sin. 
 All this does not touch the principium of the knowledge of God. 
 This is only touched, when you yourself know that a breach 
 has taken place; and that sin has so broken you, that the 
 channels, through which the knowledge of God flowed to 
 you in virtue of your creation, have been stopped up and 
 otherwise injured, and that thus it is an assured fact to you, 
 that from this natural principium, however good in itself, be- 
 cause once broken and injured, no real knowledge of God can 
 any more come to you. Then only will your consciousness 
 be disposed to look upon a second, a different, a temporarily 
 auxiliary, principium as natural; and with this disposition 
 only will your consciousness be able to grasp the guarantee 
 of the Divine witness in this witness itself. On the other 
 hand, it is equally true that this deep sense of sin, by which 
 you learn to know your state as broken before God, does 
 not come to you from the natural principium, but only 
 from this special principium. There is an interaction here. 
 The more powerful your conviction of sin is, the more readily 
 you grasp the special principium, as suited to your condi- 
 tion ; and also, the more decided you are in your acceptance 
 of the knowledge of God from this special principium, the 
 deeper the sense of being a sinner before Q-od will strike 
 root in you. Later on it will be shown, how this witness of 
 the Moly Spirit in its structure is also ethical in its nature. 
 Here, however, let it be said, that this witness of the Holy 
 Spirit always roots in the conviction of sin, and in degree of 
 certainty runs parallel with the certainty of your sense of 
 guilt. 
 
 What is said above would not lightly rouse contradiction, 
 if this inspiration of Q-od into the mind of the sinner took 
 place individually. Even those who stand outside of this 
 inspiration would then acknowledge that they can deny the 
 reality of it for themselves, but not for others. But, and this 
 is the difficulty, this principium does not work in this way. 
 To speak plainly, there is no inspiration which goes out 
 directly from God to the soul's consciousness of every one 
 of the elect separately, and offers the same content to all, one 
 
360 § 69. THE RELATION BETWEEN [Div. Ill 
 
 by one ; on the contrary, there is one central revelation given 
 for all, and it is from this central revelation that every elect 
 one is to draw for himself his knowledge of God. Public 
 charity may provide each poor man a sum of money with 
 which to buy provisions for himself, or may spread in a hall 
 a common table from which all poor people may be fed. 
 And thus it might be conceived that God should give to 
 every sinner whom He chose a special light in the soul, an 
 individual inspiration in his consciousness, and that every 
 one should have enough of this for himself. This is what 
 the mystics of every sort affirm. But such has not been the 
 will of God. God the Lord has spread one table for His 
 entire Church, has given one organically connected revela- 
 tion for all, and it is from this one revelation designed for 
 all, and which neither repeats nor continues itself, that the 
 churches of all places and times, and in those churches 
 every child of God, has to draw his knowledge of the 
 Eternal Being. And the witness of this one central reve- 
 lation which neither repeats nor continues itself, lies for us 
 in the Holy Scripture. Not, of course, as though that Bible, 
 by itself, were sufficient to give, to every one who reads it, 
 the true knowledge of God. We positively reject such a 
 mechanical explanation ; and by their teaching of the wit- 
 ness of the Holy Spirit as absolutely indispensable for all 
 conviction concerning the Scripture, by their requirement of 
 illumination for the right understanding of the Scripture, and 
 by their high esteem of the ministry of the Word for the ap- 
 plication of the Scripture, our fathers have sufficiently shown 
 that such a mechanical explanation cannot be ascribed to 
 them. That they nevertheless took the Holy Scripture, and 
 nothing else, as principium of the knowledge of God, yea, as 
 the sole principium, had its ground in the circumstance that 
 in the witness of the Holy Spirit, in the enlightening and 
 in the application by the ministry of the Word, there is a 
 recognition of what happens to or in the subject, in order 
 that what has been revealed may be appropriated by him; 
 but by these the knowledge of God itself is not increased 
 nor changed. That knowledge of God as such does not 
 
Chap. II] THIS PRINCIPIUM AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 361 
 
 come to the sinner from a mystical inworking of the Holy- 
 Spirit, neither from the illumination of the regenerate, nor 
 from what the preacher adds to the Scripture, but simply 
 from what he takes from the Scripture. Viewed from what- 
 ever point, the Holy Scripture always remains the real prin- 
 cipium which brings about the knowledge of God. How 
 this expression principium, applied to the Holy Scripture, is 
 to be understood, can only be explained later on ; it is enough 
 that here we translate the individualistic-mystical conception 
 of inspiration into the organically general one. When we 
 viewed inspiration in relation to individual man, we said : In 
 the sinner, so far as pertains to the knowledge of God, the 
 natural principium has been maimed, so that no more new 
 or sufficient knowledge of God comes to man through this 
 channel. This is remedied by a second principium which as 
 principium specidle is provisionally added to the first. This 
 principium also is, if you please, God Himself, or goes out 
 from God. He it is who inspires knowledge of Himself in a 
 special manner into the mind of the sinner (in mentem homi- 
 nis peccatoris modo speciali sui cognitionem inspirat) ; and 
 consequently He alone can give assurance concerning His 
 revelation. It concerns here a principium in the proper 
 sense under or back of which therefore there can lie none 
 other. Applying this to the central Revelation, we now 
 say : Our human race, once fallen in sin, can have no more 
 supply of pure or sufficient knowledge of God from the 
 natural principium. Consequently God effects an auxiliary 
 revelation for our human race, which, from a special princi- 
 pium of its own and under the necessary conditions, places a 
 knowledge of God within the reach of the sinner which is 
 suited to his condition. It took many centuries to accom- 
 plish this central Revelation, until it reached its completion. 
 The description of this action of God, i.e. the providing of 
 this central Revelation for our human race, is contained in 
 the Holy Scripture. He who would know this central Reve- 
 lation, must seek it therefore in the Holy Scripture. And 
 in that sense the question, where the special principium with 
 the central Revelation to our race as its fruit is now to be 
 
362 §69. THE RELATION BETWEEN [Diy. IH 
 
 found, must be answered without hesitation as follows : In the 
 Holy Scripture and in the Holy Scripture alone. 
 
 If, however, this is taken as if the knowledge of God hidden 
 in the Bible, but not the Bible itself, has come to the sinner 
 from God, then a link in the chain is cracked, and the chain 
 breaks. For then indeed the Bible as such is nothing but 
 an accidental, human annotation, and we have first to decide 
 which parts of it do or do not hold firm. As criterium for 
 this we have no individual inspiration ; if we had, the whole 
 conception of a central-organic revelation would again faU 
 away. Hence we have no other criterium at our disposal than 
 our natural principium. And thus the outcome of it must be, 
 that from this untenable view-point you not only ravel out the 
 Scripture by historic criticism, but also annul the content 
 of the central Revelation and reduce it to the natural prin- 
 cipium, in order finally to deny every special principium, and 
 after the completed round of the circle to return to the nothing 
 with which you began. Thus indeed it has actually taken 
 place. Having stripped the whole Scripture of its leaves, 
 having peeled and shelled it, we come back, after a struggle 
 of eighteen centuries, by way of Origen, to the Greek philos- 
 ophers, and the choice remains : Aristotle or Plato. This 
 could not be otherwise, as soon as once the Scripture was 
 placed outside the Revelation, and it was for the sake of pro- 
 tection against this that our fathers emphasized so strongly 
 the Divine authorship of the Scripture as such. Even as 
 your person, by an optical process, photographs itself and 
 produces its own image upon the collodion plate, so it is 
 likewise the Revelation itself which has given its own image 
 in the Holy Scripture. The Scripture as the document of 
 the central Revelation is therefore organically connected 
 with that Revelation itself. The ice in which, in summer, 
 cold is condensed and conserved for you, is organically one 
 with the cold which it brings you. It was cold which caused 
 the water to congeal, and from the ice the cool breath is 
 refreshingly wafted to you. Therefore in olden times it 
 was ever emphasized that the content and form of the Holy 
 Scripture were most intimately and organically connected. 
 
Chap. II] THIS PRINCIPIUM AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 363 
 
 and that not merely its content but also its form sprang from 
 the jprincipium speciale, i.e. from that special action which 
 has gone out from God to our sinful race, in order to 
 discover Himself to the sinner. The distinction of course 
 between these two actions of the Holy Spirit must ever 
 be kept in view ; even more sharply than our fathers were 
 accustomed to do this. For by their summary exposition 
 they gave some occasion for the idea, that it were almost 
 indifferent whether in earlier ages a real revelation had ever 
 taken place, so long as we but had the Scripture. With 
 a too high estimate of the chart which was drawn of the 
 country, the country itself at times seemed a superfluity. 
 In this way spiritual intellectualism was fed, and oftentimes 
 the reality of history was sacrificed to a barren abstraction. 
 The representation of a Bible dictated word for word did 
 not originate from it, but was materially advanced by it : an 
 error which of course cannot be overcome, except first the 
 inspiration that operated in the revelation itself be sepa- 
 rately considered, and then a proper representation be given 
 of the inspiration that operated in and with the compilation 
 of the canon of the Holy Scripture. But however strongly 
 we emphasize that the real inspiration of the Scripture 
 must be carefully distinguished from the inspiration of the 
 revelation as entirely dissimilar, yet this may never be 
 taken as though the one action of the Spirit stood in no 
 organic relation to the other. Both, indeed, are expressions 
 of the one will of God, to grant to our race, lost in sin, a 
 central Revelation, and to bring this central Revelation 
 within the reach of all ages and people. 
 
 For the simple believer it is, therefore, by no means neces- 
 sary to consider this distinction, provided he makes no dogma 
 of his own thoughtless representation, and with this dogma, 
 formulated on his own authority, resists the accurate repre- 
 sentation. Sow the central Revelation has come, concerns 
 the believer only in so far as it must be to him the fruit of 
 the grace of Grod — of God, and of that God in His grace. 
 It is quite enough if the Holy Scripture is but the Word 
 of God's grace, by which he may live and die. The Heidel- 
 
364 §69. THE RELATION BETWEEN [Div. Ill 
 
 berg Catechism requires, therefore, no theory concerning the 
 Scripture, but merely asks that one believe, and believe in 
 such a way, " that one hold for truth all that God has re- 
 vealed to us in his word" (answer 21). The Scripture, 
 and all the historic content of which that Scripture bears 
 witness, is therefore not something by itself, which inserts 
 itself with a certain independence between our conscious- 
 ness and God, as the principium of revelation; but is as the 
 wave of ether, upon which the beam of light from the 
 source of light moves itself directly to our eye. To him who 
 does not feel that, at the moment when he opens the Holy 
 Scripture, God comes by and in it and touches his very soul, 
 the Scripture is not yet the Word of God, or has ceased to 
 be this; or it is this in his spiritual moments, but not at 
 other times, as when the veil lies again on his heart, while 
 again it is truly such when the veil is taken away. With 
 the Holy Scripture it can never be a God afar off, and the 
 Scripture a something God sends from afar. The telephone 
 rather supplies an illustration that interprets this reality. 
 God is, indeed, a God afar off ; but He approaches you by 
 and in the Scripture ; unveils His presence to you ; and speaks 
 to you as though you were standing right by Him, and He 
 drew you close beneath His wings. The action on God's side 
 is not ended when the Scripture is completed for all nations. 
 The revealing activity is then, indeed, completed and decided 
 to the end, in so far as the central instrument is concerned, 
 and nothing will ever be added to it ; but this is not all. 
 This central instrument of revelation is not placed in the 
 midst of the world, in order that God may now look on and 
 see what man will do with it. On the contrary, now follows 
 that entirely distinct action of preserving the Scripture, of 
 interpreting and of applying the Scripture, and — still more 
 specially — of bringing the Scripture to individual souls, of 
 preparing those souls for its reception, and bringing them in 
 contact with it, and thus finally, by what our Reformed 
 Theologians called providentia specialissima, of rendering this 
 Scripture a special revelation for this and that given person. 
 The confession of all those who have possessed the Scripture 
 
Chap. II] THIS PRINCIPIUM AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 365 
 
 most fully and enjoyed it most richly, lias ever been that it 
 was God who brought them to the Scripture and the Scripture 
 to them ; that He opened their eyes, so that they might un- 
 derstand the Scripture ; and that only by the light which shone 
 on them from the Scripture, light has appeared in their own 
 person and the life round about them. 
 
 At no single point of the way is there place, therefore, for 
 a support derived from demonstration or reasoning. There 
 is no man that seeks, and seeking finds the Scripture, and 
 with its help turns himself to his God. But rather from 
 beginning to end it is one ceaselessly continued action which 
 goes out from God to man, and operates upon him, even as 
 the light of the sun operates upon the grain of corn that lies 
 hidden in the ground, and draws it to the surface, and causes 
 it to grow into a stalk. In God, therefore, is the principium 
 from which this entire action proceeds. This principium of 
 grace in God brings it to pass that a central Revelation is 
 established in and for our sinful race. That same principium 
 is the agent by which the image of that Revelation is reflected 
 in the Scripture. And it is again that same principium of 
 grace, the motive power of which goes out to the soul of the 
 sinner, that by the Scripture it may bind him personally to 
 that Revelation, and by that Revelation back again to his 
 God. From this it follows of itself that with each one per- 
 sonally you must distinguish between his experimental 
 (netto) and purely intellectual (bruto) faith in the Script- 
 ure, i.e. between that in the Scripture which has been 
 personally assured to his heart by the living God, and all 
 the rest, which still lies outside of the life of his soul, and 
 only bears a holy character for the sake of its connection with 
 the first, though it is as yet unknown to him. The propor- 
 tions of these experimental and intellectual faiths will be 
 different with every individual according to the depth of 
 his inner life and the flight of his wings. It will be con- 
 stantly modified with each person whose life of faith ad- 
 vances, so that the experimental and intellectual faith will 
 proportionately decrease and increase. But however this 
 purely intellectual (bruto) faith may diminish, it is not con- 
 
366 § 69. THE RELATION BETWEEN [Div. lU 
 
 ceivable that there has ever been one single believer to whom 
 the entire Scripture has been the possession of his heart. 
 This may even be maintained of those who have literally 
 covered the entire Bible, and have served the Church of 
 God with an exposition of its entire contents. Just be- 
 cause the Divine character of the Scripture rests for us 
 exclusively on faith, the richest exposition can never consti- 
 tute anything for us a Word of God. The distinction must 
 clearly be maintained. What God Himself does not bear 
 witness to in your soul personally (not mystic-absolutely, 
 but through the Scriptures) can never be known and con- 
 fessed by you as Divine. Finite reasoning can never obtain 
 the infinite as its result. If God then withdraws Himself, 
 if in the soul of men He bear no more witness to the truth 
 of His Word, men can no longer believe, and no apologetics, 
 however brilliant, will ever be able to restore the blessing of 
 faith in the Scripture. Faith, quickened by God Himself, is 
 invincible ; pseudo-faith, which rests merely upon reasoning, 
 is devoid of all spiritual reality, so that it bursts like a soap- 
 bubble as soon as the thread of your reasoning breaks. 
 
 The relation between the principium of Theology and our 
 consciousness can therefore be nothing else than immediate. 
 Not immediate in the sense that God could not be pleased 
 to make use of all kinds of transmissions, arrangements and 
 processes, by which to reach man's inmost soul; but such 
 that at no single point of the line the natural principium 
 can come in between to fill up the void, which might remain 
 open in the going out of the principium of grace to our 
 heart. The principium gratiae operates from the side of 
 God right through the periods of Revelation, the Scripture, 
 the mystical union, etc., till our heart has been reached and 
 touched ; and our heart gives itself captive, not because 
 critically it allows and approves the approach of God ; but 
 because it can offer no resistance, and must give itself captive 
 to the operation which goes out from God. 
 
 All faith in the Scripture quickened by God, and in God 
 quickened by the Scripture, which does not bear this imme- 
 diate character, and would borrow its assurance from any 
 
Chap. U] THIS PRINCDPIUM AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 367 
 
 course of reasoning, is therefore absurd. For you must accept 
 one of two things, either that each one personally must reason 
 this out for himself, or that only a few are able to do this, 
 so that the others must depend upon these few. The first 
 is impossible, for the simple reason that not one-tenth per 
 cent, of the children of men are capable of entering upon 
 the required investigation ; and the second is equally im- 
 possible, since then you would substitute faith on human 
 authority in the place of faith in God. Moreover, faith 
 is not a demand that belongs to the more advanced periods 
 of life, but it must be exercised from youth up ; how, then, 
 would you have faith be born as the result of a study, of 
 which the best are not capable until the years of mid-life ? 
 It should also be observed, how in this way the faith of one 
 would continually be shocked by the mistakes in the inves- 
 tigation of another. What would it profit you, if you had 
 reached a sufficient and satisfactory result for yourself ? To- 
 morrow a book appears with new objections, and then every- 
 thing with you must remain unsettled, so long as you cannot 
 successfully unnerve all those new objections. Scarcely, how- 
 ever, has this been accomplished, when still another advances 
 new difficulties, and thus you are engulfed in an endless 
 whirl between doubt and faith. Worse still: after a study 
 of more than twelve centuries spent on the Scriptures, 
 there is yet no faintest outlook that these studies will ever 
 lead to a satisfactory result. The conflict concerning the 
 Holy Scriptures will most likely be continued till the final 
 return of the Lord. How, then, can faith ever rest on the 
 result of these studies as foundation, when its presence has 
 been a necessity from the beginning, and when in those early 
 times, in which there was no question of these studies, 
 faith was most vital and powerful ? For no single moment, 
 therefore, may we entertain the admission that argument 
 may be the ground of conviction. This would be a " pass- 
 ing into another kind," which is logically condemned. Faith 
 gives highest assurance, where in our own consciousness 
 it rests immediately on the testimony of God ; but without 
 this support, everything that announces itself as faith is 
 
368 § 70. RELATION BETWEEN THIS PRUSfCIPrUM [Div. HI 
 
 merely a weaker form of opinion based on probability, 
 which capitulates the moment a surer knowledge supersedes 
 your defective evidence. 
 
 And as regards the objection, that all this is very ex- 
 cellent, provided it does not include the Scriptures, and 
 no other thought is entertained than of the mystical com- 
 munion with the eternal Being, simple reference to what was 
 explained in § 46 sq. would suffice ; but even without this 
 reference, we might say that, as a matter of fact, such faith 
 has only shown itself where it concerned the Holy Scriptures. 
 In other circles many different emotions have likewise been 
 experienced, brilliant exhibitions of ethical heroism been 
 seen, and many sorts of religious expressions observed, both 
 aesthetic and otherwise ; but here we treat of the " Knowl- 
 edge of God " (Cognitio Dei) and of the principia from which 
 this knowledge of God flows. And that faith, which leads 
 individuals and whole circles to conscious worship, not of the 
 " Unknown God " at Athens, but of the known Father who 
 is in heaven, is not found, except where the Scriptures 
 have been the Divine instrument, in God's hand, of that 
 knowledge. 
 
 § 70. Relation between this Principium and the Natural 
 Principium 
 
 The acknowledgment of the Holy Scriptures as the prin- 
 cipium of theology gives rise to an antithesis between this 
 principium and the common principium of our knowledge. 
 From this antithesis a certain relation between the two is 
 born, and this relation also must be investigated. We speak 
 here only of theology in the narrower sense as knowledge 
 of G-od (cognitio Dei), and in so far we might limit our- 
 selves to the relation between natural and revealed theology 
 (theologia naturalis and revelata), which is virtually the 
 contents of this section. But this we will not do. First, 
 because the formal action of our thinking is also involved, 
 and secondly, because with natural theology one thinks more 
 of the content, while here we are interested almost exclusively 
 with the principium from which this content flows. 
 
Chap. II] AND THE NATURAL PRINCIPIUlA 369 
 
 As stated above, the natural principium not only may 
 not be ignored, but is even permanent and lasting, while 
 the special principium falls away as soon as its task is 
 ended. Only with this reservation can we speak of a 
 twofold principium. A twofold principium of knowledge 
 is thinkable with reference to different objects, as, for in- 
 stance, God and the cosmos ; but not, as in this case, with 
 reference to God alone. In both cases indeed, in natural 
 and in revealed theology, we speak of knowledge of God, of 
 knowledge, therefore, of the same God, and of knowledge 
 of the same God to be obtained by the same subject, i.e. 
 man, or more correctly, humanity. No doubt a temporary 
 inability in man may render the knowledge of God no 
 more sufficiently possible for him in the normal way, and 
 thus it must be supplied in an abnormal way ; but this does 
 not modify the fundamental plan, and the outcome must 
 ever be, that the knowledge of Gtod is imparted to humanity 
 in the normal, and hence in only one way. At present nature 
 stands temporarily over against grace ; but in the end, in 
 glorified nature, there will be no more question of grace. 
 All that the Holy Scripture teaches concerning the knowl- 
 edge of God in its consummation, aims, indeed, at a 
 condition in which the abnormality of the ordinance of 
 redemption falls entirely away, and whatever was grounded 
 in creation returns, but carried up to its end (re'Xo?). In 
 part it even seems as though Christ then effaces Himself, 
 in order that it may be " God all in all." Even as Christ 
 before His death pointed His disciples away from Himself 
 to the Father, saying : " I say not unto you, that I will pray 
 the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you." 
 
 This implies at the same time, that the eternally enduring 
 knowledge of God, possessed by the redeemed, shall not be 
 after the nature of the special, but according to the nature 
 of the natural principium. However rich the dispensation 
 of grace may be, it ever remains a bandage applied to the 
 injured part of the body, and is never that vital part itself. 
 When a wound of the throat prevents the taking of food 
 in the common way, it may be brought into the stomach 
 
370 § 70. RELATION BETWEEN THIS PEINCIPIUM [Div. lU 
 
 artificially. The purpose of this, however, is always to 
 save life, by the vitality thus saved to bring on healing, so 
 that finally food may again enter the stomach in the normal 
 way through the throat. The scaffolding placed before a 
 dilapidated gable may be the only enclosure about the house 
 for a long time, and may render it quite invisible, but the 
 purpose in view is, that presently the scaffold shall disappear, 
 and the house itself be seen again, and remain in its normal 
 condition. In a similar sense it must be confessed of the 
 original principium of knowledge, that by sin it has become 
 temporarily insufficient and has been rendered incapable ; 
 that consequently the temporary aid of another principium 
 has become indispensable ; but that the tendency of this can 
 be no other than to restore the natural principium, i.e. the 
 principium grounded in our nature to its normal activity ; 
 and as soon as this has been realized, to dismiss the special 
 principium, which renders merely a temporary service. Let 
 no misunderstanding, however, enter here. We by no means 
 assert that the purpose of extraordinary revelation is to re- 
 store us to the knowledge of God which Adam had. All 
 knowledge we possess in this earthly dispensation shall pass 
 away, and in place of this defective knowledge there is to 
 come the "seeing face to face." Even now the form of 
 our consciousness differs by day and by night ; ecstasy and 
 vision affect us differently from common fancy and sober 
 reasoning. But this effects no change in our psychic con- 
 stitution. Even if you imagine sin never to have entered, 
 so that no ruin of our nature had taken place, and there 
 would consequently have been no question of a special revela- 
 tion, the knowledge, nevertheless, which Adam had as con- 
 nate, would sometime have passed into the " seeing face to 
 face." The butterfly exhibits an entirely different form 
 from the caterpillar, and yet that butterfly came forth from 
 the natural conditions of the caterpillar, without any assist- 
 ance in the transition from an abnormal something. Call the 
 knowledge which Adam had in paradise the caterpillar, and 
 the "knowing face to face" the beautiful butterfly, and you 
 perceive how this higher and to be completed knowledge 
 
Chap. II] AND THE NATURAL PRINCIPIUM 371 
 
 belongs, nevertheless, to the sphere of the natural and -not 
 to the sphere of the special principium. 
 
 This, however, has been heretofore too much overlooked by 
 orthodox theology. Losing itself almost entirely in the con- 
 tent of the special revelation, it has taken this too much for 
 the essential one, and has scarcely been able to represent it 
 otherwise than that this special revelation is to be perma- 
 nent. The insight, that of course the Scripture ceases its 
 use to us with our dying, that after death no sacrament is any 
 more conceivable, and that in the realm of glory the Christo- 
 logical period, if we may so express it, shall disappear, in 
 order that the triune God may again be " all in all " has not 
 been given its place even dogmatically. Rome, by the ac- 
 tion of the church on earth in behalf of the dead, had con- 
 centrated eschatology entirely into the period preceding 
 the Judgment-day ; the Reformation neglected eschatology 
 sorely ; what from the side of modern orthodoxy has been 
 supplied in our times to make us think of a church with a 
 soteriologic ministry beyond the grave, has occasioned mere 
 confusion ; when the state of the blest was considered, it 
 was more a mystical fanaticism than the sober putting of 
 the question of the consciousness of the redeemed : it is not 
 strange, therefore, that the question, from what " principium 
 of knowledge" the redeemed will think, was not even formu- 
 lated. Light on the subject, however, was not wanting. 
 "Prophecies, tongues, knowledge," everything that consti- 
 tutes our riches here, will disappear, according to the word 
 of the apostle. Special revelation is called a " glass," which 
 renders temporary aid, to receive for us the image and reflect 
 it back again ; but that glass also shall sometime belong to 
 the past. And then there comes an entirely different know- 
 ing, even as we are known, which includes of itself, that 
 this knowledge will come to us entirely by the data provided 
 in creation. Not of course so as to lose anything of what 
 was revealed in the rich revelation of the mercy of God in an 
 uncommon way, but, and herein lies the mystery, in order to 
 take up this rich gain into our normal existence ; which mys- 
 tery finds its explanation in the dogma de Christo. It is 
 
372 § 70. RELATION BETWEEN THIS PRINCIPIUM [Diy. HI 
 
 revealed to us, that the Mediator shall make surrender of the 
 kingdom to God, even the Father, but in such a way, that 
 He Himself remains eternally the Head of His mystical body 
 (corpus mysticum). The Christ v^ill not disappear, in order 
 that Adam may again take his place as head of our race. On 
 the contrary, Adam never resumes the place of honor lost by 
 sill ; but the mystery is this, — that Christ shall sometime be 
 no longer the interposed Mediator, but the natural Head of 
 the human race in glory. This, however, may not detain us 
 now. But the suggestion of the dogmatic relation between 
 the question in hand in this section, and the questions of 
 eschatology and Christology, was necessary. And provi- 
 sionally our purpose is accomplished, if it is clear, why the 
 whole dispensation of special grace passes away, and how 
 in consequence the special principium of knowledge, from 
 which theology draws its life, is destined sometime to dis- 
 appear into the natural principium. 
 
 This, however, does not explain the mutual relation of the 
 two, though this indeed is most necessary, if we hope to es- 
 cape the false representations abroad, especially concerning 
 natural theology (theologia naturalis). If at first the Refor- 
 mation fostered more accurate ideas, soon the temptation 
 appeared too strong, to place natural theology as a separate 
 theology alongside of special theology (theologia specialis). 
 The two were then placed mechanically side by side. To 
 natural theology we owed the knowledge of God's Being, 
 of the Divine attributes, of His works, providence, moral 
 law, the last judgment, etc., and although special theology 
 made us know a great deal of sin and grace, in fact it en- 
 riched the real knowledge of God only with the knowledge 
 of His " Grace " and of His " Threefold Being " ; at least, 
 in so far as real clearness is concerned ; for the fundamental 
 feature of this mystery too was soon thought to be also 
 found among the Heathen. With this division it became 
 apparent, that the real Theology as knowledge of God gave 
 the lion's share to natural theology, and that the theology of 
 grace, while it occupied itself with many and exalted mys-\ 
 teries, in reality abandoned the foundation of all knowledge 
 
Chap. 11] AND THE NATURAL PEINCIPIUM 373 
 
 of God, and therefore the heart of the matter, to its twin 
 sister. This furnished natural theology the occasion to 
 unfold its wings ever more broadly ; to expand itself and 
 lessen the importance of special theology; until finally it has 
 succeeded in stepping forth as a monarch and in contesting 
 all right of utterance to special theology. And this could 
 not be otherwise, and will repeat itself again and again, so 
 long as the error is committed of representing special the- 
 ology as sufficient in itself, and of making natural theology 
 do service as Martha by the side of Mary. It is, therefore, of 
 the greatest importance, to see clearly, that special theology 
 may not be considered a moment without natural theology, 
 and that on the other hand natural theology of itself is 
 unable to supply any pure knowledge of God. 
 
 That special revelation (revelatio specialis) is not con- 
 ceivable without the hypothesis of natural theology, is 
 simply because grace never creates one single new reality. 
 This does not even take place in miracles. In no miracle 
 does anything originate which is to be added as a new ele- 
 ment to the existing cosmos. The very possibility of this 
 is inconceivable and would destroy the organic character of 
 the cosmos. In regeneration no new component part, which 
 in creation lay outside of our being, is added to man. And 
 even in the incarnation it is no new " Divine-human nature," 
 which as something new (novum quid) is added to what 
 exists, but our own human nature that becomes the revela- 
 tion of that same God, who stood over against Adam in the 
 creation. That in heaven no new reality has originated, 
 needs no assertion. But since neither in heaven nor on 
 earth any new reality is created by grace, how can special 
 revelation stand on a root of its own ? If you go outside 
 of reality, then, it is a fiction with which you cannot deal. 
 If, on the other hand, as the Church confesses, it lays hold 
 upon the reality of heaven and earth, then it can be no other 
 than the existing reality, and in order to be true, it cannot 
 borrow its strength from any but that existing reality. All 
 that the Scriptures teach, therefore, concerning " the mak- 
 ing of all things new," the " new creature " and the works 
 
374 § 70. RELATION BETWEEN THIS PRINCIPIDM [Div. lU 
 
 in Christ," views at no time anything but new relations, new- 
 methods of existence, new forms, and never puts us face to 
 face with a newly originated element. As far as the sub- 
 stance is concerned, God remains unchangeable, the being of 
 man is now what it was before the fall, and the cosmos is 
 indeed impaired, but always the identical world of Gen. i. 1. 
 In man also no new capacities are created, for even faith (as 
 was shown above) roots in our nature, as created by God in 
 Paradise. In what domain then can the reality be found, in 
 which a special grace, outside of natural life, could soar on 
 wings of its own ? Where would be the spot to offer it a 
 resting-place for the sole of its foot ? This entire represen- 
 tation, therefore, as though grace had produced a knowledge 
 of God of its own, which as competitor runs by the side of 
 natural theology, must be most decidedly rejected. There 
 can be no such special theology ; it is simply unthinkable. 
 When Calvin, therefore, speaks of the "seed of religion" 
 which is present in every sinner, and our Oonfessio Belgica 
 teaches in Art. 2, " that we know God by two means, Nature 
 and the Scriptures," this may not be taken in the sense of 
 the later rationalistic supranaturalists, for there lies in it 
 only the simple confession, that without the basis of natural 
 theology there is no special theology. " God has given to all," 
 says Calvin, " some apprehension of his existence, the memory 
 of which he frequently and insensibly renews " Qlnst. Rel. 
 Chr. I. 3. i.). " So that the sense of the Divinity can never 
 be entirely lost " (^Ibidem'). And it is upon the canvas of 
 this natural knowledge of God itself that the special reve- 
 lation is embroidered. He expresses it so accurately and 
 beautifully : " the Scripture, collecting in our minds the 
 otherwise confused notions of Deity, dispels the darkness, 
 and gives us a clear view of the true God" (^Inst. I. 6. i.). 
 It is, therefore, beside the truth when the separate mention 
 of Nature and the Scripture in the Reformed confessions 
 is taken as an indication of our principium of knowledge, by 
 way of juxtaposition or coordination. Later dogmatici may 
 have taught this, but it is not in accord with the spirit of 
 Calvin or of the Reformed type of doctrine. His metaphor, 
 
Chap. II] AND THE NATURAL PRINCIPIUM 375 
 
 that the Bible is a pair of spectacles which enables us to 
 read the Divine writing in nature, may be insufficient as an 
 explanation of the problem in hand ; in any case it cuts off 
 absolutely every representation that the idea of natural and 
 special theology as two concurrent magnitudes is derived 
 from Calvin. 
 
 If we might choose another metaphor to explain the rela- 
 tion between the two, entirely in the spirit of Calvin but 
 more fully, the figure of the grafted tree pleases us most. 
 He who grafts, plants no new tree, but applies himself to 
 one that exists. That tree is alive, it draws its sap from the 
 roots, but this vital sap is wild, in consequence of which the 
 tree can bear no fruit that is desired. And now the grafter 
 comes, and inserts a nobler graft, and thereby brings it to 
 pass that this vital sap of the wild tree is changed, so that 
 the desired fruit now ripens on the branches. This new 
 graft does not stand by the side of the wild tree, but is 
 in it ; and if the grafting is a success, it may equally well 
 he said that the true graft lives by the old tree, as that 
 the uncultivated tree is of use solely because of the new 
 graft. And such, indeed, is the case here. The wild tree 
 is the sinner, in whose nature works the natural principium 
 of the knowledge of God as an inborn impelling power. If 
 you leave this natural principium to itself, you will never 
 have anything else than wild wood, and the fruit of knowl- 
 edge does not come. But when the Lord our God introduces 
 from without, and thus from another principium, a shoot of 
 a true plant, even the principle of a pure knowledge into 
 this wild tree, i.e. into this natural man, then there is not 
 a man Jy the side of a man, no knowledge hy the side of 
 a knowledge, but the wild energy remains active in this 
 humannature, i.e. iwcompZete knowledge ; while the ingrafted 
 new principium brings it to pass, that this impelling power 
 is changed and produces the fruit of true knowledge. The 
 special knowledge is, indeed, a new and proper principium, 
 but this principium joins itself to the vital powers of our 
 nature with its natural principium ; compels this principium 
 to let its life-sap flow through another channel ; and in this 
 
376 § 70. RELATION BETWEEN THIS PRINCIPIUM [Div. Ill 
 
 way cultivates ripe fruit of knowledge from what otherwise 
 would have produced only wood fit for fire. 
 
 If now we investigate the meaning of this figure, entirely 
 clear by itself, it appears at once that the grafting of true 
 upon wild wood is only possible because both, however 
 different in quality, are one, nevertheless, in disposition of 
 nature. Grafting succeeds the better in proportion to the 
 closeness of correspondence between the two kinds of wood, 
 and if all relationship were wanting between wild and true 
 wood, grafting would simply be impossible. For the subject 
 in hand, this means that natural and special theology pos- 
 sess a higher unity, are allied to one another, and, by virtue 
 of this unity and relationship, are capable of affecting each 
 otiier. This higher unity lies (1) in God, (2) in man, and 
 (3) in the purpose for which the life of grace, and conse- 
 quently the special knowledge, comes forward. In G-od, 
 because the principium of natural, as well as of special, 
 knowledge lies in Him ; because He remains the object of 
 both kinds of knowledge ; and because the revelation of 
 His grace is revelation of grace in Him who created natu- 
 ral life for the glory of His name. Secondly, in man, since 
 it is the same ego that draws knowledge from both prin- 
 cipia ; since in this ego it is one and the same consciousness 
 in which this knowledge of God is taken up ; and since it 
 is no other kind of man, but the very man who fell, who 
 as sinner needs the knowledge of this grace. And, finally, 
 in the purpose of the special knoivledge, which consists not 
 in a cutting off of our natural life, but in the restoration 
 of that same life, which is ours by nature, into a normal 
 state guaranteed against a new fall. Special revelation 
 does not begin, therefore, by ignoring what has already 
 been effected by natural revelation, but unites itself to this 
 in so positive a sense, that without these sparks (scintillae) 
 or remnants (rudera) it were itself unthinkable ; and for 
 this reason Reformed Theology has ever resisted the Lutheran 
 representation as though the sinner were merely "a stock 
 or block." If the " seed of religion " did not operate in the 
 sinner, he would not be susceptible to special revelation. 
 
Chap. II] AND THE NATURAL PRINCIPIUM 377 
 
 Whatever still remains in the sinner of this seed of religion 
 and the knowledge of God connected with this, is, therefore, 
 adopted by special revelation, as the indispensable instru- 
 ment by which it operates. Without this, it neither reaches 
 nor touches man, remains an abstraction, and misses its form 
 of existence. How can there be a sense of sin without the 
 sense of God, or susceptibility for grace without the con- 
 sciousness of guilt? The Holy Bible is, therefore, neither 
 a law-book nor a catechism, but the documentation of a 
 part of human life, and in that human life of a divine pro- 
 cess. Of the Apocalyptic vision only, it can be said that 
 it misses this quality in part ; but because of this very 
 antithesis with the Apocalypse, one perceives at once the 
 real human character of all the other parts of the revelation - 
 life. Nowhere in the Scriptures do you find, therefore, an 
 attempt to divide into certain compartments what is severally 
 supplied by natural and special knowledge ; but, throughout, 
 you find the special revelation grafted upon the natural. 
 Natural knowledge is not only assumed by the special, but 
 only in this does it fully assert itself. Knowledge is the 
 pinnacle which is not placed on the ground alongside of 
 the steeple, but is supported by the body of the steeple and is 
 lifted up on high. You may not say, therefore : This is mj 
 natural revelation, in addition to which comes the special. 
 For as a result, you obtain but one "knowledge of God," the 
 content of which has flowed to you from both sources, whose 
 waters have mingled themselves. 
 
 And if for this reason an exhibition of the special knowl- 
 edge without the natural is inconceivable, the representation 
 is equally absurd that the natural knowledge of God, without 
 enrichment by the special, could ever effect a satisfying 
 result. The outcome has shown that this natural knowl- 
 edge, as soon as it threw off the bridle of paradise tradition, 
 led the masses to idolatry and brutalization, and the finer 
 minds to false philosophies and equally false morals. Paul 
 indicates one of these two phases by the remark, that there 
 was first a condition in which the natural knowledge of God 
 allowed " that which may be known of God " (Rom. i. 19) to 
 
378 § 70. RELATION BETWEEN THIS PRINCIPIUM [Div. Ill 
 
 be manifest, but that this was followed by the period in which 
 God gave the sinner up Qirapehmice) . Not to speak now of 
 that first period, it is clear that at least after that the natural 
 knowledge of God could lead to no result ; not even in phi- 
 losophy, of which the same apostle testifies that the " wisdom 
 of the world is made foolish " (1 Cor. i. 20). Hence it is only 
 by the special knowledge that the natural knowledge be- 
 comes serviceable. By the light of the Scripture the sinner 
 becomes able to give himself an account of the " seed of re- 
 ligion " in his heart and of the " divine things " visible in the 
 cosmos ; but, where this light hides itself even upon the 
 Areopagus I advance no farther than to the Unknown God. 
 If therefore this entire juxtaposition, as though a special 
 knowledge of God stood side by side with a natural knowledge 
 of God, falls away, the way is cleared thereby to view more 
 accurately the relation between the two principia of this 
 knowledge thus distinguished. Both principia are one in 
 God, and the beam of this light is only broken when the 
 soundness of our human heart is broken by sin. The 
 knowledge-bringing impulse goes out from God to us ; the 
 active element, the first mover (primum movens), as the ulti- 
 mate cause (principium remotissimum), lies in the Divine 
 Being. This impulse of self -communication to man attains 
 its end completely in creation by the whole instrumentation 
 for the natural knowledge. And where, after sin, this Divine 
 impulse encounters an evil cataract, which prevents the 
 entrance of light, this impulse seeks and finds another and 
 more sure way by special revelation. Hence it is the same 
 God, and in that God the same impulse, by which both prin- 
 cipia appear in action. That in the origin of all things, or, 
 more particularly, in God's eternal counsel, both these stood 
 in this unity before God, cannot detain us here, since this 
 belongs to the domain of dogmatics ; but here it must be 
 indicated that the natural principium lays the foundation 
 of all knowledge, and that the special principium either fails 
 of its purpose or must adapt itself entirely to the provisions 
 that are original in the creation. Even the miracles, whose 
 character cannot be considered closely here, link no new ele- 
 
Chap. II] AND THE NATURAL PRINCIPIUM 379 
 
 ment into the sum of things, but, so far as their origin is con- 
 cerned, they are entirely identical with the wondrous power 
 which became manifest in the creation itself. The same is 
 true of the several means, which God has employed, to intro- 
 duce the special revelation into our human consciousness. 
 In the interests of this also you see no new or other capaci- 
 ties appear in man ; but merely the application in a peculiar 
 manner of what was given in the creation. Before the fall 
 God speaks with Adam, God causes a deep sleep to come 
 upon Adam, and, by an encroaching act of God, Eve enters 
 upon existence. God has entrance to our heart by nature, 
 and not first by grace ; He is able to rule the human spirit 
 by His Spirit ; and able to communicate to man what He 
 will. The communication of the test-commandment is an 
 immediate communication of a conscious thought, which 
 could not rise from Adam's own consciousness. Actually, 
 therefore, in special revelation no single means is used which 
 was not already present by nature in or about man. No 
 new structure is provided for human consciousness. All 
 that has taken place is, that God the Lord has restored a few 
 broken strings of the instrument, tuned these restored strings 
 in a different way, and by this immediate modification He has 
 evoked such a tone from the instrument as, being without 
 significance to sinless man, had become indispensable to the 
 sinner. Hence there would have been no question of a second 
 principium, if there were not this act of God, by which 
 He has accommodated Himself to the sinner. It is with 
 this, as it is with you, when for the sake of making yourself 
 understood by a member of the family who has become deaf, 
 you no longer choose his ear as a vehicle for your thoughts, 
 but make him read with his eyes the words from your lips. 
 Thus, when we became deaf to God, He has employed a dif- 
 ferent means by which to make Himself knowable to us ; and 
 in so far as with a deaf person the hearing of sound and the 
 reading of lips might be called a different "principium of 
 knowledge," there is here also the mention of such different 
 principles, but only in so far. There has gone out an act from 
 God to reveal Himself to the sinner, however deaf this one 
 
380 §71. IS THE NATUBAL FRmCIPlVU ABLE [Div. Ill 
 
 had become ; for this God has availed Himself of the means 
 that were present in the creation, but which were now applied 
 in a different way ; and it is by this abnormal act of God, 
 brought about by the modified application of present means, 
 that special revelation was established ; and in this, i.e. 
 in this abnormal act of God, brought about by means applied 
 in a different way, lies the special principium for the knowl- 
 edge of God as All-Merciful to sinners. When croup pre- 
 vents the breathing in of air, the heroic operation in the 
 throat is sometimes undertaken, in order in this way to 
 obtain a new opening for the supply of fresh air; but 
 they are still the same lungs for which the air is intended, 
 and it is the same atmosphere from which the air is drawn ; 
 only another entrance has been unlocked temporarily, and in 
 so far a different principium of respiration has been estab- 
 lished. In this sense it can be said, that the normal en- 
 trance, which in creation God had unlocked for Hunself to 
 our heart, had become inaccessible by sin, and that for this 
 reason, by an act of heroic grace, God has temporarily opened 
 for Himself another entrance to our heart, to reveal Himself 
 as the same God to the same creature, only now with the aid 
 of a different principium of revelation. 
 
 In God, who is and always will be Himself the principium 
 of all being (essentia) and all knowing (cognitio), nothing 
 else is conceivable than the unity of principium. But when 
 from His eternal being our becoming is born, there is majesty 
 in this eternal being to maintain His divine identity over 
 against every abnormal process in our becoming; and this 
 takes place by the appearance of the special principium, 
 which actually is nothing else but the maintenance of God's 
 holiness over against our sin, of God's truth over against 
 our falsehood, and of God's counsel over against the demo- 
 niacal design of Satan. 
 
 § 71. Js the Natural Principium able to summon the Special 
 Principium before its Tribunal? 
 
 Having freed ourselves, in the preceding section, of all 
 dualism, which is so often inserted between the two principia 
 
Chap. 11] TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM? 381 
 
 of Divine knowledge, we now face the no less important 
 question, whether the natural principium, either formally or 
 materially, is to sit in judgment upon the special principium. 
 This is the frequent claim. They who oppose us, and do 
 not recognize another principium alongside of the natural 
 data, continually demand, that we demonstrate the reality 
 and the reliability of the special principium at the bar of 
 human reason. And to a certain extent this demand is fair, 
 at least over against Methodism, and, in fact, over against 
 every dualistic tendency, which, in the sense we disapprove, 
 places special revelation as a new unit alongside of the 
 natural principium, as though the latter were under sen- 
 tence of death, and the special principium could furnish the 
 guarantee of eternal permanency. Over against every rep- 
 resentation of this character our conviction remains dominant 
 that our life, as originally given in the Creation, is the sub- 
 stratum of our real existence ; that as such it is and remains 
 for us the real ; and that, therefore, whatever special revela- 
 tion may supply, must be taken up into this and, for us 
 personally, can only thus obtain its reality. From this, 
 however, it does not follow that the natural principium 
 should be qualified to judge the special revelation. If 
 special revelation assumes that in consequence of sin the 
 normal activity of the natural principium is disturbed, this 
 implies of itself that the natural principium has lost its 
 competency to judge. He who considers it possessed of 
 this competency declares thereby eo ipso that it is still 
 normal, and thus removes all sufficient reason for a special 
 revelation. You must either deny it the right of judgment, 
 or, if you grant it this right, the object disappears upon 
 which judgment shall be passed. The psychiater, who treats 
 the maniac, cannot render his method of treatment dependent 
 upon the judgment of his patient. Equally little can you 
 attribute this right of judgment over the special principium 
 to the natural principium, if you consider the character of a 
 principium. As soon as you grant that special revelation 
 falls under the judgment of your natural principium, it is 
 hereby denied eo ipso that it has proceeded from a prin- 
 
382 §71. IS THE iV:.irC/i;ji PRINCIPIUM ABLE [DiT.m 
 
 cipium of its own. No other judgment except death un- 
 qualified ("la mort sans phrase") is here possible for the 
 special principium, simply because a judgment, derived from 
 the natural principium deeming itself normal, cannot posit 
 a second principium. A principium in its own sphere is 
 exclusive. In order to subject the principium of theology 
 to the judgment of another principium, you must first con- 
 fess that it is no real principium. For a thing is either no 
 principium, or it must be autonomous and sufficient unto 
 itself. 
 
 This is of the more force, in this instance, insomuch as 
 the natural principium, taking its stand in judgment over 
 against us, presents itself as unimpaired, and pretends to be 
 normal. If it recognized the reality of another principium, 
 it would at the same time imply the confession, that it itself 
 has become disabled, and is consequently in need of the cor- 
 rective or of the supplement of another principium. Hence 
 this question also has a moral side. If self-knowledge, quick- 
 ened by the inshining of a higher light, leads to the recog- 
 nition that the natural principium has become imperfect, 
 then it is most natural (1) to grant the necessity of a 
 corrective principium, and at the same time (2) to recog- 
 nize that our darkened natural principium is incompetent 
 to pass judgment. If, on the other hand, I stand in the 
 high-spirited conviction that the natural principium is in 
 good order, that nothing is wanting in it, and that conse- 
 quently it has the right of supremacy, then it follows that 
 every corrective must seem insulting, upon all of which alike 
 I must pass the sentence of death, and that I cannot rest 
 until each corrective lies executed under the dissectiug knife 
 of criticism. The outcome, indeed, has shown that this 
 standpoint has never been taken and maintained with any 
 degree of consistency, without the whole of special revelation 
 being always and inexorably declared to be the product of 
 delusion or of self-deception. Grace has been granted only 
 to those component parts of this revelation which allowed 
 themselves to be brought over to the natural principium. 
 Every effort to defend the good right of your position is 
 
Chap. II] TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM? 383 
 
 therefore entirely vain, over against a man of thought, who 
 holds the natural principium to be unimpaired, and who has 
 not himself come under the overwhelming power of the special 
 principium. Being as he is, he can do nothing else than dis- 
 pute your special revelation every right of existence ; to move 
 him to a different judgment you should not reason with him, 
 but change him in his consciousness ; and since this is the 
 fruit of regeneration, it does not lie with you, but with God. 
 
 From this, again, it does not follow that you may now 
 accept everything that comes into your mind, and that thus 
 you may be unreasonable with yourself. Reformed Theology 
 has always antagonized this caprice, and in imitation of the 
 Our Deus homo? of Anselm it has, with reference also to 
 special revelation, first of all instituted an investigation into 
 the neeessitas Sacrae Scripturae. He who, thanks to the in- 
 shining of higher light, has perceived the darkening of the 
 natural principium, and has given himself captive to the 
 special principium, cannot on this account abandon his rea- 
 son, but is bound to try to understand these two facts in 
 their mutual relation and in relation to the reality in which 
 he finds himself. This is both demanded and rendered 
 possible by what we found in the last section concerning the 
 relation of the special principium to our creaturely capaci- 
 ties ; even in the sense, that one is able to see for himself 
 the reasonableness of his conviction and confession ; is able 
 to prove this to those who start out from similar premises ; 
 and can place them before the opponent in such a light that, 
 with the assumption of our premises, he can accept our con- 
 clusions. 
 
 The argument may even then be continued concerning 
 those premises themselves, more particularly with reference 
 to the question, whether our reason is in a condition of 
 soundness or of darkening ; but suppose that the unsound- 
 ness or abnormality of our reason be granted on both sides, 
 this would by no means compel the opponent to accept the 
 special principium which we defend. From the coincidence 
 of the facts, that one of your children is lost and that I have 
 found a lost child, it does not in the least follow, that the 
 
384 §71. IS THE NATURAL PRINCIPIUM ABLE [Diy. Ill 
 
 child I have found is your child. Even though it were 
 frankly granted that something is lacking in our reason, 
 that our reason by itself is insufficient, — yes, that it calls 
 for a complement, — the conclusion can never be logically 
 drawn from this that the Sacra Scriptura, or, better still, the 
 special principium lying back of this, either is or offers this 
 complement. Even though you compel the opponent to 
 recognize, that your special principium fits into the imper- 
 fection of your natural principium as a piece of china into a 
 broken dish, this would not prove the reality of this natural 
 principium. For it could still be answered, that the defect 
 would surely be supplemented, if indeed a revelation, such 
 as you pretend, were at our disposal ; but that this is the 
 very thing in which you are mistaken ; that your special 
 principium, with its supposed fruit in the Sacra Scriptura, 
 is nothing but the shadow cast upon the wall by the existing 
 defect ; is the product of your own imagination ; the minus 
 balance of your account changed into plus. In a word, there 
 would always be defence ready against the proof that this 
 special principium is real, and this proof is not possible of 
 any principium. Could this be furnished, it would eo ipso 
 cease to be a principium. 
 
 But this will not be reached. For though you succeed 
 in showing that your reason founders upon antinomies, 
 that it finds itself shut up within limits which cannot be 
 made to agree with the impulse after knowledge that works 
 in it, and that it leaves the higher aspirations of our nature 
 unsatisfied, this has no compelling force with him who has 
 an interest in not accepting your special principium. For he 
 can make good his escape by the way of agnosticism, which 
 accepts the incomplete character of our knowledge as an 
 iron necessity ; or make the side-leap to the pantheistic 
 process, which calculates that from the incomplete the com- 
 plete of itself will gradually come forth. Moreover, though 
 he evade you in this manner, you may not question the 
 honesty of your opponent. From your own point of view 
 you acknowledge that he who stands outside of spiritual 
 illumination does not perceive, and cannot perceive, the real 
 
Chap. II] TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM ? 385 
 
 condition of his own being, nor of his reason. In a religious- 
 ethical sense you may indeed say, that the impulse of his 
 opposition is enmity against God ; but this does not make 
 him dishonest as a man of science, within the domain of 
 logic. He takes his premises, as they actually present them- 
 selves to him, and so far acknowledges with you, that in the 
 natural principium there is something that does not satisfy 
 us ; but he disputes that, for the present at least, it needs to 
 satisfy us, and more still, that the satisfaction, of which you 
 boast, is anything more than appearance. 
 
 Hence the dispute can advance no farther than the acknowl- 
 edgment of antinomies in our consciousness and the insuf- 
 ficiency of our reason to satisfy entirely our thirst after 
 knowledge. But where the recognition of this leads you 
 to the conclusion of the necessity of the Sacred Scripture, 
 the rationalist either stops with the recognition of this 
 disharmony, or glides over into other theories, which allow 
 him to limit himself to the natural principium. And 
 rather than call in the aid of another principium with you, 
 he will cast himself into the arms of materialism, which 
 releases him at once from the search after an infinite world, 
 which then does not exist. All the trouble, therefore, that 
 men have given themselves to make advance, by logical 
 argument, from the acknowledgment of the insufficiency of 
 our reason as a starting-point, has been a vain expenditure 
 of strength. The so-called Doctrine of Principles (Princi- 
 pienlehre) may have served to strengthen in his conviction 
 one who has confessed the special principium ; and to shield 
 prevailing tradition from passing too rapidly into oblivion ; 
 it has never provided force of proof against the opponent. 
 He who is not born of water and the Spirit, cannot see the 
 kingdom of God, and the human mind is sufficiently invent- 
 ive so to modify its tactics, whenever you imagine that you 
 have gained your point, that your proof is bound to lose its 
 force. It is a little different, of course, when you touch the 
 strings of the emotions, or appeal to the "seed of religion" ; 
 but then you enter upon another domain, and cease to draw 
 conclusions from logical premises. 
 
386 § 71. IS THE NATUBAL PEmCIPIUM ABLE [Div. Ill 
 
 The same is true in part of the apologetic attempt to re- 
 fute objections raised against the content of our Christian con- 
 fession, and more particularly against the Holy Scripture as 
 the principium of theology. Polemics will never be able to 
 attain satisfactory results with reference to these points, 
 simply because the spheres of conceptions and convictions, 
 from which the argument proceeds on the two sides, are too 
 widely apart : the result of which is that scarcely a single 
 concrete point can be broached, which does not involve the 
 whole subject of anthropology and the entire " Erkenntniss- 
 theorie." In order, therefore, to make any gain, the general 
 data that present themselves with such a concrete point should 
 first be settled, one by one, before the real point in question 
 can be handled. This makes every debate of that sort 
 constrained. Scarcely has a single step been ventured in 
 the way of such a controversy before it is felt on both 
 sides that the acknowledgment of a different opinion on 
 this one point would unsettle one's entire life- and world- 
 view. If the naturalist grants the break of the chain of 
 natural causes in one point, by acknowledging that a psychic 
 or physical miracle has taken place, his entire system is over- 
 thrown ; and, in like manner, if the Christian theologian 
 acknowledges in one cardinal point the assertions of his- 
 torical criticism with reference to the Holy Scripture, he 
 thereby loses his grasp upon the whole principium by which 
 his theology lives. By this we do not assert that, with 
 reference to the Holy Scripture, there are not many re- 
 marks that have been made on logical incongruities, either 
 in the economy of the Scripture itself, or between it and 
 cosmic and historic reality outside of it, which, unless our 
 confession is to lose its reasonable character, claim an answer 
 from our side ; but though these remarks might compel us 
 to make confession in our turn of a partial agnosticism, or 
 to subject the dogma of inspiration to revision, to us the 
 special principium will never lose thereby its characteristic 
 supremacy ; just as on the other hand the most triumphant 
 solution of the objections raised against it never could, and 
 never can move him, who does not confess this principium, to 
 
CHAP.n] TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM? 387 
 
 accept it. The acceptance of this principium in the end 
 cannot rest upon anything save the witness of the Holy 
 Spirit, even as the acceptance of the natural principium has 
 never rested upon anything save the witness of our spirit, 
 i.e. of our self -consciousness. If this testimonium of our 
 self-consciousness fails us, then we become sceptics or insane ; 
 and, in like manner, if the witness of the Holy Spirit is not 
 present in us, or is at least inactive in us, we cannot reckon 
 with a special principium. 
 
 The effort, therefore, put forth by theology in the days 
 of the Reformation to derive from the Scripture itself proofs 
 for its divine character, is devoid of all force with the 
 opponent. Not because of the objection, that you reason 
 in a circle, by seeking from the Scripture itself what the 
 Scripture is. Our earlier theologians answered this cor- 
 rectly by saying, that this argument was not meant authori- 
 tative, but ratiocinative ; that the glitter of the sapphire 
 could only be proven by the sapphire ; and that in like 
 manner the divine majesty of the Holy Scripture could only 
 shine out from that Scripture. But however accurate this 
 statement was, what avail is it, if you show the most beauti- 
 ful sapphire to one blind, or to one of " that worst kind of 
 blind people who refuse to see " ? One needs, therefore, 
 but examine the series of these proofs for a moment, and it 
 is at once perceived how utterly devoid of force they are 
 over against him who merely accepts the natural principium. 
 The miracles and the fulfilment of prophecy, indeed, have 
 been pointed to, as if these had some power of proof for him 
 who denies the very possibility of miracle and emasculates 
 all concretely fulfilled prophecy as being "prophecy after 
 the event" (vaticinium ex eventu). The divine character 
 of the Doctrina Scripturae was cited, as though criticism had 
 not already then been exercised against it, and, as it was 
 claimed, its insufficiency been shown. The majestic style 
 of the Scriptures was referred to, the consensus of its books, 
 the effectiveness of its entire content, as though even then 
 the arms were not already being welded by which each of 
 these attributes of the Scripture would be disputed, or 
 
388 §71. IS THE NATUBAZ PRINCIPIUM ABLE [Div. m 
 
 attributed to it only in common with other writings. And 
 when outside of the Scripture the blood of the martyrs was 
 mentioned, the consensus of the Church, and the "natural 
 and human character (conditio) of the writers themselves," 
 arguments were produced which were so easily applied to 
 other sacred books that all their force evaporated. What- 
 ever may be the worth of these arguments for those who are 
 within the walls (intra muros) to combat doubt, outside of 
 these walls (ad extra) they are of no value. Our acutest 
 dialectici, such as Maccovius for instance, have clearly seen 
 this in their day. His reference to Hagar in the wilderness 
 shows this. " Hagar," he writes, " at first did not see the 
 well near by ; but after her eyes were opened, then at last 
 she saw the well " (antea non vidit puteum in proximo ; 
 sed postquam oculi ipsi adaperti sunt, turn demum vidit 
 puteum) (Joh. Maccov. II., Theologia. quaestionum, p. 4 in 
 Mace, redivivus, Franeq, 1654), — an analogy by which he 
 tries to show, that the marks of its divine origin are truly in 
 the Scripture ; but that no one can see them as long as the 
 veil still hangs before his eyes. This is only taken away by 
 the " enlightening " " by which the Holy Spirit discovers to 
 us those inner relations of the Scripture, which had hitherto 
 been concealed " (quo ostendit Spiritus Sanctus eas rationes 
 Scrip turae insitas, quae antea ei occultae erant) (JIhidem). 
 
 Hence our conclusion can be no other, than that whosoever 
 confesses the Holy Scripture to be the principium of theology, 
 both for himself and his fellow-confessors must certainly be 
 able to give an account of the way in which this auxiliary 
 principium is related to the permanent natural principium, 
 in order that his confession may remain rational ; but that 
 this ratiocination can neither for himself be the ground on 
 which his confession stands, nor ever compel the opponent 
 to come to this confession. The witness of the Holy Spirit 
 is and ever will be the only power which can carry into 
 our consciousness the certainty concerning the special prin- 
 cipium. Moreover, in the footsteps of our old theologians, 
 it must be observed that it is also the witness of God as 
 Creator (Testimonium Dei Creatoris) that can alone give us 
 
Chap. II] TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM ? 389 
 
 certainty for the natural principium. When God refrains 
 from giving this certainty to our self-consciousness, we 
 lapse into insanity, generally after the course has been run 
 of the several stadii of scepticism. It is indeed true, that 
 with respect to this natural principium, as a rule, we make 
 no mention of the " witness of God as Creator," but this is 
 explained from the fact, that it coincides with our self -con- 
 sciousness, and that further account of the origin of this 
 self-consciousness is rarely taken. It is simply the first truth 
 from which departure is made. The special principium, on 
 the other hand, enters into this self-consciousness as a sense 
 of a different kind, and is thereby of itself reduced to its 
 deeper origin in God. But however strongly this may 
 appear with men of higher development, who, after they 
 have lived for a long time by the natural principium only, 
 now perceive the light in their consciousness from that other 
 source as well, this is much less the case, and sometimes not 
 at all, with common believers, who, regenerated in their 
 youth, have never experienced this transition in their con- 
 sciousness. In the case of such, immediate faith has been 
 given equally naturally and as fully with their self-con- 
 sciousness, as immediate knowledge for the natural principium 
 is given with the awakening of our natural self-consciousness. 
 For man as creature there can never be any other principium 
 of knowledge but his Creator, naturaliter, as well as by the 
 way of grace. What the Psalmist declares, only "in thy 
 Ught shall we see light," remains the absolute ground of 
 explanation for all human knowledge. 
 
 § 72. Universality of this Principium 
 
 One who, himself of a sound mind, should have to live on 
 some isolated island among insane people, would run a great 
 risk of becoming himself insane ; and in such a condition a 
 very strong mind only could maintain the reality of its con- 
 sciousness. Just because we do not exist atomically, but 
 are bound together with others organically, also in our 
 consciousness, in order to remain firm our own sense cannot 
 afford to lose the support of a similar sense in others. The 
 
390 § 72. UNIVEESALITY OF THIS PRINCIPIUM [Dit. m 
 
 same applies to the special principium. With this also, as a 
 rule, the communion in our own consciousness can be strong 
 and permanent only when this communion finds a support 
 in the similar conviction of others. This rule, however, 
 does not always hold. As one sane person, because of a 
 strong mind, might be able in entire isolation to maintain 
 his self -consciousness, it is possible for one person to experi- 
 ence the inworking of the special principium, and live by it, 
 even though in his entire surroundings there should operate 
 nothing but the natural principium. At first, indeed, this had 
 to be so, in order that the working of this special principium 
 might become manifest. It could not begin its work except 
 in single persons. As a rule those individuals were men of 
 strong minds, and to support their isolated faith the Lord 
 gave them signs, mostly in the material world, which kept 
 them from falling away from the power which had taken 
 hold of them. Heroism of spirit is here called into play. 
 When Christ, forsaken of all, even of His disciples, battled 
 alone in Gethsemane, this struggle in loneliness became so 
 fearful, that angels came to break His isolation, in order to 
 support Him. So long, then, as revelation is still in process 
 of completion, we see again and again the manifestation of 
 extraordinary powers, by which the maintenance of faith is 
 rendered possible, and these signs only disappear when Reve- 
 lation has reached its completion, and the special principium 
 finds a circle, in which faith can assume such a communal 
 character, that the conviction of one supports that of the 
 other. 
 
 If thus, like the natural principium, the working of the 
 special principium requires a broad circle in which to exert 
 itself organically, this circle becomes still more indispensable 
 when a scientific account is given of what this special prin- 
 cipium is and offers. Science demands universality. Not 
 in the sense, of course, that nothing is established scientifi- 
 cally in the natural world until every individual has agreed 
 to it, but in the sense that all men of sound understanding 
 can readily be brought to perceive the truth of it. The 
 same applies to the special principium. The law of univer- 
 
Chap. II] §72. UIJIVEESALITY OF THIS PRINCIPIUM 391 
 
 sality must prevail here also, and must always be well 
 understood by those who live by this principium. These 
 only are taken into account, just as in natural science we 
 reckon with those alone who are men of sound sense, i.e. 
 who live by the natural principium. All these, then, must 
 be able, if they follow your demonstration, to perceive the 
 correctness of it. This accounts for the fact that in later 
 ages only the question arose of a science of theology. Be- 
 fore that time there was theology as knowledge of God ; 
 even measurably in a dogmatic sense; but as yet no theologi- 
 cal science. This could only originate when the Revelation 
 was completed, and liberated from the restrictions peculiar 
 to Israel. Then there arose that universal circle among all 
 nations, that circle of confessors in their general human 
 character, who live by this special principium. 
 
 This communal character, which, along with every other 
 principium, is common to the special principium, received 
 no sufficient recognition in the conflict of the Reformation. 
 From our side, the line of personal faith was ever drawn too 
 tightly -, while Rome, from her side, substituted the institu- 
 tional Church too largely for the organic communion. Each 
 of the two parties defended thereby an element of truth, but 
 it was done by both in an insufficient and one-sided manner. 
 Very properly did our Reformers maintain the personal char- 
 acter of faith, which does not reach its full unfolding, until 
 it places our inner life in direct communion with the Eternal 
 Being ; but they lost sight of the fact that this is the fullest 
 development of the faith, not its beginning, and that in its 
 maturity it cannot flourish as it should, except tn the 
 communion of saints. Rome, on the other hand, defended 
 very rightly the common feature, which marks faith, but 
 committed a double mistake, — first, that it did not allow 
 the personal character of faith to assert itself, and made it 
 amount to nothing more than communion with God through 
 the intermediation of the Church, and secondly, that it sub- 
 stituted the ecclesiastical institution for organic communion. 
 This might, perhaps, have been more clearly seen if in their 
 dogmatic exposition our Reformers had added, at once, 
 
392 § 72. UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PKINCIPIUM [Dir. HI 
 
 to their distinction between the Church as a visible body 
 and at the same time invisible, the more careful distinction 
 between the visible Church as composed of believers (eccle- 
 sia visibilis in fidelibus) and the visible church as an insti- 
 tution (ecclesia visibilis in instituto). They did this, indeed, 
 in their ecclesiastical law ; observing thereby that the Church 
 of Christ may be visible in a city or village, because of the 
 believers who live there, even while no Church organization 
 is established by these believers, and that the ecclesia instituta 
 only originates by this organization. But in their dogmatics 
 they referred almost exclusively to the general antithesis 
 between visible and invisible, and thereby could not fail to 
 convey the impression, that by visible Church they merely 
 understood the Church as an institution. Since Rome out- 
 did this, and wholly identified the visible Church with the 
 Church as an institution, the problem could not be solved ; 
 since the Church as an institution was certainly subjected to 
 the rule of the Word of God ; and therefore our Reformers 
 observed correctly, that the institute must borrow its guar- 
 antee from the Scripture, and not the Scripture its proof 
 from the institute. Transfer this difference to the hfe of 
 the world, and it will at once be understood. In society at 
 large the natural principium is in force and the institute is 
 the government, which, to be sure, is in the community, but 
 is ever sharply distinguished from it. Can the assertion now 
 be made that the truth of this natural principium is to be 
 determined by the State? Of course not; simply because 
 the State, so far as it is constituted by man, is an outcome 
 of the natural principium. Undoubtedly, therefore, this 
 natural principium can support the State, but not lean upon 
 the State. On the other hand, by general conceptions, and 
 public opinion derived from these, this natural principium 
 finds its point of support in human society. And this is the 
 case here. The Church is to the special principium what the 
 State is to the natural principium. The Church as an insti- 
 tute, founded by man, is built after the rule of the special 
 principium, as this speaks to us from the Holy Scripture. 
 Hence the churchly institute can borrow support from the 
 
Chap. II] § 72. UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PEINCIMUM 393 
 
 special principium, but not the special principium from the 
 churohly institute. But what is true on the other hand — 
 and this is the position which we defend — is, that faith in 
 this special principium is supported and maintained by the 
 churchly community, i.e. by the won-instituted but organi- 
 cally present communion mutual among believers. 
 
 It is unhistorical, therefore, to imagine that every person, 
 taking the Bible in hand from his own impulse, should for- 
 mulate the truth from it for himself. This is simply absurd, 
 for actual experience shows that one either grows up in, or 
 in later life enters, a circle in which confessions of the truth 
 already exist ; and that, in vital communion with this circle, 
 clearness is reached in his consciousness of what was poten- 
 tially given in regeneration, but which only from this com- 
 munion can draw the life-sap needed for its development. 
 As one tree of the forest protects another against the vio- 
 lence of the storm, so in the communion of saints does one 
 protect the other against the storm-wind of doubt. 
 
 This fellowship of believers, carefully distinguished from 
 instituted Churches, exhibits its universal human character 
 in the fact that it continues its life in successive generations 
 and extends itself to all peoples and nations. So far as the 
 first is concerned, it has a history back of it which extends 
 across many centuries, and by its confession it ever preserves 
 communion with the past. Not merely in the sense in which 
 a nation holds its ancestors in sacred memory, for in national 
 life the dead are gone. He who dies loses his nationality, 
 and belongs no more to his people. This fellowship of be- 
 lievers, on the other hand, knows that its departed ancestors 
 still live and always stand in organic connection with it. 
 Moreover, while a people changes its public opinion from 
 age to age, in this ecclesiastical fellowship the same world of 
 thought remains constant for all time. Hence the tie to the 
 special principium is not maintained by those alone who are 
 now alive with us and subscribe to the same confession as 
 ourselves, but much more by those millions upon millions 
 who now rejoice before the throne. And so far as the second 
 is concerned, the outcome shows that the Christian religion, 
 
39J: § 72. UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRIXCIPIUM [Div. HI 
 
 originating in Asia, passed over from the Semitic to the 
 Indo-Germanic race, presently conquered the Northern Coast 
 of Africa and the entire south of Europe, and never allowed 
 itself to be nationalized. Christ had humanized his confes- 
 sion, by breaking down every partition wall (^fieaoToi'xpv); 
 and this universal human character stands in immediate con- 
 nection with the possession of a special principium of knowl- 
 edge. That which is national may give tradition, but cannot 
 provide a special principium for our consciousness. It is 
 seen, therefore, that every effort, applied outside of this 
 principium, has merely led to national forms of religion ; 
 and even Buddhism — which, by the chameleon character 
 of its pantheism, lent itself to stealthy invasions among 
 many nations — remains in principle, nevertheless, an Indian 
 world of thought. Islam alone — and this is worthy of 
 notice — still exhibits, to a certain extent, an oecumeuic char- 
 acter, which is attributable to the fact that Mohammedanism 
 is grafted upon the special principium, such as it flourished, 
 thunks to the Scripture, in the Christian life-circle. Even 
 thus Islam has never taken root in the finer branches of the 
 human tree. Islam is and remains Arabic, and outside of 
 Arabia has gained an entrance only among those aations, 
 which either have taken no part in the general human de- 
 velopment, or have stood at a much lower level. Even the 
 accession of Persia to Islam is attended with the disappear- 
 ance of this nation, once so great, from the world stage. 
 
 If thus we leave out of account for a moment the working 
 of this special principium before Golgotha, we face the fact 
 that for almost twenty centuries a separate human life has 
 developed itself in our human race; principally in the nobler 
 branches of the human tree and among the more finely organ- 
 ized nations; and that the development of this separate life 
 has not taken place with isolated nations such as China and 
 India, but even now in five parts of the world, and chiefly 
 in that current of our human life which has carried the 
 hegemony, and caused the development of our human race 
 to ascend to its present heights. We see that this separate 
 life has been characterized everywhere by the action, in 
 
Chap. II] § 72. UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRINCIPIUM 895 
 
 addition to that of the natural principium, of another princip- 
 ium of knowledge, and that wherever the Christian religion 
 has withdrawn, as in West- Asia and North- Africa, all human 
 life has sunk back again to a much lower level. We see 
 that in this broad life-circle, which has extended itself across 
 many ages and among many people, there has arisen a special 
 world of thought ; modified universal conceptions have begun 
 to prevail ; and in this genuinely human circle the human 
 consciousness has assumed an entirely peculiar form. In this 
 way have originated that universal life and that universal 
 thought, which have certainly clashed with the other circle, 
 that rejected the special principium, but which have pos- 
 sessed, nevertheless, entirely sufficient consistency to invite 
 and to render possible scientific construction upon the foun- 
 dation of that principle which, in this circle, is universal. 
 It will not do, therefore, to represent this special principium 
 as an idiosyncrasy of a few enthusiasts. The melancholy 
 decline of all mystic fanaticism shows what the profound 
 difference is between the parasite, that springs from fanatic 
 imagination, and the cedar, that has struck its roots in the 
 fertile soil of this real principle. This special principium 
 is as universally human as the natural principium, with this 
 difference only, that it is not given to each individual, but 
 is organically grafted upon the tree of humanity. The life- 
 circle, indeed, which finds its centrum in Christ as the bearer 
 of the new life-principle, is not a branch of our race that 
 is set apart ; but this body of Christ is the real trunk of our 
 human race, and what is not incorporated into this body, falls 
 away from that trunk as a useless branch. He is, and re- 
 mains, the second Adam. 
 
 Moreover, the peoples and nations that have stood or still 
 stand outside of this life-circle, involuntarily bear witness 
 to the insufficiency of the natural principium in its present 
 working. When in Deut. xviii. inspiration is announced 
 by God as the peculiar working of the special principium. 
 He says: " I will raise them up a prophet from among their 
 brethren, like unto thee ; and I will put my words in his 
 mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall com- 
 
396 § 72. UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRINCIPIUM [Div. Ill 
 
 mand him." An important thought, however, precedes the 
 announcement of this rich inspiration, which in all its full- 
 ness is given in Christ as "Prophet." In the tenth verse, 
 reference is made to divination and necromancy, which were 
 common among the nations, and toward which Israel be- 
 trayed strong tendencies ; and now they are told that the 
 satisfaction of the need which spoke in this desire was not 
 to be sought in the way of this enchantment, but that God 
 alone is able to grant them the aspirations of their hearts. 
 This impulse after necromancy, taken in its deepest signifi- 
 cance, can be no other than the desire to find, in addition to 
 the natural principium, another principium of knowledge for 
 all those profound questions of life upon which the natural 
 principium can cast no light. From this it appears, that the 
 insufficiency of the natural principium declares itself in the 
 universal human sense, so long as this still expresses itself in 
 an unconstrained and natural way. The appearance, there- 
 fore, of another principium of knowledge in the Christian 
 religion does not enter the present state of things as some- 
 thing foreign, but fits on it as a new spire upon a steeple, the 
 former spire of which has fallen into ruin. We grant that 
 afterwards, in philosophy, the natural principium has tried to 
 show the superfluousness of such an auxiliary-principium. 
 However, we must not fail to observe that these efforts of 
 the philosophic spirit, so long as they were religiously colored, 
 never occasioned in the religious world anything but endless 
 confusion of speech; that they have never resulted in the 
 founding of a religious life-circle of universal significance; 
 and that these systems, drawn from the natural principium, 
 have more and more abandoned eternal concerns in order in 
 materialism to deny their existence, or in agnosticism to 
 postulate the special principium. It is noteworthy, there- 
 fore, that since the apostasy, which began in the latter part 
 of the last century, a broad life-circle has been formed in 
 Europe and America, which has abandoned the special prin- 
 cipium, in order, in Spiritualism, to revive the ancient effort 
 after necromancy. This Spiritualism now counts its fol- 
 lowers by the millions, and its main desire is to obtain an 
 
Chap. II] § 73. THIS PRINCIPIUM AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 397 
 
 answer to the questions ■which force themselves upon our 
 human mind, in anotlier way than that which comes from 
 the natural principium. While in other circles, where this 
 Spiritualism has gained no entrance, the effort is certainly- 
 manifest, to obtain knowledge from the mysticism of the 
 emotions, of what " common sense " has left uncertain. 
 Every philosophical tendency, which, for the sake of defend- 
 ing itself against intellectualism, seeks another source of 
 knowledge, pleads at heart for the necessity of a special 
 principium. Pure intellectualists alone maintain to this 
 day the sufficiency of the principium of rational knowledge; 
 and this is even in opposition to Kant, who, in his "prac- 
 tische Vernunft," placed a second something dualistically 
 over against the "reine Vernunft." But the barrenness of 
 such intellectualism is sufficiently evident. 
 
 We refuse, therefore, to allow the charge, that the special 
 principium, as an invention of fanaticism, floats like a drop 
 of oil upon the waters of our human life, and we maintain, 
 on the contrary, that the need of such an auxiliary principium 
 is universally human; that in its organic working this prin- 
 cipium bears an universally human character ; and that in the 
 final result towards which it directs itself, it has an universally 
 human significance. 
 
 § 73. This Principium and the Holy Scripture 
 That the sphere of the special principium is wider than 
 the compass of the Holy Scripture, needs no separate dem- 
 onstration. Even though you firmly maintain that here you 
 deal with a principium of knowing, it is here as impossible 
 as elsewhere to ignore the principium of being (essendi). 
 It is for this reason that in special revelation also fact and 
 word run parallel and stand in connection with each other. 
 There is not simply an inspiration that kindles light in our 
 consciousness, but there is also a manifestation in miracles 
 which operates upon the reality of being ; and both flow 
 naturally from that same principium in God^ by which He 
 works re-creatively in His deranged creation. The repre- 
 sentation as though a way of life could have been disclosed 
 
398 § 73. THIS PRINCIPIUM [Div. HI 
 
 for US by a book descended from heaven or by a Bible 
 dictated from heaven, rests upon an intellectualistic abstrac- 
 tion, wliich interprets altogether incorrectly the relation 
 between being and thought, between fact and word. If it is 
 entirely true, that God created by speaking, so that the 
 creatural being originated by the word, it must not be for- 
 gotten that this word went out from Him who carries the 
 TO esse in Himself. In the creation therefore there is no 
 question of an abstract word, but of a word that carries in 
 itself the full reality of life ; and that the Scripture-word 
 does not meet this requirement, appears from the fact, that 
 without concomitants it is inert, even as the most ghttering 
 diamond without inshining light and admiring eyes differs 
 in no particular from a dull piece of carbon. Protest there- 
 fore has ever been entered from the side of the Reformed 
 against Luther's effort to place Word and Sacrament on a 
 line, as though an active power lay concealed in the Script- 
 ure as such. Even though Luther's representation of an 
 " eingepredigter " Christ allows defence to a certain extent, 
 the Bible, as book, may never be accredited with a kind of 
 sacramental power. By itself the Bible is nothing but a 
 carrier and vehicle, or, if you please, the instrument pre- 
 pared by God, by which to attain His spiritual purpose, but 
 always through the ever-present working of the Holy Spirit. 
 If thus we take the sphere of action which belongs to 
 this special principium in its entire compass, we find that it 
 embraces everything that has taken place from the side of 
 God, either immediately or mediately, and that has not pro- 
 ceeded from the natural principium, i.e. the whole plan of 
 redemption ; everything that has tended to realize this plan ; 
 all the special leadings, signs, and wonders ; and in this 
 connection the entire inspiration and the formation of the 
 Scripture ; and also all palingenesis, all illumination, all 
 revelation of the Church of Christ ; while from this same 
 principium there shall yet come forth the palingenesis of 
 heaven and earth, until the kingdom of glory is begun. 
 The Bible, therefore, instead of being identical with this 
 principium so far as its activity is concerned, is itself a 
 
Chap, n] AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURE 399 
 
 product of this activity. Neither can it be said, that the 
 Bible at least is identical with the fruit of the principium 
 of knowledge, as such, for this also invites two objections : 
 First, that many histories are contained in the Bible, so that 
 it resembles in nothing a text- or law-book ; and secondly, 
 that this principium of knowing (cognoscendi) has produced 
 by no means the Scripture only, but from it proceeds even 
 now the working of the Holy Ghost, which maintains, applies 
 and vitalizes the knowledge of God, partly by illumination 
 in the consciousness of individuals, and partly by the work 
 of the sacred ministry. 
 
 To understand the just relation between this special prin- 
 cipium in God and the Holy Scripture, a more accurate 
 definition is demanded, and this is only obtained by a double 
 distinction. First, by the distinction between that which 
 concerns our race as an organic unit and the knowledge of 
 God in the single individual ; and secondly, by the distinc- 
 tion between the content of the material of our knowledge 
 and the way in which our knowledge takes this material up 
 into itself. Both these distinctions demand a brief explana- 
 tion. The Romish dogmaticians very properly observed, that 
 the Holy Scripture could not be the instrument of salvation 
 in the absolute sense, for the reason that many centuries 
 elapsed before it was completed, and that there were never- 
 theless not a few who in the meantime, and without Script- 
 ure, were saved. This admits no rejoinder. It is simply 
 true. But this objection loses its force at once, when we 
 consider the great mystery. In Rom. xvi. 26 ; in Ephes. 
 i. 9, iii. 9 ; Col. i. 26 ; 1 Tim. iii. 9 ; Tit. i. 2 ; and 1 Pet. 
 i. 20, this mystery is referred to again and again as the 
 key which unlocks for us insight into the course of reve- 
 lation. This involves no secondary point, but a main point, 
 and this main point, as we read in Col. i. 26, amounts 
 to this : that there is the " mystery which hath been hid 
 from all ages and generations," which eighteen centuries 
 ago has been revealed to the saints of God, " to whom God 
 was pleased to make known what is the riches of the 
 glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ 
 
400 § 73. THIS PRINCIPIUM [Div. Ill 
 
 in you, the hope of glor^^" By this falls away every con- 
 ception as thovxgh revelation after the fall had progressed 
 aphoristically or atomistically ; and we get the conception, 
 of a revelation which goes through its definite stages, and 
 thus moves along towards its final goal ; which goal has 
 been reached only when the whole earth unlocks itself for 
 the reception of this revelation, and this directs itself, not 
 to single persons, nor yet to a single nation, but to our 
 human race as a whole. If thus lesser or greater parts of 
 the Holy Scripture, and finally even the whole Old Testa- 
 ment, may have rendered provisional service in Israel, the 
 Holy Scripture as such obtains its full significance only 
 when special grace directs itself to our race as an organic 
 ivhole and causes the Catholic Church to appear in humanity. 
 The holy apostle Paul expresses this most pertinently, 
 when of the Old Testament he declares in Rom. xv. 4, 
 " For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written 
 for our learning" ; a thought which he repeats in 1 Cor. 
 ix. 10 and in 1 Cor. x. 11, and in the latter especially 
 emphasizes very strongly. There he does not only say that 
 " all these things are written for our admonition,'^ but even 
 prefaces this by saying that all these things happened unto 
 Israel, "by way of example.''^ Entirely apart therefore 
 from the question, how God saved individual persons in 
 the times when the revelation had not yet been placed 
 in the centrum of our human race, the fact must be held 
 fast, that the Holy Scripture was intended to discharge 
 its full task from that moment only when our race, taken 
 as a whole, in its heart and centre, was apprehended 
 with a view to salvation. Only when the saving hand 
 was extended to the cosmos, and God "so loved the world 
 that He gave His only begotten Son," had the moment 
 come, when the Holy Scripture also would attain its en- 
 tirely exceptional significance. All that lies back of this is 
 merely preparation, and now for the first time, when in Christ 
 the divine esse has been brought into our race, in the Holy 
 Scripture also the divine ivord goes out not to one nation, 
 but to nil nations, and to those nations as an organic unity, 
 
Chap. II] AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURE 401 
 
 as cosmos. All true understanding of the significance of 
 the Holy Scripture is lost, therefore, when this important 
 incision in the course of revelation is lost from view. He 
 who does not understand, that even as the Christ, the Holy- 
 Scripture also is given to the world, cannot tolerate it. It 
 is the one Logos which in Christ by incarnation, and in the 
 Scripture by inscripturation goes out to humanity at large, 
 as it is being saved by God and shall hereafter shine in 
 glory. If thus the question is put what goes out to our 
 human race as such from the special principium as matter of 
 Divine knowledge, the answer reads : The Scripture and 
 nothing but the Scripture ; and in this sense the Scripture 
 is identical in its working with the principium. 
 
 The second distinction, referred to above, between the 
 material of the knowledge of God which is imparted to 
 us and the way in which that material becomes our own, is 
 no less important. After the unveiling of the mystery, indi- 
 cated by the former distinction, it lies in the nature of the 
 case that the individual obtains no part in this salvation 
 except as member of the organic whole. Noah, Moses and 
 Samuel received separate revelations, simply because human- 
 ity as such did not yet possess its revelation. But when 
 once humanity as a whole had received its revelation, and this 
 was completed, the need for all separate revelation fell away ; 
 and all mysticism, which even after this still pretends to 
 receive separate personal revelation, frustrates thereby the 
 organic ministration of the Lord. He who has lived, lives, 
 or shall live, after our race in its unity has received its 
 Christ and its Scripture, has no other way at his disposal, 
 by which to come to the knowledge of God, except in union 
 with this central revelation; and in so far as the life-stream 
 of the Christ propels itself in the Church, and the Scripture 
 is borne by her as "the pillar and ground of the truth," the 
 Church of Christ (provided it be not taken as institute) is 
 the only means of salvation. There is no salvation outside 
 of her. But however firmly the organic relation both of our 
 race and of revelation must be maintained, it is not asserted 
 that the Holy Scripture by itself is enough for the individual. 
 
402 § 73. THIS PRINCIPIUM [Div. Ill 
 
 This is not the case at all, and he who thinks that the Holy 
 Spirit really gave the Scripture, but now leaves its appropria- 
 tion to our natural reason, is wofully mistaken. On the con- 
 trary, the Holy Spirit, who gave the Scriptures, is Himself 
 the perpetual author (auctor perpetuus) of all appropria- 
 tion of their contents hy and of all application to the indi- 
 vidual. It is the Holy Spirit who, by illumination, enables 
 the human consciousness to take up into itself the sub- 
 stance of the Scripture; in the course of ages leads our 
 human consciousness to ever richer insights into its con- 
 tent; and who, while this process continues, imparts to the 
 elect of God, as they reach the years of discretion, that 
 personal application of the Word, which, after the Divine 
 counsel, is both intended and indispensable for them. Only, 
 however many-sided and incisive this constant working of 
 the Holy Spirit may be, it brings no new content (and 
 herein lies the nerve of this second distinction), no in- 
 creased supply of material, no enlargement of the substance 
 of the knowledge of God. A believer of the nineteenth 
 century knows much more than a believer of the tenth or 
 third century could know, but that additional knowledge is 
 ever dug from the selfsame gold mine ; and that former gen- 
 erations stood behind in wealth of knowledge, can only be 
 explained by the fact, that in those times the working of the 
 mine was not so far advanced. This, of course, does not 
 imply that the former generations fell short in knowledge 
 of God, but simply, that the development of the human con- 
 sciousness in those times did not make such demands on our 
 knowledge of God. A child can be equally rich in his God 
 as the full-grown man, but because the consciousness of the 
 adult is more richly unfolded, he holds the knowledge of God 
 likewise in a more richly unfolded form. With the fuller 
 development of the consciousness of humanity the increase 
 of insight into the contents of the Scriptures keeps equal 
 step. But however far this increase of knowledge may 
 proceed in the future, it will never be able to draw its mate- 
 rial from any other source than from the Holy Scripture. 
 And it is for this reason, that for the several nations also, 
 
Chap. II] AND THE HOLY SCEIPTURE 403 
 
 and for the individuals among these nations, the rule re- 
 mains valid that the substance of the knowledge of God, 
 which comes to us from the special principium, is identical 
 with the Holy Scripture. 
 
 This would not be so if the Holy Scripture were merely a 
 collection of inspired utterances concerning the Being of 
 God, His attributes, His will and counsel of grace. Then 
 indeed, by the side of the realm of the Scripture there 
 would also lie the realm of facts, both of the leadings of the 
 Lord and of His miracles, and the knowledge of these facts 
 could only come to us by tradition. But this is not the 
 character of the Holy Scripture ; and it is to be deplored 
 that the Methodistic tendency in particular has degraded 
 it so much to such a volume of inspired utterances. The 
 Holy Scripture offers us a photograph of the entire sphere 
 of life, in which the action of God from the special prin- 
 cipium has appeared, with His activity out of the natural 
 principium as its natural and indispensable background. 
 The logical revelation, which directs itself immediately to 
 our consciousness, does not stand independently by the side of 
 this photograph, neither is it woven through it, but belongs 
 to it, and constitutes a part of it. More than or anything else 
 than this photograph could not be offered us, simply because 
 facts that lie in the past cannot be alive except in the 
 memory or in the imagination. For though there is also 
 a real after-effect of past events in the actual conditions in 
 which we live, which is, moreover, the no less real activity 
 which uninterruptedly goes forth from Christ out of heaven 
 upon His Church, yet the presentation of this double, real 
 activity and correct insight into it is possible only by a 
 thorough study of the photograph offered us in the Holy 
 Scripture. Not as though we would deny that the rich 
 past, which lies back of the completion of the Holy Script- 
 ures, does contain an innumerable multitude of facts which 
 you do not find in this photograph, but for this the answer 
 from John xx. 30 is ever conclusive : that many other signs 
 therefore did Jesus, but these are written, that ye may be- 
 lieve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that 
 
404 § 73. THIS PKINCIPIUM AND HOLY SCRIPTURE [Div. Ill 
 
 believing ye may have life in His name. Not a hundredth 
 part of course is told us of what happened or was spoken 
 in former times, but here also there was light and shadow, 
 there was perspective, and even as you take the fruit from 
 the tree, but not the leaves which presently wither, so also 
 the ripened fruit of Revelation is offered us in the Holy 
 Scripture, while all that aided that fruit to ripen has disap- 
 peared in the shade and sunk away in forgetfulness. This 
 is incomprehensible to him who thinks that the Scripture 
 originated by way of accident, but agrees entirely with the 
 nature of the case for him who believes that the origin of 
 the Scripture was determined and foreseen in the counsel 
 of God, and that the distinction between the fruit that was 
 to be plucked and the leaf that was to wither was given in 
 the facts themselves in keeping with this purpose of the 
 Holy Scripture. Hence the reason that we reject tradition, 
 in which Rome seeks a complement for the Holy Scripture, 
 is not because we deny that there is an abundance of mate- 
 rial for a very interesting tradition, nor yet alone because 
 we foster a just doubt concerning the reliability of this 
 tradition, but rather because such a complement by tradition 
 is antagonistic to the entire conception of the Scripture. In 
 that case the Holy Scripture would attain no higher value 
 than of being itself a part of tradition. Then it no longer 
 would form a completed whole, an organic unity. Suppose 
 that after a while letters were to be found of Thomas or of 
 Philip, or a gospel according to Andrew, you would be bound 
 to let these parts be added to your Bible. The Bible would 
 then become an incomplete, contingent fragment of a whole, 
 and would need to postulate its complement from elsewhere ; 
 and so the theologic, and therefore the organic and teleologic, 
 view of the Holy Scripture would pass away in the historic- 
 accidental. Since this view is in direct conflict with the 
 view given concerning the Old Testament in Rom. xv. 4, 
 etc., upon Scriptural ground this preposterous view of the 
 Holy Scripture may not be tolerated for a single moment, 
 but the confession must be maintained that so far as the , 
 substance of the knowledge of God is concerned, which is 
 
Chap. II] § 74. SPECIAL PEINCIPIUM AND WRITTEN WORD 405 
 
 given to humanity as such, the Holy Bible itself is the proxi- 
 mate and sole cause (principium proximum et unicum) for 
 our knowledge of God. 
 
 § 74. The Sjiecial Principium and the Written Word 
 
 The indispensableness of the Holy Scripture, therefore, 
 rests : (1) upon the necessity that a special principium 
 should be actively introduced, inasmuch as the working of 
 the natural principium is weakened or broken ; and (2) upon 
 the necessity that this special principium should not direct 
 itself atomistically to the individual, but organically to the 
 human race. From these two considerations it follows that 
 an auxiliary-principium is needed, and that a revelation must 
 be given to humanity as such (i.e. rm Koa-fiqi) ; but it does 
 not follow directly from this that "this special Word of 
 God to the world " should assume the form of the ivritten 
 word. It is necessary, therefore, that we inquire into the 
 peculiar character of the ivritten word, and ask ourselves 
 why the special Revelation of God to the world needed this 
 form. 
 
 To this we reply with emphasis, that in comparison with 
 the spoken word the written word is entitled to claim the 
 four characteristics of durability/, catholicity, fixedness and 
 purity, — four attributes, the first two of which impart some- 
 thing of the Divine stamp to our human word, and the last 
 two of which form a corrective against the imperfection of 
 our sinful condition. 
 
 Writing by itself is nothing but an auxiliary. If the 
 power of our memory were not limited, and if our capacity 
 for communication were universal, the need of writing would 
 never have been known. The sense of shortness of memory 
 and our limited ability of communicating our thoughts per- 
 sonally, strengthened by the need of guarding that which has 
 been spoken or agreed upon from being misrepresented, has, 
 through a series of gradations, called into life, first, pic- 
 tographic writing, then idiographic writing, then phono- 
 graphic writing, after that syllabic writing, and finally, 
 alphabetic writing. Hence writing bears almost entirely a 
 
406 § 74. THE SPECIAL PEINCIPIUM [Dir. m 
 
 conventional and arbitrary character. Only as pure idio- 
 graphs did it escape from the conventional, and then only upon 
 the condition of being delineation instead of writing. Writ- 
 ' ing, in the real sense of the word, tries to photograph the 
 somatic part of our human language, in order that by see- 
 ing these photographed signs one person may understand 
 psychically what has gone on psychically in another person, 
 or has gone out from his lips. Writing tries to do the same 
 thing that the phonograph does, but by attaching a meaning, 
 not to sound, but to root-forms. When we have our picture 
 taken, it is our own face that, with the aid of the light, 
 draws its counterfeit upon the collodion plate. If, now, it 
 were possible for our human voice to delineate itself imme- 
 diately in all its inflexions upon paper, we should have abso- 
 lute and organic writing. Since, however, thus far this is 
 not possible, we must content ourselves with conventional 
 writing, which is not produced by the voice itself, but by our 
 thinking mind. It is our thinking mind which watches the 
 sound and the inflexion of the voice in connection with the 
 movement of the visible organs of speech, and now indi- 
 cates either the voice-action itself or the content of that 
 voice-action, by signs, in such a way that when another 
 person sees these signs he is able to reproduce that same in- 
 flexion of voice and impart to it the same content. The 
 question whether, with a sinless development, writing would 
 have run the same course cannot possibly be answered ; but 
 it is evident that then also something similar would have 
 taken its place. For then also memory would have been 
 limited in its power, and the need of communication would 
 have originated with the sense of distance. Only for the 
 realm of glory the question can arise whether, in that exalted 
 state of the life of our spirits, and with its finer organisms, 
 all such auxiliaries will not fall away. By itself, therefore, 
 it cannot be said that writing is a need which has only come 
 as a consequence of sin ; even though it is certain, as will 
 appear from the last two of the four characteristics mentioned 
 above, that the need of writing has been intensified in every 
 way by sin. 
 
Chap. II] AND THE WRITTEN WOED 407 
 
 Witli reference to the first of these characteristics, it is 
 readily seen, that writing first of all relieves the spoken word 
 of its transitoriness. " The word that is heard passes away, 
 the letter that is written remains." (Verba volant, littera 
 scripta manet.) Our voice creates words, but lacks the ability 
 to hold them fast. One word drives the other on. The spoken 
 word, therefore, bears the character of the transitory and 
 the changeable, which are the marks of our mortality. It 
 comes in order to go, and lacks the ability to maintain itself. 
 It is a iravra pel Kal ovBev fievei (everything flows and noth- 
 ing remains) in the most mournful sense. And even when, 
 by the phonograph, it is secured that the flowing word con- 
 geals and is presently liquefied, it gives us at most a repeti- 
 tion of what was spoken or sung, and no more. But this 
 very imperfection is met by the mighty invention of human 
 writing. By writing, in its present state of perfection, the 
 word or thought spoken is lifted above transitoriness. It is 
 taken out of the stream of time and cast upon the shore, 
 there to take on a stable form, and after many ages to do the 
 same service still which it performed immediately upon its 
 first appearing. The correspondence, which is discovered 
 by a. fellah in a forgotten nook of Egypt and presents us 
 with the interchange of thought between the then Eastern 
 princes and the court of Egypt, speaks now as accurately as 
 three thousand years ago ; and if, after the fall into sin, the 
 bitter emotions of his soul could have been written down by 
 Adam, our hearts could sympathize to the last minutiae with 
 what went on in Adam so many thousand years ago. Writ- 
 ing, indeed, is human thought set free from the process of 
 time. By writing, human thought approaches the eternal, 
 the enduring, and, to a certain extent, impresses upon it- 
 self a Divine stamp. It is noteworthy, therefore, how in 
 the Holy Scripture the durability and permanence of the 
 thoughts of God are expressed by the figure of the Book of 
 Life, the Book of the Seven Seals, etc. Nor is this all. 
 Not only, thanks to writing, does human thought approach 
 in a measure the eternal, but also by Avriting only, on the 
 other hand, does it meet the demand raised by the unity of 
 
408 § 74. THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM [Uiv. Ill 
 
 our human race. The whole human race does not live upon 
 the earth at once. It appears on earth hi a succession of 
 generations, one of which comes and the other passes away. 
 If the means, therefore, are wanting to perpetuate the 
 thought of one generation for the others, then thinking be- 
 comes aphoristic, and the unity of the human consciousness 
 in our whole race is not established. Tradition might lend 
 some aid so long as those thoughts are few and bear a little- 
 complicated character, and the restricted form of poetry 
 might offer assistance so long as those thoughts preferred 
 the form of images ; but in the course of centuries no 
 question of unity for our human consciousness could have 
 been permanent, if Aristotle had had to entrust his word 
 to memory, or Plato his thesaurus of ideas to memoriter 
 poetry. Thus, writing alone has created the possibility of 
 collecting human thought, of congealing it, of handing it 
 down from age to age, and of maintaining the unity of our 
 human consciousness in the continuity of the generations. 
 If, now, the special revelation from God is not destined for 
 the one generation to which a certain part of the revelation 
 was given, but for the world, and hence for the generations 
 of all ages until the end is come, it is evident that it was 
 necessary for this special revelation to take the form of writ- 
 ing. Only by this written form could it be a revelation to 
 our race as a whole. 
 
 In connection with this stands the second characteristic 
 which we mentioned; viz. writing is catholic, i.e. universal, in 
 the sense that, bound by neither place nor nation it overcomes 
 the limitation of the local. Even the most stentorian voice 
 does not carry a single spoken word beyond the distance of 
 one kilometer, and a more extended expression of thought 
 cannot reach across one-tenth part of this ; but so soon as 
 the word has been committed to writing, no distance can 
 resist or break its power. The written word travels around 
 the world. He who speaks, may communicate his thoughts 
 to ten thousand persons at most ; he who writes, to tea mil- 
 lions and more. In the mystery of writing lies, thus, the 
 Avonderful power of overcoming at the same time the two 
 
CiiAi>. II] AND THE WRITTEN WORD 409 
 
 mighty limitations of our human existence, those of time 
 and place. An important statement by Gladstone, spoken 
 in the English Parliament after sundown, is printed before 
 the sun rises again, and in a million copies spread among the 
 masses, in Europe and America. Dislocation, no less than 
 time, is a mighty factor that resists the unit-life of our race. 
 In olden times, when this dislocation was not modified in its 
 fatal effects by quicker means of communication, the sense of 
 the sodality of the nations, and in connection with this the 
 idea of a common humanity, were in consequence very little 
 alive; and it is only by these quickened means of communica- 
 tion, which greatly augment the effect of the written word, 
 that now a feeling of international communion has mastered 
 the nations, and a sense of organic unity permeates all the 
 articulations of our human race. If now, as was shown 
 before, the mystery of Revelation consists in this : that our 
 race, even as it was created of one blood, shall sometime 
 shine in the realm of glory as one body under Christ as 
 its head, then it needs no further proof that this catholic 
 characteristic of writing agrees entirely with the catholic 
 character of the whole Revelation and the catholic character 
 of the Church. As writing sets thought free from every 
 local restriction, special Revelation in like manner, released 
 from all local and national restrictions, seeks the human 
 race in the whole world as one organic whole. God has 
 loved not individuals nor nations, but the world. Only 
 by writing, therefore, can special Revelation attain its end ; 
 and in proportion as the development of human conscious- 
 ness has made higher demands, printing and afterward more 
 rapid communication have augmented this dispersing power 
 of writing. Writing, therefore, is the means of perpetuating 
 thought and at the same time of dispersing it, i.e. of making 
 it universal in the highest sense, and of bringing it within the 
 reach of all. Writing lends wings to thought. It neutralizes 
 distance of time and place, and thereby puts upon thought 
 the stamp of the eternity and of omnipresence. So far as 
 human thought can formally approach the divine, it owes to 
 writing alone this higher nobility. For this reason, there- 
 
410 § 74. THE SPECIAL PKINCIPIUM [Div. m 
 
 fore, when divine thoughts take pleasure in the garment of 
 human words, the Scripture is the only form in which they 
 can rest. 
 
 But this does not exhibit in full the excellency of the 
 Scripture as such, and therefore we mentioned the two other 
 characteristics of fixedness and purity, which protect the 
 word of thought against the dangers that threaten from the 
 results of sin. With respect to tradition we have to con- 
 tend not merely with the limitation of the human memory, 
 hj which so much becomes lost, broken, and impaired, but 
 almost more still with its multiformity and untrustworthiness ; 
 and it is against these two dangers that the spoken word is 
 shielded in the fixedness and accuracy of the written or 
 printed word. 
 
 Every religious sense from its very nature is in need of 
 fixedness. As long as the divine reflects itself only in the 
 changing stream of the human, it fails to take hold of us, 
 simply because this trait of changeableness and movability is 
 in conflict with the idea of the divinely majestic. The quod 
 uhique, quod semper may have been pushed too far by Rome, 
 on the ground of hierarchical by-views, but in the realm of 
 religion antiquity is of so much more value than the new and 
 constantly changing idea, simply because the old makes the 
 impression of fixedness and of being grounded in itself. So 
 far now as the sinful mind of man chafes against the divine 
 revelation, he will always be bound to break this fixedness. 
 Hence the injurious multiformity in tradition. A little lib- 
 erty, which each successive transmitter allows himself, brings 
 it to pass that in the course of two or three centuries tradi- 
 tion is wrenched entirely away from the grooves of its fixed- 
 ness. This may occur unconsciously or without ill intent, 
 but in every case it breaks the working power of the trans- 
 mitted revelation. This is seen in the unwritten tradition, 
 which from paradise spread among all nations, becoming 
 almost irrecognizable ; this is seen in the traditions committed 
 to writing at a later date in the apocryphal gospels ; this is 
 seen in the different authority of tradition in the Eastern and 
 Western churches. It is this same infatuation against the 
 
Chap. II] AND THE WRITTEN WORD 411 
 
 fixedness of the truth, which now appears again in the oppo- 
 sition against every confessional tie, and no less in tlae loud 
 protest against the written cliaracter of revelation, and this 
 in a time which otherwise emphasizes so strongly the written 
 for the entire Cultur. On the other hand, it is seen in the 
 holy books, which every more highly developed form of 
 religion has created for itself, in India, China, among the 
 Persians and Islam, etc., how the pious sense which, from 
 the ever changing, seeks after a basis of fixedness, applies 
 writing, as soon as found, as a means of resistance against 
 the destructive power of what is individual and multiform 
 in tradition. What Paul wrote to the church at Phil. iii. 16, 
 "whereunto we have already attained, by that same rule let 
 us walk," is unchangeably the fundamental trait of all re- 
 ligion, which does not end in individual wisdom or fanati- 
 cism, but organically works in upon our human life as such. 
 And since writing only, and in a more telling sense, the 
 press, is able to guarantee to the Divine thoughts which are 
 revealed to us that fixed form, it is not by chance, but of 
 necessity, that special Revelation did not come to us by way 
 of oral tradition, but in the form of the Scripture. 
 
 This brings with it the purity, which likewise can be guar- 
 anteed by writing only, among sinful men, and this only in a 
 limited sense. Since Divine revelation directs itself against 
 the mind and inclination of the sinner, sinful tendency could 
 not be wanting, to represent that revelation differently from 
 what it was given. Not merely did forgetfulness and indi- 
 vidualism threaten the purity of tradition, but the direct 
 effort also wilfully to modify what was revealed according to 
 one's own idea and need; which psychologically is done the 
 sooner, if one knows the revelation only from tradition, and 
 thus thinks himself entitled to mistrust its certainty. One 
 begins by asking whether the revelation might not have been 
 different, and ends in the belief that it was different. I£ 
 printing in its present completeness had been in existence- 
 from the times of the beginning of revelation, it would have 
 been the surest safeguard against such falsification. If what 
 was spoken at the time had been taken down by stenography 
 
412 § 74. SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM AND "WRITTEN WORD [Div. Ill 
 
 and been circulated at once in thousands of copies by the 
 press, we would have been so much more certain than now 
 of the authenticity of what is handed down. Since, however, 
 printing, as a strengthened form of writing, did not exist 
 at that time, handwriting alone could guard against falsifica- 
 tion. And though we must grant that this safeguard is far 
 from being absolute, yet it is certain that the written tradition 
 has a preference above the oral, which defies all comparison, 
 and thus, in order to come down to us in the least possibly 
 falsified form, the Divine revelation had to be written. 
 
 To him who thinks that the Revelation came from God, 
 but that the writing was invented by man, the relation 
 between that Revelation and its written form is of course 
 purely accidental. He, on the other hand, who understands 
 and confesses that writing indeed is a human invention, but 
 one which God has thought out for us and iiT His own time 
 has caused us to find, will arrive at the same conclusion with 
 ourselves, that also in His high counsel the Divine revelation 
 is adapted to writing, and writing to the revelation. We 
 do not hesitate to assert that human writing has reached 
 its highest destiny in the Scripture, even as the art of print- 
 ing can attain no higher end than to spread the Word of 
 God among all peoples and nations, and among those nations 
 to piit it within the reach of every individual. To this still 
 another and no less important spiritu.al benefit attaches it- 
 self, in so far as printing (and writing in part) liberates men 
 from men and binds them to God. So long as the revela- 
 tion is handed down by oral tradition only, the great mul- 
 titude was and ever remained dependent upon a priestly order 
 or hierarchy to impart to them the knowledge of this revela- 
 tion. Hence there ever stood a man between us and God. 
 For which reason it is entirely natural that the Roman hier- 
 archy opposes rather than favors the spread of the printed 
 Bible. And it behooves us, in the very opposite sense, to 
 confess, that the Divine revelation, in order to reach immedi- 
 ately those who were called to life, had to assume the form 
 of writing, and that only by printed writing could it enter 
 upon its fullest mission of power. 
 
Chap. II] §75. INSPIRATION 413 
 
 § 75. Inspiration. Its Relation to the Principium JEJssendi 
 If we have not failed entirely in our endeavor to appre- 
 hend the special principium in its full significance, and if 
 thereby we intend to maintain the confession of the theology 
 of the sixteenth century, that the only principium of theol- 
 ogy is the Holy Scripture, the question now arises, — by what 
 action the Holy Scripture came forth from this principium 
 in such a way that at length the principium and the product 
 of this principium (i.e. the Holy Scripture) could be inter- 
 changed. Theologically taken, this action lies in inspiration, 
 and therefore in this section we proceed to the study of this 
 majestic act of God, to which we owe the Holy Scripture. 
 It is not enough for Encyclopedia to declare apodictically 
 that the Holy Bible is the principium of theology. Such a 
 declaration is sufficient, when one writes an Encyclopedia of 
 a science whose principium is self-evident. A medical Encj^- 
 clopedia does not need to give an account in the first place 
 of the fact that pathological conditions appear in the human 
 body, nor of the fact that in nature there are reagents against 
 these conditions. But for theological Encyclopedia the mat- 
 ter stands differently. It has to investigate a matter as its 
 object, whose principium is not given normally in the crea- 
 tion, but has abnormally entered into what was created. 
 The right understanding, therefore, of this science demands 
 an explanation of this principium, its action and its product, 
 in their mutual connection. This principium is the energy 
 in God by which, notwithstanding the ruin worked in the 
 cosmos by sin. He carries out His will with reference to that 
 cosmos ; and more properly as a principium of knowledge it 
 is that energy in God, by which He introduces His theodicy 
 into the human consciousness of the sinner. The product of 
 this principium, which is placed objectively before the human 
 consciousness, is the Holy Scripture. And finally the action 
 by which this product comes forth from this Divine energy 
 is inspiration. Hence this inspiration also must be explained. 
 It should, however, not be lost from view, that this inspi- 
 ration is no isolated fact, which stands by itself. He who 
 
414 § 75. INSPIRATION. ITS RELATION [Div. Ill 
 
 takes it in this sense arrives at some sort of Koran, but not 
 at the Holy Scripture. In that case the principium of 
 knowing (cognoscendi) is taken entirely apart from the 
 principium of being (essendi), and causes the appearance 
 of an exclusively intellectual product -which is outside of 
 reality. We then would have an inspiration which dic- 
 tated intellectually, and could not communicate to us any- 
 thing but a doctrine and a law. Entirely different, on the 
 other hand, is the action of this Divine energy, which, 
 in spite of sin, carries out the plan of the Lord in and by 
 the cosmos. Since indeed sin is not merely intellectual 
 in its character, but has corrupted the whole nature of man 
 and brought the curse and disorder even upon nature out- 
 side of man, this Divine energy could not overcome the 
 opposition of sin, except it directed itself to the whole 
 reality of our human existence, including nature round 
 about us. Hence this Divine energy constitutes in part 
 (see § 67) the principium essendi, and from it comes miracle, 
 — not miracle taken as an isolated phenomenon, which ap- 
 pears without causal connection with the existing world ; 
 but miracle, as the overcoming, penetrating working of the 
 Divine energy, by which God breaks all opposition, and in 
 the face of disorder brings His cosmos to realize that end 
 which was determined upon in His counsel. It is from 
 the deeper basis of God's will, on which the whole cosmos 
 rests, that this mysterious power works in the cosmos; breaks 
 the bands of sin and disorder, which hold the cosmos in their 
 embrace ; and centrally from man so influences the entire 
 life of the cosmos, that at length it must realize the glory 
 intended for it by God, in order in that glory to render unto 
 God what was the end of the entire creation of the cos- 
 mos. Every interpretation of the miracle as a magical 
 incident without connection with the palingenesis of the 
 whole cosmos, which Jesus refers to in Matt. xix. 28, and 
 therefore without relation to the entire metamorphosis which 
 awaits the cosmos after the last judgment, does not enhance 
 the glory of God, but debases the Recreator of heaven and 
 earth to a juggler (70???). This entire recreative action of 
 
Chap. II] TO THE PELNCIPIUM ESSENDI 416 
 
 the Divine energy is one continuous miracle, which shows 
 itself in the radical renewal of the life of man by regenera- 
 tion, in the radical renewal of the life of humanity by the 
 new Head which it receives in Christ, and which finally 
 shall bring to pass a similar radical renewal of life in nature. 
 And because these three do not run loosely side by side, but 
 are bound together organically, so that the mystery of regener- 
 ation, incarnation and of the final restitution forms one whole, 
 this wondrous energy of re-creation exhibits itself in a 
 broad history, in which what used to be interpreted as inci- 
 dental miracles, could not be wanting. Because our soul is 
 organically connected with our body, and this body unites us 
 organically to nature, a palingenesis, which should limit itself 
 to the psychic domain, without at the same time working an 
 effect upon the body and upon the cosmos, is simply unthink- 
 able. The fuller explanation of this belongs from the nature 
 of the case to dogmatics. Here it is sufficient that the atten- 
 tion is directed to the significance, which the recreative 
 Divine energy, also in so far as it appears as the principium of 
 being (essendi), has for the life of our consciousness, and there- 
 fore for the principium of knowing (cognoscendi). The tie 
 that binds thought to being and being to thought operates 
 also here. There is not a revelation by the dictation of a 
 doctrine and law, and by its side a revelation by what is 
 called miracle ; but the revelation in the world of reality and 
 the revelation in the world of thought are interwoven. The 
 thought explains the reality (as, for instance, prophecy the 
 Messiah), and again from the reality the thought receives its 
 content (for instance, in the gospels). The preparation of 
 the consciousness for the thought (illuminatio) proceeds 
 from the reality of the palingenesis, and again in faith (as the 
 act of the consciousness) the reality of the new life finds its 
 utterance. In a like sense inspiration does not lie isolated 
 by the side of the Divine energy in history, but is organically 
 united to it and forms a part of it. If in the meantime it is 
 demanded, that theology as science indicate its principium, 
 it has to deal from the nature of the case as such with the 
 principium of knowing only, and cannot reckon with the 
 
416 § 75. INSPIRATION. ITS RELATION [Div. Ill 
 
 reality, and therefore with the principium of being, except 
 so far as the facts and events have been transformed before- 
 hand into a thought, i.e. have become a narrative. It is in 
 the glass oi our human consciousness that reality reflects its 
 image ; by the human luorcl this image becomes fixed ; and it 
 is from this word that the image of the reality is called up in 
 the individual consciousness of him who hears or reads this 
 word. A reality, such as the recreative Divine energy has 
 woven through the past as a golden thread, was not intended 
 only for the few persons who were then alive, and whom it 
 affected by an immediate impression, but was of central and 
 permanent significance to humanity. It could not be satis- 
 iied with simply having happened; it only effected its purpose 
 when, transformed into an idea, it obtained permanence, and 
 even as the Divine word, that accompanied it, and in the unity 
 which joined this word to the facts of history, it could he 
 extended from generation to generation. If now our human 
 consciousness had stood above these facts and these Divine 
 utterances, the common communication by human tradition 
 would have been enough. But since our human conscious- 
 ness stood beneath them, and, left to itself, was bound to mis- 
 understand them, and was thus incapable of interpreting the 
 correct sense of them, it was necessary for the Divine energy 
 to provide not only these facts and utterances, but also the 
 image of this reality so as to insure re-creation likewise in the 
 world of our consciousness. This provision was brought 
 about by the Divine energy from the special principium in 
 inspiration in a twofold way : (1) by means of the word in 
 the past transforming the Divine doing into thought, and thus 
 introducing it into the consciousness of those who were then 
 alive ; and (2) by bringing to us this entire past, together with 
 these Divine utterances, as one rich idea, in the Holy Scripture. 
 Thus inspiration is not added to this wondrous working 
 of the Divine energy, but flows, and is inseparable, from it. 
 It does not come from the principium of creation, but from 
 that of re-creation. Though, indeed, it finds an analogy in 
 the communion of paradisiacal man with his Creator, and its 
 connecting-point in the capacity of paradisiacal man for that 
 
Chap. II] TO THE PRINCIPIUM ESSENDI 417 
 
 communion, inspiration, in the narrower sense, may never be 
 confounded with this communion. Inspiration, as it here 
 appears, is not the working of the general " consciousness of 
 the divinity" (Gottesbewusstsein). It does not rise from 
 the seed of religion. It may not be confounded with the 
 utterance of the mystically disposed mind. Neither may it 
 be placed on a line of equality with the way in which God 
 will reveal Himself to the blessed in the realm of glory. 
 Appearing as an abnormal factor in the work of re-creation, 
 it bears a specific character, belongs to the category of the 
 miraculous, and is consequently of a transient nature. As 
 soon as the object for which it appears has been attained, it 
 loses its reason for being, and ceases to exist. Though it 
 must be granted that the illumination, and very much more, 
 was indispensable, in order that the fruit of inspiration might 
 ripen to the full ; yea, though from everything it appears that 
 the Holy Spirit ever continues to this day more fully to ex- 
 plain the rich content of the fruit of inspiration in the con- 
 fession of believers and in the development of theology ; yet 
 in principle all these operations of the Spirit are to be dis- 
 tinguished from inspiration in its proper sense. In the coun- 
 sel of God before the creation of the world, there was a 
 provision for the carrying out of His plan concerning the 
 cosmos, in spite of the outbreak of sin. In that counsel of 
 God, all things were predestined in organic relation, which 
 to this end were to be done by the Divine energy, and this, 
 indeed,, severally : on the one hand, what was to be done 
 centrally in and for our entire race, and, on the other hand, 
 what was to be done in order that this central means might 
 realize its purpose with the individual elect. Inspiration 
 directs itself to this central means ; the individual is left to 
 illumination. This central means is to be taken in this 
 threefold way : First, as an idea in Divine completeness, lying 
 predestined in the counsel of God ; secondly, as from that 
 counsel it entered into the reality of this cosmos and was 
 ever more fully executed ; and thirdly, as it was offered to 
 the human consciousness, as tradition under the Divine 
 guarantee, and by inspiration as the human idea. 
 
418 § 75. INSPIRATION. ITS RELATION [Div. Ill 
 
 Hence the thought, that it comes to an end, is not foreign, 
 but lies in the nature of inspiration. This is not arbitrary, but 
 flows from the fact that our human race forms an organism, 
 and that, therefore, here, as with all organisms, distinction 
 must be made between that which centrally directs itself to all 
 and that which individually limits itself to single persons. 
 And if this distinction is noted, then it follows from this 
 with equal force, that that which centrally goes out to all 
 must appear in that objective form in which it could continue 
 from age to age and spread from nation to nation. That 
 which is individual in its character may remain subjective- 
 mystic in its form, but not that which is intended to be 
 centrally of force for all times and nations. In order to 
 exist objectively for all, this revelation of necessity had to 
 be completed. As long as it was not finished, it missed its 
 objective character, since it still remained attached to the 
 persons and the life-sphere in which it had its rise. Only 
 when it is completed, does it become independent of those 
 persons and of that special life-circle, and obtain its absolute 
 character. An ever-continuous inspiration is therefore only 
 conceivable, when one mistakenly understands by it mystical 
 inworking upon the individual, and thus takes the work of 
 re-creation atomistically. Then, however, inspiration fails of 
 all specific character and loses itself in the general " est Deus 
 in nobis, agitante caleseimus illo (Lo, God is in our soul, 
 we kindle when He stirs us); " while re-creation is then 
 imagined as coming from phantasy, and is no longer suitable 
 for humanity, which only exists organically. In all organic 
 development there are two periods, — the first, which brings 
 the organism to its measure or limit, and the second, which 
 allows it, once come to its measure, to do its functional work. 
 The plant, animal and man first grow, till the state of matu- 
 rity has been reached, and then that growth ceases. An or- 
 ganic action which restlessly continues in the same way, is a 
 contradiction in terms. Considered, therefore, from this 
 point of view, it lies entirely in the organic character of 
 revelation, that it passes through two periods, the first of 
 which brings it to its complete measure, and the second 
 
Chap. 11] TO THE PRINCIPIUM ESSENDI 419 
 
 of which allows it, having reached its measure, to perform 
 its work. And this is what we face in the difference between 
 inspiration and illumination. Inspiration completed the reve- 
 lation, and, appearing in this completed form, the Revelation 
 now performs its work. 
 
 This first period (that in which Revelation attained its 
 measure by inspiration, and which lasted so many centuries) 
 does not flow by itself from the principium of knowledge. 
 If you think that revelation consisted merely in a communi- 
 cation by inspiration of doctrine and law, nothing would 
 have prevented its being finished in a short time. Since, on 
 the other hand, revelation did not merely make its appear- 
 ance intellectually, but in life itself, and therefore dramati- 
 cally, the inspiration, which only at the end of this drama 
 could complete its action, was eo ipso linked to that process 
 of time which was necessary for this drama. This would 
 not have been so if the special principium had merely been a 
 principium of knowing, but must be so since simultaneously 
 it took in life. The long duration of the first period of 
 Revelation has nothing, therefore, to surprise us ; but this 
 long duration should never tempt us to allow that first period 
 to pass unmarked into the second. However many the ages 
 were that passed by before the incarnation, that incarnation 
 came at one moment of time. The new drama which began 
 with this incarnation is relatively of short duration; and 
 when this drama with its apostolic postlude is ended, the 
 Revelation acquires at once its oecumenic working, and thereby 
 shows, that its first period of its becoming, is now completed. 
 Thus inspiration obtains a sphere of its own, in which it 
 appears ; a definite course which it has to run ; a boundary of 
 its own, which it cannot stride across. As the fruit of its 
 completion, a new condition enters in, which shows itself in 
 the oecumenic appearance of the Church, and this condition 
 not only does not demand the continuance of inspiration, but 
 excludes it. Not, of course, as if a sudden transition took 
 place which may be indicated to the very day and hour. 
 Such transitions are not known in spiritual things. But if 
 the exact moment escapes our observation in which a child 
 
420 § 76. INSPIRATION m [Div. Ill 
 
 ceases its growth and begins its life as an adult, there is, 
 nevertheless, a moment, known to God, in which that growth 
 performed its last act. In like manner, we may assert that 
 these two periods of revelation lie, indeed, separated from 
 each other by a point of transition known to God, even 
 though we can only approximately indicate the beginning 
 of the second period. 
 
 § 76. Inspiration in Connection with Miracles 
 
 So far as the special principium in God directs itself as 
 principium of knowledge to the consciousness of the sinner, 
 it brings about inspiration (with its concomitant illumina- 
 tion); on the other hand, as principium of being (essendi), 
 the spiritual and material acts of re-creation commonly called 
 miracles (mx??? ^'^'^^ repara'). Since, however, the world of 
 thought and the world of being do not lie side by side as two 
 separate existences, but are organically connected, inspiration 
 formally has in common with the wonderful (^?9) that which 
 to us constitutes the characteristic of the miracle. Conse- 
 quently the formal side of the miracle need not be considered 
 here. 
 
 Very unjustly at the mention of miracles one thinks almost 
 exclusively of those in the material domain, and almost with- 
 out a thought passes by the spiritual miracles. This of course 
 is absurd. The creation (if Ave may so call it) of a mind, 
 such as shone forth in the holy apostle John, or such as in the 
 secular world sparkled in a Plato, is, if we make comparison, 
 far more majestic than even the creation of a comet in the 
 heavens ; and in the same way the re-creation of a person inim- 
 ical to God into a child of God is a profounder work of art 
 than the healing of a leper or the feeding of the five thousand. 
 That nevertheless the material miracle captivates us more, is 
 exclusively accounted for by the fact, that the spiritual miracle 
 is gradually observed after it is ended, and only in its effects, 
 while the material miracle, as a phenomenon, is immediately 
 visible to the spectator. In order not to be misled by this 
 one-sided appearing in the foreground of the material miracle, 
 it is necessary that we first explain the connection between 
 
Chap. II] CONNECTION WITH MIRACLES 421 
 
 the spiritual and the material miracle. Tlie undeniable fact, 
 which in this connection appears most prominently, is, that 
 from the days of paradise till now the spiritual miracle of 
 palingenesis is ever unceasingly continued, and occurs in 
 every land and among all people, while the sphere of the 
 material miracle is limited and confined to time and place. 
 The question of psychico-physical processes, which are often 
 spoken of as miracles, is here passed by. Whether the 
 study of hypnotism will succeed in lifting the veil which 
 still withholds from our sight the working of soul upon soul, 
 and of the soul upon the bodj^, time will tell; but in any case 
 it appears that in this domain, under definite circumstances, 
 there are forces at work which find their causa causans in 
 our nature, and therefore do not belong to the category of 
 the miracle. With reference to the real miracle, on the other 
 hand, the Holy Scripture reveals to us that there is a palin- 
 genesis, not only of things invisible but also of things seen. 
 The Scripture nowhere separates the soul from the body, nor 
 the body from the cosmos. Psyche, body and world form 
 together one organic whole. The body belongs to the real 
 existence of man as truly as his psyche, and for human exist- 
 ence the cosmos is an inseparable postulate. To the state of 
 innocence, i.e. to that existence of man, which was the im- 
 mediate product of creation, there belonged not only a holy 
 soul, but also a sound body and a glorious paradise. In the 
 state of sin the unholiness of the psyche entails therefore the 
 corruption of the body, and likewise brings the curse upon 
 the cosmos. Even as this organic connection of these three 
 elements appears both in the original creation and in the state 
 of sin, it continues to work its effect also in the re-creation. 
 Here also the effect begins with the psyche in regeneration, 
 but will continue to operate to the end in the palingenesis of 
 the body, and this body will see itself placed in a re-created 
 cosmos delivered from the curse. If now regeneration con- 
 sisted in a sudden cutting loose of our psyche from every 
 connection with sin, so that it were transformed at once into 
 an absolutely holy psyche, not merely potentially, but actually, 
 the palingenesis of the body would enter in at once, and if this 
 
422 § 76. INSPIRATION IN [Div. HI 
 
 took place simultaneously in all respects, the palingenesis of 
 the cosmos would immediately follow. This, however, is not 
 so. Since oui' race does not enter life at one moment, hut in 
 the course of many centuries, and exists, not individualistieally 
 as an aggregate of atoms, but in organic unity, the transition 
 from potentia to actus cannot take place except gradually 
 and in the course of many centuries; and since each man has 
 no cosmos of his own, but all men together have only one and 
 the same cosmos, our ancestors (see Heb. xi. 40) could not be 
 perfect without us, i.e. without us they could not attain unto 
 the end of their palingenesis, and therefore the apostle Paul 
 does by no means expect his crown at present, nor yet im- 
 mediately after his death, but only at the last day, and then 
 simultaneously with all them also that love the appearing of 
 Christ (2 Tim. iv. 8). 
 
 The very order, which is founded in the nature of our race, 
 brings it to pass, that the re-creation of the body and of the 
 cosmos tarries till the end. If thus the miracle as such, in 
 that special sense in which we here consider it, had not ap- 
 peared until the parousia, the saving power would have 
 brought about none other but a spiritual effect. There would 
 have been regeneration, i.e. palingenesis of the psyche; but 
 no more. A power would have become manifest capable of 
 breaking psychically the dominion of sin; but that the same 
 power would be able to abolish the misery, which is the result 
 of sin, would have been promised in the word, but would 
 never have been manifested in the deed, and as an unknown 
 X would have been a stone of offence upon which faith would 
 have stumbled. The entire domain of the Christian hope 
 would have remained lying outside of us as incapable of 
 assimilation. This is only prevented by the fact, that already 
 in this present dispensation, by way of model or sample, the 
 power of palingenesis is shown within the domain of matter. 
 In that sense they are called " signs." As such we are shown 
 that there is a power able to check every result of sin in the 
 material world. Hence the rebuke of the elements, the 
 feeding without labor, the healing of the sick, the raising of 
 the dead, etc. ; altogether manifestations of power, which 
 
Chap, n] COIWECTION WITH MIRACLES 423 
 
 were not exhausted in the effort at that given moment to 
 save those individuals, for this all ratio sufficiens was want- 
 ing; but which once having taken place, were perpetuated 
 by the tradition of the Scripture for all people and every 
 generation, in order to furnish a permanent foundation to the 
 hope of all generations. For this purpose they could not 
 create a new reality (Lazarus indeed dies again), but tended 
 merely to prove the possibility of redemption in facts ; and 
 this they had to do under two conditions : (1) that succes- 
 sively they should overcome every effect of sin in our human 
 misery ; and (2) that they should be a model, a proof, a 
 arifielov, and therefore be limited to one period of time and 
 to one circle. Otherwise it would have become a real palin- 
 genesis, and they would have forfeited their character of 
 signs. There were hundreds in and about Jerusalem whom 
 Jesus might have raised from the dead. That Lazarus 
 should be raised is no peculiar favor to him; for after once 
 having died in peace, who would ever wish to return to this 
 life in sin? but it was to glorify God, i.e. to exhibit that 
 power of God which is also able to abolish death. This is 
 what must be shown in order that both psychically and 
 physically salvation shall be fully revealed. Thus only does 
 hope receive its indispensable support. And in this way 
 also by these signs is regeneration immediately bound into 
 one whole with the palingenesis of the body and of the cosmos 
 as object of faith. What Paul writes of the experiences in 
 the wilderness : " All these things happened unto them by 
 way of example; and they were written for our admonition " 
 (1 Cor. X. 11), is true of all this kind of miracles, of which 
 with equal authority we may say: "Now all these things 
 happened by way of example; and they were written for 
 our admonition." 
 
 The destructive and rebuking miracles are entirely in line 
 with this. With the parousia belongs the judgment. The 
 misery, which as the result of sin now weighs us down, is 
 yet by no means the consummation of the ruin. If now that 
 same power of God, by which the palingenesis of soul, body 
 and of cosmos shall hereafter be established, will simultane- 
 
424 § 76. INSPIRATION IN [Div. Ill 
 
 ously, and as result of the judgment, bring about the destruc- 
 tion as well of soul, body and cosmos in hell, then it follows 
 that the signs of salvation must run parallel with the signs 
 of the destruction, which merely form the shadow alongside 
 of the light. 
 
 If both these kinds of miracles, however strongly con- 
 trasted with each other, bear one and the same character at 
 heart, it is entirely different with the real miracles, which do 
 not take place as ensamples (tvttckw'), but invade the world 
 of reality. Only think of the birth of Isaac, of the birth of 
 Christ, of his resurrection, of the outpouring of the Holy 
 Spirit, etc. The motive of these miracles, which form an 
 entire class by themselves, lies elsewhere, even in this, that 
 the re-creation of our race could not be wrought simply by. 
 the individual regeneration and illumination of the several 
 elect, but must take place in the centrum of the organism of 
 humanity. And since this organism in its centrum also does 
 not exist psychically only, but at the same time physically, 
 the re-creation of this centrum could not be effected, except 
 by the working being both psychical and physical, which is 
 most vividly felt in the mystery of the incarnation. The 
 incarnation is the centrum of this entire central action, and 
 all miracles which belong to this category tend to inaugu- 
 rate this incarnation, or are immediate results of it, like the 
 resurrection. All clearness in our view of the miracles 
 must be lost, if one neglects to distinguish between this 
 category of the real-central miracles and the category of 
 the typical miracles in the periphery ; or if it be lost from 
 sight, that both these real as well as these typical miracles 
 stand in immediate connection with the all-embracing mir- 
 acle that shall sometime make an end of this existing order 
 of things. 
 
 If, now, it is asked to what category inspiration belongs, it 
 is evident at once that inspiration bears no typical, but a real, 
 character, and belongs not to the periphery but to the cen- 
 trum. Itself psychical by nature, it must, meanwhile, reveal 
 its working in the physical domain as well : (1) because the 
 persons whom it chose as its instruments existed physically 
 
CiiAP. II] CONNECTION WITH MIRACLES 425 
 
 also ; (2) because it sought its physical crystallization in the 
 Scripture ; and (3) because its content embraced the physical 
 also, and, therefore, often could not do without the manifesta- 
 tion. Nevertheless the psychical remains its fundamental 
 tone, and as the incarnation brought life into the centrum 
 of human leing, inspiration brings the knowledge of God into 
 human knowledge, i.e. into the central consciousness of our 
 human race. From this special principium in God the saving 
 power is extended centrally to our race, both by the ways 
 of being and of thought, by incarnation and inspiration. 
 
 From this it appears that formally the miracle bears the 
 characteristic of proceeding forth from the special, and not 
 from the natural principium, in God. The miracle is no 
 ' isolated fact, but a mighty movement of life, which, whether 
 really or typically or, perhaps, in the parousia teleologically, 
 goes out from God into this cosmos, groaning under sin and 
 the curse ; and that centrally as well as peripherally, in 
 order organically to recreate that cosmos and to lead it 
 upward to its final consummation. Are we now justified in 
 saying that miracle antagonizes nature, violates natural law, 
 or transcends nature? We take it, that all these representa- 
 tions are deistic and take no account of the ethical element. 
 If you take the cosmos as a product wrought by God, which 
 henceforth stands outside of Him, has become disordered, 
 and now is being restored by Him from without, with such a 
 mechanical-deistical representation you must make mention 
 of something that is against or alove nature ; but at the 
 penalty of never understanding miracle. This is the way 
 the watchmaker does, who makes the watch and winds it, 
 and, when it is out of order, repairs it with his instruments ; 
 but such is not the method pursued in the re-creation. God 
 does not stand deistically over against the world, but by 
 immanent power He bears and holds it in existence. That 
 which you call natural power or natural law is nothing but 
 the immanent power of God and the will of God immanently 
 upholding this power, while both of these depend upon His 
 transcendent counsel. It will not do, therefore, to represent 
 it as though the world once created miscarried against the 
 
426 §76. INSPIKATION IN [Div. in 
 
 expectation of God, and as though, after that, God were bent 
 upon the invention of means by which to make good the loss 
 He had suffered. He who reasons like this is no theologian ; 
 i.e. he does not go to work theologically, but starts out from 
 the human representation, viz. that as we are accustomed to 
 manufacture something, and after we see it fail try to repair 
 it, so he carries this representation over upon God. And so 
 you derive the archetype from man and make God's doing 
 ectypal ; and this is not justifiable in any circumstance, since 
 thereby you deny the creatorship in God. Our Reformed 
 theologians, therefore, have always placed the counsel of God 
 in the foreground, and from the same counsel from which the 
 re-creation was to dawn they have explained the issue of cre- 
 ation itself. Even the infra-lapsarian Reformed theologians 
 readily acknowledged that the re-creation existed ideally, i.e. 
 already completely in the counsel of God, before the creation 
 itself took place. What they called the appointment of a 
 Mediator (constitutio mediatoris) preceded the first actual 
 revelation of sin. Hence there is no twofold counsel, so that 
 on the one hand the decree of creation stands by itself, to which, 
 at a later period, the decree of salvation is mechanically added; 
 but in the deepest root of the consciousness of God both are 
 one. Interpreted to our human consciousness, this means 
 to say, that the creation took place in such a way, that in 
 itself it carried the possibility of re-creation ; or, to state it 
 more concretely still, man is not first created as a unity that 
 cannot be broken, then by sin and death disjointed into parts 
 of soul and corpse, and now, by an act of power mechanically 
 applied from without, restored to unity ; but in the creation 
 of man itself lay both the possibility of this break and the 
 possibility of the reunion of our nature. Without sin, soul 
 and body would never have been disjoined by death ; yet 
 in the creation of man in two parts (dichotomy) lay the 
 possibility of this breach. But, in like manner, if our body 
 had merely a mechanical use in actuality, and did not develop 
 organically from a potentia or germ, reunion of what was 
 once torn apart would have been impossible. Just because, 
 in the creation, this potential-organical was characteristic of 
 
Chap. II] CONNECTION WITH MIRACLES 427 
 
 our body, the redemption also of the body is possible and its 
 reunion with the separated soul. 
 
 Thus one needs merely to return to the counsel of God, 
 which lies back of creation and re-creation, and embraces 
 both in unity, in order once for all to escape from the 
 mechanical representation of a Divine interference in an 
 independently existing nature. Sin and misery will, without 
 doubt, continue to bear the character of a disturbance, and 
 consequently all re-creation the character of providence and 
 restoration, but both creation and re-creation flow forth from 
 the selfsame counsel of God. This is most clearly apparent 
 from the fact, that re-creation is by no means merely the 
 healing of the breach or the repairing of what was broken 
 and disturbed. Spiritually, regeneration does by no means 
 restore the sinner to the state of original righteousness 
 (justitia originalis). He who has been regenerated stands 
 both lower, so far as he still carries the tendrils of sin inwoven 
 in his heart, and higher, so far as potentially he can no more 
 fall. Likewise physically, the resurrection of our body does 
 by no means return to us an Adamic body, but a glorified 
 body. Neither will the parousia bring back to us the old 
 paradise, but a new earth under a new heaven. Hence the 
 matter stands thus, that in the counsel of God there were two 
 ways marked out, by which to lead soul, body and world to 
 their organic consummation in the state of glory: one apart 
 from sin, by gradual development, and the other, through sin, 
 by a potentially absolute re-creation ; and that, furthermore, 
 in creation everything was disposed to both these possibilities. 
 If nature is taken in its concrete appearance, it is no longer 
 what it was in the creation, but its ordinance is disturbed; 
 and if this disturbed ordinance is accepted as its real and 
 permanent one, then indeed, its re-creation, in us as well as 
 about us, must appear to us as a violence brought upon it, for 
 the sake of destroying the violence which we inflicted upon it 
 by sin. If, on the other hand, you take nature as it appears in 
 creation itself, and with its foundations lies in the counsel of 
 God, then its original ordinance demands that this disturbance 
 be reacted against, and it be brought to realize its end (reXo?) ; 
 
428 § 77. INSPIRATION ACCORDING TO THE [Div. Ill 
 
 and for this purpose the action goes out from the selfsame 
 counsel of God, from which its ordinance came forth. In 
 God and in His counsel there is but one principium, and if 
 we distinguish between a special principium or one of grace, 
 which presently works in upon the natural principium, we 
 only do this in view of the twofold providence, which must 
 have been given, in the one decree of creation, just because 
 the cosmos was ethically founded. That the working of these 
 two principia form a twofold sphere for our consciousness, 
 cannot be avoided, because the higher consciousness, which 
 reduces both to unity, will only be our portion m the state 
 of glory. This antithesis, however, is not present with God 
 for a moment. He indeed works all miracles from the 
 deeper lying powers, which were fundamental to the crea- 
 tion itself, without at a single point placing a second creation 
 by the side of the first. Wherever the Scripture speaks of a 
 renewal, it is never meant that a new power should originate, 
 or a new state of being should arise, but simply that a new 
 shoot springs from the root of creation itself, that of this 
 new shoot a graft is entered upon the old tree, and that in 
 this way the entire plant is renewed and completed. Crea- 
 tion and re-creation, nature and grace, separate, so far as 
 the concrete appearance in the practical application is con- 
 cerned, but both in the counsel of God and in the poten- 
 tialities of being they have one root. The miracle, therefore, 
 in its concrete form is not from nature, but from the root 
 from which nature sprang. It is not mechanically added 
 to nature, but is organically united to it. This is the rea- 
 son why, after the parousia, all action of the principium 
 of grace flows back into the natural principium, brings 
 this to its consummation, and thus, as such, itself dis- 
 appears. 
 
 § 77. Inspiration according to the Self- Testimony of the 
 Scripture 
 
 The naive catechetical method of proving the inspiration 
 of the Holy Scripture from 2 Tim. iii. 16 or 2 Pet. i. 21, 
 cannot be laid to the charge of our Reformed theologians. 
 
Chap. II] SELF-TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURE 429 
 
 They did not hesitate to expose the inconclusiveness of such 
 circle-reasoning. They appeal indeed to this and similar 
 utterances, when it concerned the question, what interpreta- 
 tion of inspiration the Holy Scripture itself gives us. And 
 that was right. As the botanist cannot learn to know the 
 nature of the life of the plant except from the plant itself, the 
 theologian also has no other way at command, by which to 
 learn to understand the nature of inspiration, except the 
 interrogating of the Scripture itself. Meanwhile, there is this 
 difference between a plant and the Scripture, that the plant 
 does not speak concerning itself, and the Scripture does. In 
 the Scripture dominates a conscious life. In the Scripture 
 the Scripture itself is spoken about. Hence, two ways pre- 
 sent themselves to us by which to obtain an insight into the 
 matter : (1) that we, as with every other object which one 
 investigates, watch for ourselves, where in the Scripture the 
 track of inspiration becomes visible ; but likewise (2) that 
 we interrogate those, who in the Scripture declare them- 
 selves concerning the Scripture. And, of course, we must 
 begin with the latter. Inspiration is a specific phenomenon, 
 strange to us, but which was not strange to those holj'- per- 
 sons, called of God, who were themselves its organs. From 
 them, in the first place, we must learn what they taught 
 concerning inspiration. In them the spirit, which animates 
 the entire Scripture, consciously expresses itself. Not with 
 equal clearness in all. Here also we find a gradual differ- 
 ence. In the absolute sense it can be said of the Christ only, 
 that the self-consciousness of the Scripture expressed itself 
 completely in Him. When Christ was on earth the entire 
 Scripture of the Old Testament was already in existence; 
 which renders it of the utmost importance to us to know 
 what character Jesus attributed to the inspiration of the Old 
 Covenant. If it appears that Christ attributed absolute 
 authority to the Old Covenant, as an organic whole, then 
 the matter is settled for every one who worships Him as his 
 Lord and his God, and confesses that He can not err. This 
 proof, however, from the nature of the case, is without force 
 to him who does not thus believe in his Saviour, and for him 
 
430 § 77. INSPIRATION ACCOEDING TO THE [Div. Ill 
 
 there is no demonstration possible. He who stands outside 
 of the palingenesis cannot entertain any other demonstration 
 but that which is derived from nature and reason in their 
 actual form ; and how would you ever be able from these to 
 reach your conclusions concerning the reality of that which 
 does not pretend to spring either from nature or from rea- 
 son ? Hence they only, who stand in conscious life-contact 
 with the life-sphere of Christ can accept the force of demon- 
 stration, which lies in the testimony concerning the Script- 
 ure by Jesus, as its highest organ. Even then, however, it 
 must be clearly held in view, that the reports of the Gospels 
 concerning what Jesus said about the Old Testament, appear 
 at this point of our argument as reports only, and not as testi- 
 mony already authenticated. The value to be attached to this 
 tradition concerning the utterances of Jesus, springs (while 
 taken as yet outside of faith in inspiration) not from the bare 
 communication of these utterances, but (1) from their multi- 
 formity ; (2) from the stamp of originality which these 
 utterances bear ; (3) from their being interwoven with the 
 events described ; and (4) from their agreement with the 
 utterances of Jesus' disciples, whose epistles have come to 
 us. If such reports of Jesus' ideas about the Scripture were 
 very rare, if they appeared for their own purposes only, or if 
 it was their aim to formulate a certain theory of inspiration, 
 then (always reckoning without faith in the Scriptures) they 
 would not possess such a historic value to us ; but since there 
 is no trace of such a design, and no insertion of a system is 
 thought of, and only the use is shown which Jesus made of 
 the Scripture amid the most varied circumstances and with all 
 sorts of applications, from these reports it is historically cer- 
 tain, for him also who does not reckon with inspiration, that 
 Jesus judged the Scripture thus, and not otherwise. 
 
 This value, moreover, rises in importance by the fact, that 
 that which Jesus appears to have thought about the Old 
 Testament, agrees with the conception which, before his 
 appearing, was prevalent concerning the Old Covenant. He 
 introduces no new way of viewing it, but seals the concep- 
 tion that was current, and characterizes himself only by the 
 
Chap. II] SELP-TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURE 431 
 
 original, i.e. not borrowed, application of the dominant man- 
 ner of view. It was but natural, therefore, that the theory 
 of accommodation became current a century ago, and that 
 on the ground of these accommodations all value was dis- 
 puted to these utterances of Jesus. But by accepting the 
 possibility of accommodation with Christ, He eo ipso is 
 already forsaken as the Christ ; which is the more apparent, 
 when one hears how the inspiration-theory, which was cur- 
 rent at the time and which still forms an essential part of 
 the confession in all Christian Churches, was execrated as 
 being unworthy of God, antagonistic to the character of the 
 spiritual, and as barren and mechanical. At present, there- 
 fore, the opponents of this theory themselves acknowledge 
 that they would do violence to their consciences and commit 
 sin, if for the sake of the masses they carried themselves as 
 though they put faith in this theory. This they deem them- 
 selves not warranted in doing. How, then, will you accept 
 such a sinful accommodation of what is unworthy of God and 
 in conflict with the character of spiritual life, in Him whom 
 you worship as the incarnate "Word ? The accommodation- 
 theory, still tenable in days when the diverging theologians 
 themselves accommodated, and considered it no evil but duty, 
 became untenable with the Christ from the moment when 
 all such accommodation was rejected as moral weakness. He 
 who perseveres^ nevertheless, in his application of this theory 
 to what Jesus said concerning the Scripture, attacks not the 
 Scripture, but the Deity of Jesus and even His moral char- 
 acter. Even the pretence that Jesus accommodated in good 
 faith, while this would be had faith for us, does not help 
 matters. If Jesus did not know that the conception which 
 He accepted was untrue, there was no accommodation ; if 
 Jesus did know this, then all such accommodation, in spite 
 of letter knowledge, was sin also in Him. 
 
 To come to the point, we emphasize in the first place, that 
 Jesus looked upon the several writings of the Old Testament 
 as forming one organic whole. To Him they did not consti- 
 
432 § 77. INSPIRATION ACCORDING TO THE [Div. Ill 
 
 tute a collection of products of Hebrew literature, but He 
 valued them as a holy unity of a peculiar sort. 
 
 For this we refer in the first place to John x. 34, 35 : the 
 Scripture cannot be broken. This utterance is of threefold 
 importance. First, the whole Old Testament, from which 
 Psalm Ixxxii. 6 is here quoted, is entitled by the singular 
 ypa^i], by the article ^ is indicated as a whole of a peculiar 
 sort, and to this whole an absolute character is attributed 
 by the "cannot be broken." Secondly, it is out of the 
 question that by 77 7pa^7j can hare been meant not Scripture, 
 but spiritual revelation, because the " word of God " in what 
 immediately precedes is clearly distinguished from the ypa(f>^. 
 And thirdly, it is impossible that jpa(f>'j should indicate the 
 quotation in hand, and not the Old Testament, since a con- 
 clusion a generali ad particulare follows, and just in this form : 
 The Scripture cannot be broken ; this saying from Psalm 
 Ixxxii. 6 occurs in the Scripture ; hence Psalm Ixxxii. 6 also 
 cannot be broken. Which, moreover, is confirmed by the 
 expression " in your Law." He who quotes from the Psalms, 
 and then declares that it is found in the Law, shows that he 
 uses the name Law for the entire Old Testament, and thus 
 views this Testament as one organic whole. 
 
 This unity appears likewise from Matt. xxi. 42, where 
 Jesus asks: "Did ye never read in the Scriptures?" and then 
 quotes Psalm cxviii. 22, 23. No citation, therefore, from 
 two different books, but a citation from one book, that of 
 the Psalms, even two verses from the same Psalm. This 
 shows that "the Scriptures" here does not refer to the 
 Psalms, but to the whole Old Testament, in which the Psalms 
 occur, and likewise that Jesus comprehends this Old Testa- 
 ment under the name of ypa^ai as a unity, and by the article 
 at isolates it from all other ypa^aL The same we find in Matt. 
 xxii. 29, in the words : " Ye do err, not knowing the Script- 
 ures, nor the power of God." Here, also, al ^pa^al appears 
 absolutely as the designation of the entire Holy Scripture 
 then in existence. Keeping no count with those Scriptures 
 is indicated as the cause of their erring, and the Scripture, 
 i.e. the Old Testament, is here coordinated with " the power of 
 
Chap. II] SELF-TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURE 433 
 
 God." In like manner we read in Matt. xxvi. 54 : " How- 
 then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must 
 be ? " Here also the Scriptures of the Old Testament ap- 
 pear as one whole, which is called at jpa(j)ai, and it is a 
 Scripture, such as offers the program of what was to come, 
 and gives that program with such authority, that the fulfil- 
 ment of it could not fail. This program was not contained 
 in this word or that, but in the whole Scripture, which here 
 appears as organically one. Compare with this the similar 
 utterance in Mark xiv. 49 : " But this is done that the Script- 
 ures might be fulfilled." That at another time Jesus indi- 
 cated the same unity by the law, appears from John x. 34, 
 and appears likewise from John xv. 25, where the Lord quotes 
 from Psalms xxxv. and Ixix., and declares concerning this, 
 that that is written "in their law." And if proof is called 
 for, that Jesus viewed this unit not only as organically one, 
 but represented to Himself the groups also in this unit as 
 organically related, then look in John vi. 45, where He quotes 
 from Isaiah liv. and from Jeremiah xxxi., and affirms, not 
 that this occurs as such in Isaiah and Jeremiah, but in the 
 prophets. This subdivision also of the Scripture, which is 
 called " the prophets," is thus indicated by the article as one 
 organic whole, which as such offers us the program of the 
 future. 
 
 In the second place, it appears that Jesus recognized of the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament in the sense of a single 
 whole of authoritative writing, that a word, or a fragment 
 of it was authoritative, and that as jpa^'^, or yeypaix/ievov, 
 or yeypaiTTai it possessed that high condition, that men could 
 make their appeal to it. The use of these expressions does 
 not point to a citation but to an authority in the sense in 
 which Pilate exclaimed: "What I have written I have 
 written," which he did not say as author but as governor, 
 clothed with discretionary authority. Neither the yeypa-n-Tai 
 nor the yeypafifiemv can be thought without a subject from 
 whom it goes forth, and this subject must have authority to 
 determine something, simply because he writes. If now 
 yeypaiTTat, as in this instance, is used in an entirely absolute 
 
434 § 77. INSPIRATION ACCORDING TO THE [Div. Ill 
 
 sense, and without the least indication of this subject, it im- 
 plies that this subject is the absolute subject in that circle. 
 In the state r^i'ypa'KrM expresses that something is law ; and 
 in the spiritual domain yeypairTM indicates that here God 
 speaks, prophesies, or commands. Since in this sense Jesus 
 again and again uses all sorts of utterances from the Old 
 Testament as decisive arguments in His reasoning, it appears 
 that Jesus viewed the Old Testament as having gone forth 
 from this absolute subject, and therefore as being of imperial 
 authority. That Jesus really uses the Scripture of the Old 
 Testament in this way, as "judge of the cause" (index litis) 
 appears, for instance, from Mark xii. 10: "And have ye not 
 read even this Scripture ? " and then there follows a citation 
 from Psalm cxviii. By Scripture here the Old Testament is 
 not meant ; but to this definite utterance from Psalm cxviii. 
 23 the character is attributed of being a Scripture. Likewise 
 in Luke iv. 21, where, after having read a portion from Isaiah 
 Ixi., He said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth, 
 " To-day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears," by 
 Scripture He does not refer to the Book, but to this particu- 
 lar utterance, and honors this utterance itself as '^pajtrj. 
 Whether, in John vii. 38, ypa(f)ij refers to the entire Scripture 
 or to a given text, cannot be determined ; but we meet with 
 a similar use of Scripture in John xiii. 18, where, in view of 
 the coming betrayal by Judas, Jesus says : " That the Script- 
 ure may be fulfilled," and then adds : " He that eateth my 
 bread lifted up his heel against me." Even though it does 
 not read here •^ ypatjir] avrrj, it is very clear that here again 
 the utterance itself is called ypa^y, otherwise it would need 
 to read, 57 '^pa^rf rjTi'i \eyei. Then ypa^i] would refer to the 
 Scripture ; but not now ; now it must refer to the text quoted. 
 Of yerypaTTTM or of yeypafi/j.evov this needs no separate proof, 
 since these expressions admit of no doubt. When, in Matt, 
 iv. 4 and the following verses, Jesus places each time His "it 
 is written " over against the temptation, it implies of itself 
 that Jesus not merely quotes, but appeals to an authority 
 which puts an end to all contradiction. Without this sup- 
 position the appeal to Dent. viii. 3, etc., has no meaning. 
 
Chap. II] SELF-TESTIMONY OF THE SCKIPTUEE 436 
 
 When such an appeal is introduced, not by saying: Thus 
 spake Moses, but by the formula " It is written," it admits no 
 other interpretation than that, according to the judgment of 
 Jesus, this word derived its Divine authority from the fact 
 that it is written; in the same way in which an article of 
 law has authority among us, because it is in the law. To 
 attribute a weaker significance to this is simply i71ogical and 
 subverts the truth. Even though one may refuse to attribute 
 such an authority to the Old Testament Scripture, it may 
 never be asserted that Jesus did not attribute this to them; at 
 least so long as it is not affirmed that none of these utterances 
 of Jesus are original with Him ; which even the most strin- 
 gent criticism has not as yet asserted. 
 
 But Jesus goes farther. It is not simply that He attributes 
 such an authority to this and other utterances of the Old 
 Testament, but in these utterances He attributes that author- 
 ity even to single words. This we learn from His argument 
 with the Sadducees concerning the resurrection from the 
 dead, Matt. xxii. 32. From the fact that God, centuries 
 after the death of the patriarchs, still reveals Himself as the 
 God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jesus concludes that these 
 three patriarchs were still in existence, since God could not 
 call Himself their Grod if they were no more alive. This 
 demonstration would have no ground if by a little addition 
 or modification in the construction, "I am the God of thy 
 father," were intended in the preterite. Then God would 
 have been their God. This expression, in its very form, is 
 nevertheless so authoritative for Jesus, that from this form of 
 the saying He concludes the resurrection of the dead. Jesus 
 extends this authority even to a letter, when, in Luke xvi. 
 17, He says that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, 
 than for one tittle of the law to fail; which, as appears from the 
 preceding verse, does not refer to the ten commandments, 
 nor even to the laws adduced, but to the law and the prophets, 
 i.e. to the entire Scripture. This tittle, which referred to 
 the apostrophized iod, was the smallest letter in the apographa, 
 and the saying that even no tittle shall fail, vindicates the 
 authority even to the letter. In Matt. xxii. 41, the strength 
 
436 § 77. INSPIRATION ACCORDING TO THE [Div. Ill 
 
 of Jesus' argument hangs on the single word Lord. " The 
 Lord said unto my Lord;" yea, even more precisely, on the 
 single iod. The emphasis falls on the '■'■my Lord." In John 
 X. 35 the entire argument falls to the ground, except the one 
 word "gods" have absolute authority. In the same way it 
 can be shown, in a number of Jesus' arguments from the 
 Scripture, that in the main they do not rest upon the general 
 contents, but often upon a single word or a single letter. 
 The theory therefore of a general tendency in the spiritual 
 domain, which in the Old Testament should merely have an 
 advisory authority, finds no support in Jesus. 
 
 The same result is reached when notice is taken of Jesus' 
 judgment concerning the contents of Old Testament Script- 
 ure. Without the spur of any necessity, entirely voluntarily, 
 in Luke xvi. 29 Jesus puts the words upon Abraham's lips 
 to the rich man : " They have Moses and the prophets ; let 
 them hear them." This is said in answer to the prayer that 
 some one might be sent to earth in the name of God to 
 proclaim the will of God. This is denied by the remark, 
 that in the earth they already are in possession of a Divine 
 authority, even the Old Testament. The "hear them" 
 here has the same significance as the "hear him" at the 
 baptism of Jesus ; it means, to subject oneself to Divine 
 authority. Jesus appears to attribute entirely the same 
 character to the content of the Old Testament as often as 
 He refers to the fact that the Scripture "must be ful- 
 filled," and " cannot be broken." All that men have thought 
 out or invented can be corrected by the result, can be seen 
 from the outcome to have been mistakenly surmised, and is 
 therefore susceptible to leing hroJcen. The only thing not 
 susceptible to this is the program God Himself has given, 
 and given in a definite form. The need, the must, which 
 Jesus again and again applies to His passion, and applies to 
 particulars, is only in place with the supposition of such a 
 program for His passion given by God. Not to see this is to 
 be unwise, and shows that one is " slow of heart to believe," 
 Luke xxiv. 25. It needs scarcely a reminder that this need 
 of fulfilment is by no means exhausted in a general sense, as 
 
Chap. II] SELF-TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURE 437 
 
 though there were merely a certain necessity and, in a cer- 
 tain sense, a typical parallelism between that which befell 
 the faithful of the past and of the present, but that Jesus 
 applies His rule with equal decision to that which is appar- 
 ently accidental. Thus in Luke xxii. 37, when He says : " I 
 say unto you, that this which is written must be fulfilled 
 in me. And he was reckoned with transgressors: for that 
 which concerneth me hath fulfilment," here, indeed, Jesus 
 points to a concrete and very special yeypa/jtiMevov, which ex- 
 cept in a very rare instance did not intensify the bitterness 
 of the martyr's death. The simultaneous crucifixion with 
 Jesus of two malefactors lacks, therefore, all inward neces- 
 sity. And yet of this very definite yeypa/j./nevov Jesus pur- 
 posely declares that it must be fulfilled in Him, and as a 
 motive of thought He adds, that what has been prophesied 
 concerning Him cannot rest before it has accomplished its 
 end.^ In Matt. xxvi. 54 Jesus declares that He does not 
 exercise His omnipotence, nor invoke the legions of angels 
 to save Him from His passion, since the prophecy of the Old 
 Testament forbids Him doing this. Beyond all doubt it is 
 certain that the prophetic program must be carried out, and 
 in case He were to oppose it, " how then should the Scriptures 
 be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? " Thus Jesus acknowledges 
 that in prophecy there lies before us a copy of the counsel 
 of God concerning Him, and for this reason the realization 
 of this program could not remain wanting. Jesus expresses 
 this same thought even more strongly in John xiii. 18, where 
 He characterizes the betrayal by Judas not only as unavoida- 
 ble that the Scripture may be fulfilled, that he who ate bread 
 with Him should lift up his heel against Him, but even 
 adds: "From henceforth I tell you before it come to pass, 
 that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he," 
 
 1 The exegesis : For my affairs have come to an end, which Meyer too 
 defends, is justly rejected ; (1) because it loses from view the reference of 
 the T^Xos to reXeo-e^rai ; (2) because such a saying would have had sense in 
 the general announcement of His death, not in the special indication of some- 
 thing that would accompany His death ; and (3) because it should have had 
 to read : that the end was near or at hand. That all things have an end is 
 an argument all too weak to claim support. 
 
438 § 77. INSPIRATION ACCORDING TO THE [Div. Ill 
 
 and thus imposed upon them His insight, that this prophecy 
 referred to Him, as Divine authority. 
 
 This, however, may not be taken as though in the Old 
 Testament Jesus had merely seen a mosaic from which He 
 took a separate Scripture according to the occasion. On the 
 contrary, the Old Testament is one whole to Him, which as 
 a whole refers to Him. " Ye search the Scriptures," said He 
 (John 5 : 39) to the Scribes, " because ye think that in them 
 ye have eternal life ; and they are they which bear witness of 
 me." As a whole the Scripture points thus concentrically to 
 Him. Hence His citation of two utterances of the Old 
 Testament in one dictum, as for instance in Matt. ix. 13, 
 from Hosea vi. 6 and from Micah vi. 8 ; which is only ex- 
 plicable from the point of view that back of the secondary 
 authors (auctores secundarii) of each book you recognize 
 one first author (auctor primarius), in whose plan and 
 utterance of thought lies the organic unity of the several 
 Scriptures. The secondary author is sometimes named, but 
 only with the quotations of those utterances which did not 
 come forth from them, but which were directed to them, as 
 for instance in Matt. xiii. 14, where we read : " And unto 
 them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah," and then follows 
 Isaiah vi. 9, " concerning those who seeing do not perceive," 
 which was spoken by God to Isaiah in the vision of his call. 
 We find the same in Matt. xv. 7, 8, where Jesus says : "Ye 
 hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying : This 
 people honoreth me with their lips, etc.," in which the " Me " 
 itself indicates that Isaiah did not speak these words, but 
 God. That this conception embraced not merely the pro- 
 phetical, but likewise the historical, books appears from the 
 constant reference to what occurs in the Old Testament con- 
 cerning Noah, Abel, Abraham, Sodom, Lot, the queen of Sheba, 
 Solomon, Jonah, etc., all of which are historic references 
 which show that the reality of these events was a certainty 
 to Jesus, even as they were a certainty to those to whom He 
 spake. If it be true, therefore, that in no given instance 
 Jesus utters an express declaration concerning inspiration, 
 it appears sufficiently clearly, that He considered the Script- 
 
Chap. II] SELF-TESTIMONY OF THE SCEIPTUKE 439 
 
 ures of the Old Covenant to be the result of a Divine act 
 of revelation, the original and real subject of which was 
 "God" or "the Spirit." 
 
 But there is more ; it can be shown that Jesus Himself 
 has given utterance to the idea of inspiration, and, on the 
 other hand, that He, by no single word, has opposed the 
 ideas which at that time existed concerning inspiration. Thfe 
 idea of inspiration is, that God by His Spirit enters into 
 the spirit of man, and introduces into his spirit, i.e. into 
 his consciousness, a concrete thought, which this man could 
 not derive from himself nor from other men. This very 
 idea we find even put antithetically, in Matt. xvi. 17, 
 where Jesus says to Peter that his confession of Him as the 
 Christ, the Son of the living God, is no product of what 
 he himself has thought or other people had whispered 
 in his ear ; flesh and blood taken here as the human, in an- 
 tithesis to God, have not imparted this knowledge to him ; 
 it has come to him by revelation, even from the Father who 
 is in heaven. That this idea of inspiration did not limit 
 itself to the quickening of a certain disposition or perception, 
 but in the conception of Jesus implied also the inspiration 
 of conscious thoughts, appears sufficiently clearly from Luke 
 xii. 12, where Jesus says : " For the Holy Spirit shall teach 
 you in that very hour what ye ought to say." This does not 
 prove that Jesus explains the Old Testament to have origi- 
 nated in this same way, but it shows that there was nothing 
 strange to Jesus in the idea of such an inspiration, that He 
 considered it by no means unworthy of God, and that He 
 raised its reality above all doubt. And if we connect with 
 this the fact, that the contemporaries of Jesus explained the 
 Scriptures of the Old Covenant from such an inspiration, 
 and that Jesus nowhere contradicted this representation, but 
 rather confirmed it by His use of the Old Testament, then no 
 one has the right to combat, by an appeal to Jesus, such an 
 inspiration of the Old Testament as one less worthy of God. 
 From the above it rather appears that Jesus viewed the 
 Old Testament in the same way as His contemporaries and 
 as the Christian Church has done throughout all ages 
 
440 § 77. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTUEE [Div. Ill 
 
 in all its official confessions, and views it to this day. By 
 which we do not mean to say that the later outworking of 
 this conception may not become open to severe criticism, 
 but from it, nevertheless, the result may and must be drawn 
 that to appeal to the Old Testament as to a decisive Divine 
 authority, as is still done this day by those who hold fast to 
 the Scripture, finds not merely a support in the example of 
 Jesus, but became prevalent in the Christian Churches by 
 His example and upon the authority of His name, and by 
 His example is ever yet maintained in the face of all dis- 
 solving criticism ; not as the result of scientific investiga- 
 tion, but as the fruit of a higher inworking in the spiritual 
 consciousness. 
 
 The objection to this, derived from Matt. v. 21-45, scarcely 
 needs a refutation. In this pericope, the Lord declares very 
 emphatically that the ancients have said thus and so, and 
 that He puts His sayings over against these. But this 
 does not form an antithesis between Jesus and the Old 
 Testament ; on the contrary by His accurate exegesis He but 
 maintains the Old Testament over against the false exegeses 
 of the Sanhedrin of His day. In this connection Jesus 
 speaks nowhere of a Scripture, but of an oral tradition, 
 and of sayings ; and in this oral tradition of the ancients 
 the commandment had either been limited to its letter, or 
 weakened by addition, or falsified by an incorrect antith- 
 esis, and what was a Divine dispensation had been made 
 to be a fixed rule. Against this Jesus ranges Himself with 
 the spiritual interpretation of the law. That a man must 
 not look upon a woman to desire her was the simple applica- 
 tion of the tenth commandment to the seventh, in connection 
 with Job xxxi. 1 and Psalm cxix. 37. Likewise, the love 
 of an enemy is not put by Jesus as something new above or 
 against the Old Testament, but the narrow and pregnant 
 meaning given by the Sanhedrin to the expression neighbor 
 is combated by Jesus in the spirit of Proverbs xxv. 21. It 
 is, indeed, entirely inconceivable how the absurd idea that 
 Jesus here placed Himself in opposition to the Old Testa- 
 ment, could be entertained for a single moment, by those 
 
Chap. II] § 78. THE TESTIMONY OP THE APOSTLES 441 
 
 who have studied the connection. Just before this pericope, 
 in this same address of our Lord, it is said that he who 
 had broken one of these least commandments stood guilty ; 
 and that He was come, not to destroy the Scripture of the 
 Old Covenant, but to fulfil these by "His doctrines, life and 
 passion." The warning, not to think that Jesus draws the 
 sword against the Old Testament, is expressly added here. 
 
 In closing let it be noted, that for three years Jesus had 
 been most narrowly watched by the Sanhedrin, and every 
 word He spoke had been carefully sifted. At that time there 
 were two holy things in Israel : their Scripture and their 
 temple. Of these two Jesus gave up the temple, of which 
 He said that not one stone would be left upon the other; 
 while, on the contrary, of the Scripture He declared, that no 
 jot or tittle of it shall pass till all shall be fulfiled. Concern- 
 ing His speech against the temple, complaint was made against 
 Him, though the form of the charge was unjust. If He had 
 uttered a single word against the Scripture of the Old Testa- 
 ment, He would certainly have been similarly accused. With 
 reference to this, however, you observe no charge, not even 
 a weak reproach, and from this it may be inferred, that in 
 this matter of the Scripture His enemies had no fault to find 
 with Him. 
 
 § 78. The Testimony of the Apostles 
 
 The self-testimony of the Scripture lies so much concen- 
 trically in Jesus, that only in connection with His judgment 
 has the testimony of the apostles any real value. His disci- 
 ples were His followers. If with reference to the Old Testa- 
 ment Jesus had paid homage to a method of viewing it which 
 diverged from the then current one, the disciples would not 
 have followed the common conception, but the diverging 
 conception of Jesus. If, from their ministry, it appears that 
 they themselves adhered to the current conception, it may be 
 inferred from this that they were at no time warned against 
 it by Jesus, that He had rather confirmed it, and Himself 
 had not departed from it. The testimony of the apostles, 
 therefore, has this value, that it throws further light upon 
 
442 § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES [Div. HI 
 
 Jesus' own conception, and confirms the result of the former 
 section. 
 
 Of the apostles, also, it is not difficult to show that they 
 were familiar with the idea of inspiration and that they held 
 it. This appears most strongly from Acts ii. 4: "And they 
 were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with 
 other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Now 
 aTro(j)6ey'yecr0ai is to utter an audible sound. Without solv- 
 ing the question whether by " other tongues " languages of 
 other peoples are to be understood, or sounds of an entirely 
 peculiar sort, in either case the apostles brought forth sounds 
 which were not produced from their own consciousness, but 
 were the product of an action which went out upon them from 
 the Holy Ghost. This is inspiration in the fullest sense of 
 the word. Thus we read in Acts viii. 29 : " And the Spirit 
 said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot." 
 It does not say that this thought arose in him, but that a 
 speaking took place ; and where it is our point to know the 
 conception which was current in the apostolic circle, we must, 
 of course, be careful to note their way of expressing them- 
 selves. Of the Jews, it is said in Rom. iii. 2, " That they were 
 entrusted with the oracles of God." Uia-revdrivai implies 
 that to you, as ruler, or manager, or steward, something is 
 committed which does not belong to you, has not been pro- 
 duced by you, but is the property of another subject, and 
 over which you are placed in a position of responsibility. 
 Of the grain which he himself has raised, the farmer cannot 
 say that it is committed to him ; this is only true of the grain 
 which was raised by another, and is stored in his barn. 
 Hence, the apostolic representation is not that thoughts, but 
 that "utterances " (Xoyid) were given to them for safe-keeping 
 and care, which were not original with themselves, but had 
 another as subject, author and owner. And that other subject 
 is named, for they are called " the oracles of God." In 1 Cor. 
 vii. 40, after having given a rule for matrimony, the apostle 
 says, " and I think that I also have the Spirit of God." There 
 is, therefore, no question here of a moral excellence, nor yet 
 of more holiness, but of an insight into the will of God. God 
 
Chap. II] § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES 443 
 
 alone can decide the question of marriage ; the only question 
 for us is to know the will of God, and, by his statement, Paul 
 claims to possess that knowledge, on the ground that he, as 
 well as the writers of the Old Testament and other apostles, 
 had received the Holy Ghost. That this exegesis is correct, 
 appears from 1 Thess. iv. 9 ; cf. verse 2. In verse 2, he had 
 said : " For ye know what charges we gave you," and after 
 an instruction in the principles of these charges, he follows 
 it up with these words, in verse 8 : " Therefore he that 
 rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy 
 Spirit unto you." Thus he assumes that his ordinances are 
 the clear expression of God's will ; that for this reason they 
 are divinely authoritative ; and he explains this from the 
 fact that a work of the Holy Spirit has taken place in them 
 or on behalf of the church. Of Moses, it is written in 
 Heb. viii. 5, that he was admonished of God when he was 
 about to make the tabernacle : " See that thou make all 
 things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the 
 mount." To him, therefore, had come an utterance from 
 the oracle, for such is the meaning of KexprnJidTicyTai, accord- 
 ing to the conception which was then current in the apos- 
 tolic circle ; something that did not come up from himself, 
 but was given him from without ; it referred to a very con- 
 crete affair, to wit: that the plan for the tabernacle was not 
 to be designed by himself, but had been brought to him from 
 outside. In James v. 10, we read that the prophets " spake in 
 the name of the Lord," which implies that what was spoken 
 by them was not binding in virtue of the authority of their 
 own person or insight, but was spoken by them in the name 
 of Christ Himself; which either assumes a fanatical pre- 
 sumption, or, since the apostle does not mean this, can only 
 be explained by the idea of inspiration. In Rev. xxii. 17-20, 
 it is said that Christ bears witness to that which, by exclu- 
 sively Divine authority, is written in the Apocaly3)se (to the 
 words of the prophecy of this book), so that adding to or 
 taking away from the things written in this book involves the 
 penalty of eternal loss. According to 1 Pet. i. 12, the preach- 
 ing of the apostles is done " by the Holy Ghost sent forth from 
 
444 § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES [Div. Ill 
 
 lieaven " ; even as it was " the Spirit of Christ " who in the 
 prophets did signify beforehand (TrpofiapTvpofievov'). Even 
 though the eV irvevfiart point to a different modality from the 
 7rpofj,apTvp6fj,evov, both expressions, nevertheless, in their con- 
 nection refer to one and the same idea of inspiration, which 
 receives its more general description in 2 Pet. i. 21, by the 
 authentic declaration that prophecy did not find its origin in 
 the " will " of the prophets themselves, but in the fact, that 
 they, as "men of God" spoke that which entered into their 
 consciousness whUe "they were being moved by the Holy 
 Ghost ; " a representation which was evidently applied by 
 them, even though in modified form, to the entire Scripture 
 of the Old Testament, as appears from the " all Scripture is 
 theopneustic," in 2 Tim. iii. 16. The fact, therefore, that 
 the apostles held the idea of inspiration, and applied it to the 
 Old Testament, admits of no difference of opinion. 
 
 In the second place, it must also be noted that the apostles, 
 also, did not look upon the Old Testament as a collection 
 of literary documents, but as one codex, which was organi- 
 cally constructed and clothed with Divine authority. That 
 unity lies already expressed in the nacra ypa<f>'j of 2 Tim. iii. 16, 
 which does not mean the whole Scripture but every Scripture, 
 and hence does not emphasize the unity only, but simultane- 
 ously the organic unity. The same thought lies in 1 Pet. i. 
 12 : " To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, 
 but unto you, did they minister these things." First, all the 
 prophets are here taken under one head, and to their collec- 
 tive labor the character is attributed, not of its being a work 
 of their own, over which they have the right of disposal, but 
 of its being a labor which they have performed with another 
 purpose, which lay outside of them, and which was deter- 
 mined by God. According to Heb. i. 1, it is not human 
 insight, but God Himself, which spake to the fathers when 
 they were spoken to by the prophets, and however much this 
 took place "by divers portions and in divers manners," it all 
 belonged together, formed one whole, and together consti- 
 tuted God's testimony to the fathers. The apostolic manner 
 of quoting confirms this. They also do not quote by the name 
 
Ciup. II] § 78. THE TESTIMONY OE THE APOSTLES 445 
 
 of the author, but as ypa^ij and yeypairrai. In Rom. iv. 17, 
 proof is furnished by " as it is written " ; in Rom. x. 11, the 
 phrase, " for the Scripture says," is conclusive. By the words, 
 " according as it is written," in Rom. xi. 8, all contradiction 
 is cut off. This shows, indeed, that according to the apostolic 
 representation, the entire Old Testament forms one whole, 
 which is organically connected, and the content of which is 
 authoritative, because it appears in this codex. Even the 
 prayer of Elijah is quoted in Rom. xi. 2, as "What the 
 Scripture saith," after which the answer of God to his prayer 
 is mentioned as 6 ;jj;p77fiaT4o-/to'? (the Divine response), and 
 thus distinguished from the excitement of his own spirit. 
 Especially characteristic in this respect is the extensive quo- 
 tation in Rom. iii. 10-18, which is referred to as one con- 
 tinuous argument, and yet is constructed from no less than 
 six different chapters ; viz. Ps. xiv. 1-3, Ps. v. 9, Ps. cxl. 3, 
 Ps. X. 7, Isaiah lix. 7, and Ps. xxxvi. 1. These parts are 
 introduced by a yejpaTrrai, " it is written," and explained by 
 the " what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them 
 that are under the law." TeypaTrrai, as the perfect tense, 
 especially in a quotation composed of so many parts, is even 
 stronger than rfpa^rj, because it is equivalent to what we call 
 a law: "law enacted is sacred" (lex lata, lex sanota est). 
 TeypaiTTai implies not only that it occurs or is found in the 
 Scripture, but that as an expression of truth it bears the Divine 
 seal. In the same way, after a quotation from the Psalms and 
 Isaiah, the " what things soever the law saith " convincingly 
 indicates that no importance is attached to Isaiah nor to 
 David, but simply to the fact that it occurs in the holy 
 codex. In these quotations the apostles do not confine 
 themselves for support to the authority of pericopes or 
 extended passages, but base their argument equally well 
 upon a single word from the Old Testament ; one may 
 almost say upon a single letter. In Gal. iii. 16, the entire 
 argument rests upon the singular " seed " ; if in the original 
 one letter had been written differently, and the plural had 
 appeared, the entire apostolic argument would have lost its 
 force. The same you find in 1 Pet. iii. 6, 6, where the 
 
446 § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES [Div. m 
 
 exhortation rests upon the fact that Sarah called her hus- 
 band "lord." In the apostolic circle, no such quotations 
 could have been made, if the conviction had not been preva- 
 lent that inspiration extended even to the word and to the 
 form of the word ; which connection between form and con- 
 tent, Paul also confirms for himself, when in 1 Cor. ii. 13, 
 he declares : " Which things also we speak, not in the words 
 which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Spirit teaches ; 
 comparing spiritual things with spiritual." In this state- 
 ment, indeed, the "human" and the "pneumatic" cannot 
 stand over against each other as the intellectual and the 
 mystical. He also bears witness instrumentally through his 
 mind; his speaking, also, is the expression of intelligence, 
 mostly calculated to address the understanding rather than 
 the emotions. The " pneumatica," therefore, cannot intend 
 anything else but the fountain from which the impulse for 
 his utterances proceeds, and that fountain, he says, does not 
 lie in man, but in the Spirit, and thus in a power which 
 affects him from without. 
 
 In the third place it must be conceded, that in the apos- 
 tolic circle also the Old Testament was considered as the 
 predestined transcript of God's counsel, of which the instru- 
 mental author has, often unconsciously, produced the record, 
 and which, as being of a higher origin, has Divine authority. 
 This appears clearly in Acts ii. 24, 25, where Peter says : " It 
 was not possible that He should be holden of death." And 
 why does he deem this impossible ? Because Jesus was the Son 
 of God ? Undoubtedly for this also ; of this, however, Peter 
 makes no mention, but states as the only reason that it was 
 thus written in Ps. xvi. : " Neither wilt thou give thy Holy 
 One to see corruption." Hence the "impossibility" rests 
 upon the fact that the opposite to this was written in the Old 
 Testament ; an argument which suits only with the supposi- 
 tion that the Old Testament furnishes us with the program of 
 what must happen according to God's counsel and will. To 
 that counsel and to that foreknowledge of God he refers us 
 definitely in what immediately precedes : " Him being deliv- 
 ered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of 
 
Chap. II] § 78. THE TESTIMONY OP THE APOSTLES 447 
 
 God." Of a similar tendency is what we read in Acts i. 16, 
 where Peter says : " It was needful that the Scripture should 
 be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost spake before by the mouth 
 of David." The thought here quoted is not from David, 
 but from the Holy Ghost, even though the Holy Ghost made 
 use of tlie mouth of David by which to utter it, and because 
 the Holy Ghost took this thought from the counsel of God, 
 it had to be fulfilled. In Matt. xiii. 34, 35, -the apostle 
 Matthew inserts the observation, that Jesus had to speak in 
 parables, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
 the prophet." In a similar way the apostle John inserts his 
 " that the Scripture might be fulfilled " in John xix. 24, and 
 elsewhere. And all these expressions of " must needs be," 
 " it is necessary," " was not possible," " that the Scripture 
 might be fulfilled," etc., have no meaning unless it was be- 
 lieved in the apostolic circle as an undoubted fact, that the 
 Old Testament presents us the Divine program of things to 
 come, with such certainty as to render it entirely trustworthy. 
 Hence there is no hesitancy in announcing God the Holy 
 Spirit as the speaking subject in the Old Testament. Acts 
 vii. 6, "And God spake on this wise"; Rom. ii. 4, "But 
 what saith the answer of God unto him ? " Heb. i. 6, " "When 
 he bringeth in the firstborn into the world, he saith"; Heb. 
 i. 13, " But of which of the angels hath he said at any time "; 
 Acts i. 16, " the Scripture . . . which the Holy Ghost spake 
 before by the mouth of David"; Heb. x. 15, "And the Holy 
 Ghost also beareth witness to us ; for after he hath said . . . 
 saith the Lord " : expressions which are used not only when it 
 concerns a saying of God (dictum Dei), but also when God 
 is spoken of in the third person, as for instance Heb. iii. 7, 
 " Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye shall 
 hear his voice," or with the mention of facts, as in Heb. ix. 8, 
 " the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holy 
 place hath not yet been made manifest." 
 
 The stringing together of quotations from different books, 
 such as appears in Acts i. 20, Rom. xi. 8, 26, xv. 9, 1 Tim. 
 V. 18, etc., shows equally clearly, that in the estimation of 
 the apostles the human authors fall entirely in the back- 
 
448 § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES [Dit. IH 
 
 ground. Such quoting is only conceivable and warranted 
 by the supposition that all these sayings, however truly they 
 have come to us by several writers, are actually from one 
 and the same author ; exactly in the same way in which one 
 quotes from the works of the same writer or from the articles of 
 the same lawgiver. That this was indeed the apostolic appre- 
 hension appears more clearly still from the fact, which they 
 state : that the words of the Old Testament often contain more 
 than the writers themselves understood. In Rom. iv. 23 it is 
 said of the words from Gen. xv. 6, that "it was reckoned 
 unto him for righteousness," did not refer to Abraham only, 
 as the writer must have intended, but also to us. In Rom. 
 XV. 3, Ps. Ixix. 9 is quoted, and what David exclaimed in a 
 Psalm, which cannot stand before the ethical judgment of 
 many, is cited as coming from the Messianic subject; and 
 yet this quotation furnishes the apostle the occasion for the 
 general statement, "that whatsoever things were written 
 aforetime were written for our learning, that through pa- 
 tience and through comfort of the Scriptures we might have 
 hope." This, of course, could not have been the intention 
 of the instrumental authors. David sang when his heart 
 was full, Jeremiah prophesied when the fire burned in his 
 bones. Thus this intention is thought of as in the " mind of 
 the first author," and it is only by divine direction, that the 
 Scriptures are thus predestined to realize their given pur- 
 pose in the Church of all the ages. This is applied not only 
 to moral and doctrinal dicta, but also to the historical parts. 
 " Do ye not hear the Old Testament (rov vo/j.ov') ? " Paul 
 asks in Gal. iv. 22 ; " For it is written, that Abraham had 
 two sons"; and of this he says: "Which things contain an 
 allegory," i.e. a meaning was hidden in all this, which was 
 neither foreseen nor intended by him who wrote these words. 
 The same appears in Heb. v. 11, 12, where the exposition of 
 the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is introduced, 
 an exposition in which numerous deductions are made from 
 the common historic narrative, which were not intended by 
 the writer of Genesis. The understanding of this deeper 
 sense is called in verse 11 "hard of interpretation"; it does 
 
Chap. II] § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES 449 
 
 not lie at hand, and deeper insight only discovers it. And 
 yet, this deeper insight is no play of magic with the word. 
 One may readily acquire it if only one is not dull of hearing. 
 If one is but mature, he is able of himself to enjoy this 
 strong meat, for they "by reason of use have their senses 
 exercised." It is therefore a mysterious meaning not in- 
 cluded in it by the writer, but by the Holy Spirit, which now 
 from behind is revealed by that same Holy Spirit to those 
 who are perfect. A no less broadly prepared example of this 
 is given in 1 Cor. x. 1-18, where a spiritual-typical significance 
 is attached to the crossing of the Red Sea and to the events 
 in the wilderness, which could not have been intended by the 
 writer of the narrative. That meaning was beyond him, 
 and directed itself from the mind of the primary author to 
 us " upon whom the ends of the ages are come." Now only, 
 because the antitypical has come, can the typical be under- 
 stood. 
 
 It can scarcely be denied, therefore, that in the apostolic 
 circle, the conviction was prevalent that, without contro- 
 versy, the Old Testament had come into existence as a 
 saored codex by Divine inspiration, and must be viewed as 
 clothed with Divine authority. This shows that Jesus, who 
 knew this conviction, did not contradict it, but put His seal 
 upon it in His intercourse with His disciples. The apostolic 
 use of the Old Testament tends to give us a better knowl- 
 edge of Jesus' judgment concerning this codex, and, so far 
 as in Jesus the self-testimony of the Scripture expresses 
 itself most clearly and correctly, to make us know how the 
 Scripture itself desires us to esteem it. The different objec- 
 tions that have been raised against this apostolic use of the 
 Old Testament, particularly upon the ground of Gal. iv. 21- 
 24 and 1 Cor. x. 1-13, cannot here be examined. The ques- 
 tion, indeed, what use the apostles have made of the Old 
 Testament, is not critical but historic. The critical exami- 
 nation, therefore, of these objections is not in place in Ency- 
 clopedia, but in the disciplina canonica. One objection, 
 however, may be considered here, because it really sheds light 
 upon the use made by the apostles of the Holy Scripture of 
 
450 §78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES [Div. HI 
 
 the Old Testament. Their quotations are by no means always 
 a literal translation of the original. This would create no 
 surprise if they had not understood Hebrew, but it does with 
 a man like Paul, who was well versed in the original text. 
 The fact that they wrote in Greek to Greek-speaking churches 
 is, from the nature of the case, no sufficient explanation. 
 This, no doubt, explains why as a rule they followed the 
 Greek translation which they knew was in use among their 
 readers, but states no ground for their own departure from 
 the original, nor yet for their following of that translation 
 in places where it was incorrect. They who think that 
 the writers of the apostolic circle wrote without assistance 
 (suo Marte), can scarcely come to any other conclusion 
 than that this mode of procedure was faulty and rested 
 upon mistake, either voluntary or involuntary, but in no 
 case pardonable. The matter assumes an entirely differ- 
 ent aspect, however, when one starts out from the posi- 
 tion that these writers themselves were inspired in a way 
 analogous to the writers whose text they quoted. He who 
 cites the language of another must quote literally, but a 
 writer who quotes himself is bound to the actual content 
 only, and not to the form of what he wrote, except in the 
 face of a third party. If, therefore, it is the same Holy 
 Spirit who spoke through the prophets and inspired the 
 apostles, it is the same primary author (auctor primarius) 
 who, by the apostles, quotes himself, and is therefore entirely 
 justified in repeating his original meaning in application to 
 the case for which the quotation is made, in a somewhat 
 modified form, agreeably to the current translation. Suppose 
 an oration you have delivered has been translated into Eng- 
 lish, and that you appear before an American audience which 
 knows your position only from that English translation, wiU 
 it not be natural, in so far as your original meaning comports 
 with that translation, to quote from what your audience 
 knows? Any one would; and to do so is logical. And, 
 therefore, from this point of view, there is nothing strange 
 in it that in the apostolic circle the auctor primarius quotes 
 from his own words agreeably to the accepted translated text. 
 
Chap. II] § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES 451 
 
 No one else could do this but the author himself, since he is 
 both authorized and competent to guard against false inter- 
 pretations of his original meaning. 
 
 The citation from Psalm xl. 6 in Heb. x. 5 may still fur- 
 ther explain this. The translation which is here given is 
 undoubtedly borrowed from the LXX., and it is equally cer- 
 tain that the translation of the LXX. is faulty and corrupted 
 in the copies, either by the change of arCa, or, as others 
 assert, by that of aro/jLu into a-Mfia. W'i^H is not aajxa, but 
 wTi'a or S)Ta. Must it be said, that the reading aoit^a indi- 
 cates another thought? Most assuredly, if one translates 
 "h JT'IS Q''31X as given in the Dutch version: "Mine ears 
 hast thou pierced," in the sense in which the willing slave 
 was pinned through the ear to the doorpost of his lord. This 
 translation, however, is absolutely untenable, simply because 
 this never eould or can be said of the CitX (ears) in the 
 dual. The only correct translation is : Mine ears hast thou 
 digged, in the sense of opened, i.e. Thou hast prepared me 
 for the service of obedience. For this thought the expres- 
 sion " a body hast thou prepared me " would do just as well, 
 after the rule of the "whole for the part." If my thumb 
 is hurt, I can use three forms of expression : my thumb is 
 wounded, my finger is wounded, or my hand is hurt. For 
 the preparation of the ear can be put : the preparation of the 
 body; provided both are taken in the sense that this, physico- 
 symbolically, points to spiritual obedience, which is also to 
 be accomplished in outward things. That in Heb. x. 5, body 
 is taken in this sense appears from verse 9, where the exegesis 
 from Ps. xl. 7 is used: "Lo, I come to do thy will," i.e. 
 to obey. And that it is intended as the actual explanation 
 of the "a body hast thou prepared me," appears from the 
 additional words : " He taketh away the first (the burnt 
 offerings and offerings for sin) that He may establish the 
 second (the complete sacrifice of obedience)." The atoning 
 act of Christ's sacrifice lay not in the crucifixion of His body 
 by itself, but in His will to obey; as it is expressly stated in 
 verse 10: by which will (not by which body) we have been 
 sanctified. The question whether the foUoAving, "through 
 
452 § 78. THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES [Div. Ill 
 
 the offering of the body of Jesus Christ," does not refer back 
 to the body in verse 5, can never be answered with certainty. 
 Even if this inference is accepted, it can never follow from 
 this that in verse 5 the incarnation, i.e. the providing of the 
 body for His self-sacrifice, is meant. Rather the contrary ; 
 for the exegesis which, as we saw, makes verse 9 follow 
 immediately upon verse 8, affirms the opposite. The unde- 
 niable fault in the translation, or at least in the copies, lent 
 itself easily to express, nevertheless, the original meaning of 
 the first author in Ps. xl. 6, and this accounts for the fact 
 that in a Greek copy this Greek reading does not need to 
 be changed necessarily to the letter according to the Hebrew 
 requirement, but can be taken as being equal in sense and 
 thought to the original. This would have been indeed unlaw- 
 ful in common quotation by another, but offers not the least 
 difficulty since the auctor primarius of Ps. xl. and Heb. x. is 
 one and the same. An observation, from which at the same 
 time it appears how, in the apostolic circle, they did not 
 represent to themselves the authority of the Scripture as a 
 petrified power, but as a power flowing forth from an ever- 
 vital authority, carrying and ever accompanying the entire 
 Scripture. It presented itself differently to them than to 
 us. For us this inspiration belongs to the past ; it is an 
 ended matter ; we ourselves stand outside of it. In the 
 same way the Sanhedrin were under the impression that 
 inspiration had died out for as many as four centuries. In 
 the apostolic circle, on the other hand, by Jesus' promise that 
 the Holy Ghost would resume his working, they were pre- 
 pared to entertain a different view, and after the day of Pen- 
 tecost they actually lived in another reality. They perceived 
 that this same wondrous power, which had worked in former 
 times and the product of which was the Scripture, had re- 
 sumed its action, even though in a different way. By this 
 the apostolic circle lived in the Scripture as in a part of its 
 own life. This broke the barrenness of the mechanical con- 
 tact, and caused the organic contact to resume its liberating 
 process ; and it is in this way that subjectively, from the 
 side of the apostles, their liberty in the use of Scripture is 
 
Chap. II] § 79. SIGNIFICANCE OP TmS RESULT 453 
 
 explained, as we explained it objectively from the identity of 
 the author in the quotation and in what was quoted. 
 
 § 79. Significance of this Result for the Old Testament 
 
 The period in which the opponents of the Christian con- 
 fession exegetically misrepresented the Scriptures, in such a 
 way that at length they were said to contain their opinions, is 
 irrevocably past. In controversies of a sectarian character, 
 such dogmatic exegesis may still be resorted to ; in the con- 
 flict for or against the Christ as the Son of God, this weapon 
 is worn out. Negation has destroyed the gain of this untrue 
 position, and now feels itself sufficiently strong to continue 
 the undermining of orthodox Christendom without the assist- 
 ance of the authority of the Scripture. This we consider no 
 loss, since it has rendered the position clear and free. The 
 first result is, that one begins by granting that orthodoxy is 
 correct in a most important point, which formerly was com- 
 bated and derided. Only remember what material was gath- 
 ered by the waning rationalistic-supranaturalistic period, by 
 which to prove, in an amusingly learned way, that in the Holy 
 Scripture Christ appeared nowhere as a Divine person, and 
 that there was as little mention in the Scripture of a vicari- 
 ous sacrifice made for sinners. This was altogether a churchly 
 dogma, but no representation of Scripture ; and thus the hope- 
 less task was undertaken to exegete all such mysteries out of 
 the Scripture. The authority of Christ or of the apostles 
 stood too high at the time, in public estimation, to be put 
 aside or to be defied. In order to obtain a hearing for one's 
 "free" ideas, it was necessary, at the time, to press the argu- 
 ment that the churchly representation was forced upon Christ 
 and His apostles, but that, on a more accurate exegesis, it 
 appeared to be foreign to the Scripture. Whatever of pro- 
 test was entered against this, from the side of the orthodox. 
 Was commonly said to have neither rhyme nor reason. It 
 was soon treated with ridicule ; and in some inconceivable 
 way the opinion became prevalent that, in all honesty, Jesus 
 and His apostles had fostered those very same ideas, which 
 eighteen centuries later, in a jaded period of enervated theo- 
 
454 § 79. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS EESULT [Div. Ill 
 
 logical thought, were sold off as the newest sample of reli- 
 gious wisdom. If you pass from the period of negation of 
 that time to view its present phase, you observe that this 
 breastwork, cast up with so much exertion, is entirely de- 
 serted, and that literally no one defends any longer the rep- 
 resentation which was then generally accepted. On the 
 contrary, opponents and supporters of orthodoxy are now 
 fairly well agreed that, in that earlier conflict, upon exegeti- 
 cal ground, the orthodox exegetes were right, and that the 
 Scripture, as it lies before us, really preaches those mysteries 
 then so sharply antagonized. 
 
 This has not been granted, of course, with the purpose of 
 accepting those mysteries. This recognition was arrived at 
 only after men had become well assured that nothing was to be 
 derived from it in the interest of the truth of those mysteries. 
 Now it was said that the Scripture itself must be aban- 
 doned, and that these mysteries had not been promulgated 
 by the Christ, but were attributed to Him by Scripture docu- 
 ments of later composition. A da capo, indeed, of the an- 
 cient assertion ; only with this difference, that in the earlier 
 period battle was given in the domain of the Scripture, and 
 now it was turned against that Scripture itself. And when 
 this failed of providing a conception of the Christ which 
 divested him of all supernatural elements, they have now 
 even wrested themselves sufficiently free from his moral au- 
 thority, boldly to declare that a certain circle of conceptions 
 belonged indeed to Jesus, which nevertheless have ceased 
 to be true to us. But even this implies for us a twofold 
 gain. First, the gain that, now we may see what the ten- 
 dency of the earlier exegetical attack on Christendom was, 
 and that in the main the exegesis of the orthodox was cor- 
 rect. And secondly, there is the gain that it is no longer 
 denied that Jesus and His apostles entertained concep- 
 tions concerning several mysteries, which exhibit a clear 
 relationship to the orthodox confession — a fact which is 
 particularly granted with respect to the conception of 
 Jesus and His apostles concerning the Old Covenant. Aside 
 from the question whether the further development of the 
 
Chap. II] FOR THE OLD TESTAMENT 455 
 
 dogma of inspiration does not diverge from that concep- 
 tion in more tlian one particular, and in so far stands 
 in need of correction, no one at present will deny that in 
 the circle of Jesus and His apostles there was a current 
 conception, gainsaid by none, which assigned to the Old 
 Testament, as a Holy Book, a normative authority. Even 
 those who think that the portrait of Jesus, as the New 
 Testament delineates it, allows us only with difficulty to 
 form an idea of the figure of the Rabbi of Nazareth which 
 lurks behind it, confess that Jesus cannot be represented 
 in any other way than as having adopted at this point 
 the current opinion of pious Israelites of His times. Even 
 the accommodation theory has long since been abandoned. 
 But after the frank confession that Jesus shared that 
 conception, this fact is emptied of its significance by the 
 simple statement that Jesus' opinion on this point has no 
 value, — that He Himself, no less than His contemporaries, 
 has simply been mistaken. Hence the confession of the 
 fact has only become possible at the price of respect for 
 Jesus' person. As long as this respect was retained, the fact 
 could not be granted. Since this respect has been lost, the 
 confession is freely made. 
 
 This reveals at the same time the weighty consideration 
 which this confession puts in the scale for him who finds 
 this respect for Christ as the Son of God in the depths of 
 his soul, and to whom, therefore, Jesus shines in the full 
 glory of the divine mystery. Can He have been — mistaken, 
 mistaken — with respect to holiest things, in what must 
 be to us the ground and source of our faith ! Mistaken 
 also, therefore, in assigning, on the basis of the Scripture, 
 a high Messianic character to Himself ! But the very idea is 
 incompatible with the confession of Jesus' Divine nature. 
 Erring in what is holy is no mere failure in intellect, but 
 betrays a state of ruin of one's whole inner being. In the 
 sinner, therefore, a mistake is natural, but not in one who is 
 holy. Hence, here you face a dilemma, from the stress of 
 which there is no escape. One of two things must follow : 
 either, if in the centrum of what is holy Jesus took His stand 
 
456 § 79. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS RESULT [Div. Ill 
 
 upon a lying conception, then He Himself had no instinct for 
 the truth, was not God manifest in the flesh, and could not 
 even have been the purely sinless man ; or, if He was " the 
 Christ, the Son of the living God," in all things like our- 
 selves, sin excepted, then whatever He sealed as true in the 
 centrum of what was holj' must also be true to him who 
 thus believes in his Saviour. Nothing can here be put in 
 between. As long as the effort was prosecuted to prove that 
 Jesus shared the view of the Scripture of the Old Testament 
 held by the more liberal tendency at the beginning of 
 this century, inspiration could be abandoned without the 
 loss of one's Christ. Since, on the other hand, this effort 
 has suffered total shipwreck, and since it is, and must be, 
 historically acknowledged that Christ viewed the Scripture 
 in about the same way in which the Church of all ages has 
 done this in her symbols, the conflict against this view of 
 the Scripture has become directly a conflict against the Christ 
 Himself. He who breaks in principle with that ancient view 
 of the Scripture cuts the cord of faith, which bound him 
 to that Christ as his Lord and his God. And he who can- 
 not refrain from kneeling low before his Saviour cannot break 
 with the ground of faith in the Scripture, as Jesus Himself 
 has sealed it. 
 
 The tendency, which becomes more and more manifest, to 
 withdraw oneself from the Scripture into an individualistic 
 mysticism and from the Christ to go back to the Holy Spirit, 
 cannot be maintained for one moment by a worshipper of 
 Christ in the face of the fact that Jesus acknowledged the 
 Scripture. For, even though we take them as historical 
 witnesses merely, the Scriptures of the New Testament 
 afford abundant proof that Christ knew this mysticism of 
 the Holy Spirit and honored it, but even in the Gospel 
 of John, in which this mysticism is most often mentioned, 
 almost more strongly than in the Synoptics, you find the 
 conviction of Jesus expressed that He is bound to the Script- 
 ures ; bound not only for His conceptions, but bound for His 
 person, for the program of His life and passion, and for the 
 future of glory which awaits Him. Hence the desire to 
 
Chap. II] FOR THE OLD TESTAMENT 457 
 
 remain orthodox in one's Christology, and so far as the way 
 of knowledge is concerned to withdraw oneself into mystical 
 territory, in order to be able to make concessions in the domain 
 of the Scripture-question, is the fruit of lack of thought, a 
 measuring with two measures, and self-contradiction. The 
 question is more serious than is surmised by this well-mean- 
 ing orthodoxy. The conflict, which is begun in order to rob 
 us of the Scripture as Holy Scripture, can have no other 
 tendency than to rob us of the Christ. If the Holy Script- 
 ure qua talis falls, then Jesus was a man and nothing more, 
 who was mistaken in the centrum of what was holy, and 
 who consequently can neither escape from the fellowship of 
 sin, nor yet in what is holiest and tenderest be your absolute 
 guide. 
 
 It is not true that on this point there could be error in, 
 Jesus, without detriment to His person and His character as 
 authority in what is holy. In history entirely innocent 
 inaccuracies are certainly possible, which, so far from doing 
 harm, rather bring to light the free utterance of life above 
 notarial mannerism. But of this character, Jesus' error 
 could have been least of all. For three reasons. In the 
 first place, because, if the historical-critical school is right, 
 there is not merely a dispute about the author and the origin 
 of several books, but in the Old Testament you frequently 
 encounter deceit and falsehood. There are not only sev- 
 eral representations of facts and events which are fictitious, 
 but many pretensions, also, to Divine revelation which are 
 feigned, and the intrusion of writings under other names 
 which are nothing but "prophecies after the event," but 
 which nevertheless present themselves as authentic prophecy. 
 Whether this deceit and this falsehood is the personal work 
 of one individual or the result of tradition, makes no differ- 
 ence ; falsehood does not cease to be falsehood if it is gener- 
 ated gradually in the course of time. And however much one 
 may talk of " pious fraud," even that can only be represented 
 as free from deceit when the rule is adopted that the end 
 sanctifies the means. Grant that you may make no scientific 
 claims on Jesus, which fall outside of the scope of His person 
 
458 § 79. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS RESULT [Div. lU 
 
 aud time, may this ever authorize one to deny Him also the 
 instinct for truth? And yet He must have been entirely 
 devoid of this instinct, if He could have taken such a struct- 
 ure of fictitious and designedly untrue representations as the 
 ground of that truth, which He confessed and for which He 
 died. 
 
 In the second place, such error could not have been in- 
 nocently made for the reason stated above, viz. that Jesus 
 accepted the entire program of His life at the hand of the 
 Scripture. The Old Testament Scripture had a meaning for 
 Jesus which it could have had for no other, either before or 
 after Him. From the fatal standpoint of an error no other 
 conclusion can be formed than that in the program of the 
 'Ebed Jahvah, of the Messiah, and of the man of sorrows 
 Jesus wrongly saw the plan of His own existence, public 
 appearance, passion and glory, and that He labored under an 
 illusion when, on the ground of the Scripture, He confonned 
 Himself to this. His great life-work, then, is no result of a 
 Divine impulse, but a role in a drama which He found 
 projected by some one else, and of which He imagined Him- 
 self to be the chief actor. Thus if this error is granted, 
 it entails with it a condemnation of Jesus' whole interpreta- 
 tion of His task. Not only His interpretation of the Script- 
 ure, but His entire position in history has then been one 
 mistake. He then has walked in a dream. A beautiful 
 dream wrought into His phantasy by the Old Testament. 
 By this, however. His life and sacrifice forfeit the serious 
 character of being a moral reality sprung from God. 
 
 And the third reason, why the idea of an innocent mistake 
 cannot be entertained, is evident from the very conflict of 
 our times. At first the Old Testament was antagonized by 
 means of the New, in order on ethical grounds to exliibit 
 the lower standard of the Old. The religious and ethical 
 representations of the Old Testament must be repelled, in 
 order that Christ and the New Testament might find an 
 entrance as the principium of what was higher and holier. 
 Now one does not hesitate on the ground of his own religious 
 and moral sense to apply his criticism to Christ and the New 
 
Chap. II] FOR THE OLD TESTAMENT 459 
 
 Testament. But even if we pass this second suggestion by, 
 it is alleged that in the centrum of the religious and moral 
 life there yawns an abyss between the Old Testament and 
 the Christ. Notwithstanding all this the attempt is being 
 made to make it appear as though it had merely been an 
 innocent mistake in Christ that for eighteen centuries by 
 precept and example He has bound His followers and con- 
 fessors to the authority of that Old Testament. But is it 
 not absurd to qualify in the Founder of your religion, as 
 Jesus is called, as of no importance a mistake which for ages 
 has led millions upon millions astray, and still continues to 
 do this ? We may safely prophesy that after not many days 
 the stress of the dilemma, which we here face, will be real- 
 ized and generally acknowledged. Either Jesus' view of the 
 Scripture is the true one, and then we should kneel in His 
 presence ; or Jesus' view of the Scripture is one enormous 
 mistake, in which case the Rabbi of Nazareth can no longer 
 be the absolute guide along the way of faith. 
 
 We accept this dilemma the sooner since it determines 
 most definitely our point of departure. There are two kinds 
 of people, thus we wrote, in or outside of the circle of palin- 
 genesis, and connected therewith there are two kinds of con- 
 sciousness, subjectively with or without illumination, and 
 objectively with or without Holy Scripture. Applied to the 
 above-named dilemma, this affirms: That if by palingenesis 
 you stand vitally related to the Christ as " the head of the 
 body," the relation between your consciousness and the Holy 
 Scripture is born from this of itself. But if that relation of 
 the palingenesis does not bind you to the Christ of God as 
 head of the body of the new humanity, you cannot kneel 
 before Him in worship, neither can the Scripture be to you a 
 Holy Scripture. The scientific form, in which your confes- 
 sion of the Scripture will cast itself, we do not consider here. 
 No one, able to think and to ponder, has ever come either to 
 palingenesis, to faith in the Christ as the Son of God, or 
 to the acceptance of the Scripture, as the result of scientific 
 investigation. Faith is of a different kind, and can never 
 be plucked as fruit from the branches of science. Faith 
 
460 § 80. THE INSPIRATION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 in, as well as the rejection of, the Christ and the Scriptm-e, 
 i.e. of a Logos embodied in the flesh and embodied in writ- 
 ing (iva-apK(i>/Ji,evo<; and e'yypacf)0<;^, springs from the root of 
 our spiritual existence. Hence it cannot be that by nature 
 every one accepts the Christ and the Holy Scripture. The 
 antithesis cannot remain wanting between those who beheve 
 and reject. It lies in the very nature of every intervenient 
 process, which does not find its rise in the natural princi- 
 pium of the creation, but in a special principium that is bent 
 upon recreation. The very nature of special grace brings 
 with it that by one it must be accepted, but also by another 
 be rejected. Faith cannot belong to all. As soon as rejec- 
 tion stands no longer over against faith, special grace has 
 reached its end, and by the parousia passes over into the 
 then glorified natural principium. This was not felt for- 
 many years, because faith on the Scripture floated on tradi- 
 tion only, and became thereby unspiritual. The apostasy 
 from the Christ and from the Scripture is therefore nothing else 
 than the falling away from this traditional position, which for 
 a long time had no more spiritual root. Now only, thanks to 
 the simultaneous conflict against Christ and the Scripture, 
 the great dictum, that Christ is set for the rising up but also 
 for the falling of many (Luke ii. 34), also for those who are 
 outside of Israel, begins to be realized as truth. 
 
 § 80. The Inspiration of the New Testament 
 
 The Scripture of the New Testament is not so directly 
 covered by the authority of Christ and His apostles as that 
 of the Old Covenant. The Law and the Prophets formed 
 a Scripture which already existed, and concerning which, 
 therefore, Jesus' verdict and use can give a final explanation ; 
 but the New Testament did not yet exist, and therefore could 
 not be subjected to judgment in the circle of Jesus. The 
 absolute and immediate authority which the Bishop of 
 Rome claims as vicar of Christ and head of the Church lacks 
 the Divine seal, which it needs in order to impress the 
 Divine stamp upon the Scripture of the New Testament. 
 The absolute authority necessary for such a sealing, outside 
 
Chap. II] THE NEW TESTAMENT 461 
 
 of US, is here wanting. Our fixed point of departure, there- 
 fore, does not lie in the Ifew, but in the Old, Testament. 
 The Old Testament is to us the fixed point of support, and the 
 New cannot legitimate itself other than as the complement 
 and crown of the Old, postulated by the Old, assumed and 
 prophesied by Christ, actually come, and by the continuity 
 of faith accepted in the Church of Christ. A certain paral- 
 lel with the standing of the authority of the Old Testament 
 before Jesus' appearance is here not to be denied. Even 
 though Jesus' decisive witness concerning the Scripture then 
 ill existence lays for us the firmest objective foundation on 
 which its authority rests, it may nevertheless not be lost 
 from sight that respect for this authority did not originate 
 first by means of Jesus' coming, but was already preva- 
 lent before He was manifest in the flesh. Christ had merely 
 to connect Himself with what existed, and put His seal to 
 an authority that was universally recognized. The authority 
 of the Scripture of the Old Covenant arose of itself even as 
 that of the New Testament. It was, as Jesus found it, the 
 result of organic factors which had worked in upon the 
 people of God in the Old Dispensation ; an authority which 
 only gradually had been firmly established, and did not main- 
 tain itself in an absolute sense, except through conflict and 
 strife, over against the pretension of the Apocrypha and 
 other influential writings, but at length prevailed univer- 
 sally within a sharply bounded domain. As a parallel to the 
 rise of the authority of the New Testament this is of value 
 to us, because it shows that such an authority can establish 
 itself gradually by psychical factors and in organic connec- 
 tion with the life of the people of God, and in such a way 
 that the Christ ratifies it afterwards as an entirely lawful 
 and valid authority. From this the possibility also is evi- 
 dent that in a proper way, without outward legitimation, 
 such an authority may be imposed as of itself, and that after- 
 wards it can appear to have been entirely lawfully estab- 
 lished. Thus there is nothing strange in it, that in a 
 similarly unmarked way the Scripture of the New Testament 
 gradually acquired the authority which it has since exercised. 
 
462 § 80. THE INSPIEATION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 From the psychological point of view the process of the rise 
 of this authority, both with the New and with the Old 
 Testament, is one. The description of this process is the 
 task of the science of Canonics, and therefore lies outside of 
 our scope. But the inner necessity needs to be indicated 
 with which the Old called for the New Testament, and how 
 this necessity has been universally realized. 
 
 We begin with the latter. Consider then how difficult it 
 must have been at first for the pious mind, to add to the 
 Holy Scripture, consisting as it then did of the Old Testa- 
 ment, a new part, with the claim of equal authority. An 
 absolute boundary line separated the Old Testament from 
 every other writing. Even the conflict with the Apocrypha 
 had ceased. And now the idea arises, of placing all sorts 
 of other writings, which lack every mark of antiquity, and 
 are of very recent date, on a line Avith this Holy Script- 
 ure, even with respect to authority, and yet this idea meets 
 with no opposition, but enters as of itself ; and while at the 
 same time all sorts of other writings are circulated, one sees 
 in the main very soon a boundary line drawn between what 
 commends itself as clothed with that authority, and what 
 does not. What are one hundred years in such a process 
 of spiritual development? And not much more than one 
 century has passed after Jesus' ascension, before a com- 
 plement for the Old Testament has formed itself, begins to 
 run by its side, finds recognition, and comes into sacred use. 
 And this went on so unobservedly and of itself, that al- 
 though all sorts of controversies arose concerning the ques- 
 tion, whether this or that book should be adopted, yet of 
 a fundamental controversy against the idea itself, of adding 
 a New Testament to the Old, there is absolutely no trace 
 discoverable. Reaction against this idea as such proceeded, 
 and very reasonably, from the side of the Jews alone, but 
 was not even suggested in the circle of the Christians. 
 They were as controversial then as we are now, and there 
 is no difference, however small, dogmatic, ethic, or ecclesias- 
 tic, but has been fought for and against from the beginning. 
 But no trace of any significance appears anywhere of opposi- 
 
Chap. II] THE NEW TESTAMENT 463 
 
 tion to the idea itself, tliat a new Scripture should be added 
 to the Old. Hyperspiritualism may have reacted against 
 all Scripture, New as well as Old ; but that cannot claim 
 our attention here : we speak simply of those, who, while 
 loyally subject to the authority of the Old Testament, faced 
 the question whether or no a second Scripture, clothed with 
 equal authority, should be added to the accepted canon. 
 Psychologically one would have expected a negative answer 
 to this question from more than one side. Imagine what it 
 would mean to you if to your Bible, as it now consists of 
 Old and New Testaments, a third volume was to be added, 
 clothed with equal authority and of later origin, and you 
 perceive at once that reaction against this effort, yea, 
 fierce opposition almost, could not be wanting. And yet 
 such was the case faced by the church at large at that 
 time. Both what was to be added to the Old Testament, 
 and that anything should be added, was entirely new to 
 them. That, nevertheless, all opposition of any essential 
 character and significant influence against this idea as such 
 remained wanting, shows indeed that the minds and hearts 
 must have been predisposed to the reception of a second 
 Scripture ; that the enlightening, when this Scripture arose, 
 bound the minds and hearts to it ; and that the appearance 
 of the New Testament, so far from sowing unrest in the 
 mind, rather produced that natural rest which is enjoyed 
 when what was incomplete in itself obtains its natural com- 
 plement. And this sense was so general that not only the 
 orthodox but also the heterodox tendency, as far as it moved 
 in the bed of the Christian Church, supported the rise of 
 this new Scripture. Even though many efforts went out 
 from the side of the heterodox to exclude this or that writ- 
 ing, to modify or replace it by another, yet in this very 
 effort the general consciousness voiced itself, that an author- 
 itative Scripture of the New Testament was a necessity. 
 Even though the authority was questioned of certain books, 
 or of a part of it, the heretic and the orthodox confessor 
 were unanimous in the conviction that the Old Scripture 
 called for a New. 
 
464 § 80. THE INSPIRATION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 There was indeed some reaction, but this was aimed exclu- 
 sively against the manner how, and not against the matter 
 itself. By that reaction against the manner of execution, the 
 matter itself was rather strengthened. The adoption of the 
 avriXeyofieva was reacted against; reaction took place for 
 the sake of introducing other writings, which did not belong 
 to the canon ; to modify the text of universally acknowl- 
 edged writings, agreeably to all sorts of heterodoxy : but 
 this threefold reaction is but a proof that the conflict was 
 waged with reference to certain products of the first Chris- 
 tian literature, but very definitely not with reference to 
 the acceptance of a new Holy Scripture. That such a man 
 as Paul alone wrote perhaps ten times as much as is con- 
 tained from his hand in the New Testament, lies in the very 
 nature of the case. Is it reasonable to suppose that one 
 of the apostles never wrote anything ? How large, then, 
 the literary product must have been about one hundred 
 years after Jesus' birth. But no proposal was made to 
 add the whole of this literary inheritance, not even all the 
 apostolic writings, as the complement to the Old Testament. 
 There was room for choice, there was room for sifting. 
 This will do ; that, not. And in this lies the recognition 
 of the distinction between what should and what should 
 not be received as authoritative. This certainly was not 
 effected mechanically nor conventionally nor scholastically. 
 Whatever in the end compiled this Scripture canonically, 
 it was not simply human sharp-sightedness, but rather 
 Divine providence. Even so, however, it appears from the 
 threefold reaction, mentioned above, that with clear con- 
 sciousness a second Holy Scripture as such was in view, 
 and that the assignment of such high authority to this or 
 that book was contested, but not the reality of such an 
 authority as such. It is evident that this occasioned a 
 period of uncertainty ; but let it be observed that this uncer- 
 tainty concerned the whole New Testament only for a very 
 short time, and, sooner than could be expected, reduced 
 itself to a very small part of it. In that limited sense, 
 however, this uncertainty could not remain wanting, for the 
 
Chap. II] THE NEW TESTAMENT 465 
 
 very reason that such a canonical authority could only be 
 the outflow of the finally unanimous and ever spontaneous 
 recognition of the churches. A recognition which was 
 greatly impeded by the distances between the farthest out- 
 lying churches in the "West and in the East ; which experi- 
 enced still more impediment from the absence of a regular 
 communication ; and which, in the midst of the confusion 
 brought about by persecution and by heterodoxy, could only 
 be established as by miracle. And yet the result is that 
 persecution had scarcely ceased, and the ecclesiastical bond 
 been regulated, and heterodoxy been repressed, when on 
 every hand you find the churches in the possession of a 
 second Holy Scripture, and the authority of the New 
 Testament standing in nothing behind that of the Old. 
 
 This would be inexplicable, if the Old Testament had 
 announced itself as exclusive and in itself complete, and 
 had not, rather, itself called for a New Testament as its 
 complement. The prophetic character of the Old Covenant 
 bars out this exclusive point of view. Everything in the 
 Old Testament will be nothing but anticipatory, and calls 
 for the "age to come" (SDM D7T!J). In the estimation of 
 all who revered its authority, the entire Old Scripture postu- 
 lated a reality which was to come, the shadow of which alone 
 was given in the old dispensation. The glimmerings were 
 there, the light itself still tarried. One read the prologue ; 
 the drama itself was to follow. The pedestal was finished 
 for the monument about to be erected, but the figure itself 
 was still to be placed upon it. There was a protasis, but 
 the apodosis of fulfilment was yet to come. When this 
 end, this complementing reality, came, the same problem 
 arose as of old. This apodosis, this plerosis, came not in one 
 moment of time, immediately to be ended and closed by the 
 parousia, but this manifestation was also to be perpetuated, as 
 has been the case now nearly twenty centuries. The same 
 necessity of the Scripture, which existed for the manifesta- 
 tion of the prophetic dispensation, was here repeated. What 
 took place only once, and was to project its energy for cen- 
 turies together and to all the ends of the earth, must pass 
 
466 § 80. THE INSPIRATION OF [Diy. Ill 
 
 over into tradition, and this tradition must clothe itself in 
 the only conceivable form of human trustvi^orthiness, viz. 
 that of the Scriptura. This necessity V70uld have fallen 
 away if the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the mystical 
 body of Christ had worked actual holiness and infallibility 
 at once. Then, indeed, oral tradition would have been guar- 
 anteed against involuntary and wilful falsification. Since, 
 however, this is not so, and they who are regenerated must 
 struggle till their death with the after-throes of sin, and 
 since in the Church of Christ many hypocrites are continu- 
 ally numbered with the children of palingenesis, the oral 
 tradition was in imminent danger of being falsified. The 
 necessitas scripturae, therefore, to perpetuate the manifesta- 
 tion which took place eighteen centuries ago was undeni- 
 able. Thus, the content of the Old Testament called for 
 the complementing manifestation in Christ, and the Scripture 
 of the Old Testament for its written complement in the New, 
 This holds the more because the manifestation, however 
 much it may be plerosis with respect to the prophetical dis- 
 pensation of the Old Testament, bears in itself, in its turn, 
 an incomplete and therefore a prophetical character. Po- 
 tentially the Divine reality is seen in the manifestation of 
 Christ, but this will find its actual consummation only in the 
 parousia, when the palingenesis shall have worked its effect 
 in the universal cosmical sense. Hence, the second manifes- 
 tation in Christ calls for a third manifestation in the parou- 
 sia. Of this, Paul says, 1 Cor. xv. 24 : " Then cometh the 
 end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the 
 Father." In the new dispensation, therefore, there is not 
 only the manifestation of what was prophesied in Israel, but 
 the prophecy, as well, of a manifestation which only comes 
 after this. An ethical " It is finished " has been heard from 
 Golgotha, but the final " It is come to pass " (Rev. xxi. 6) 
 will only be proclaimed after the Parousia. There is also 
 a program, therefore, of what lies between the first coming 
 of Christ and His return, and an apocalypse of what shall be 
 the end ; and as the tradition of what had taken place called 
 for the support of writing, from the nature of the case this 
 
Chap. II] THE NEW TESTAMENT 467 
 
 support was much more necessary for the tradition of what 
 was program-like. 
 
 Agreeably to this, we find that Christ Himself postulates 
 such a second Holy Scripture. This already appears from 
 the charge given by Christ to John on Patmos: " What thou 
 seest, write Qypd.yjrov') in a book, and send it unto the Seven 
 Churches" (Rev. i. 11), in connection with the strong sense 
 in which the meaning of jeypafifievov appears in the entire 
 Apocalypse. But since this ypdi^ov comes in too abruptly- 
 mechanically, occurs in an avTL\ey6/j,evov, and refers merely 
 to one single book, we point rather to the position to which 
 Jesus exalts the apostolate. With respect to this, we see 
 that Christ indeed took measures to assure the durability of 
 His work, by which to realize the end of His mission. No 
 trace is found with Jesus of a spiritualistic-mystical laisser- 
 aller. He institutes the apostolate, attaches to it a definite 
 authority, and commissions this apostolate with a definite 
 task. With respect to our present subject, this task is two- 
 fold: (1) the appearing as witnesses of the manifestation 
 which they had seen ; and (2) the proclaiming of things to 
 come. This double task was imposed upon them, not merely 
 with respect to those who were then alive, before whom they 
 should stand and preach by word of mouth, but with refer- 
 ence to " all nations," in those nations to all believers, and 
 for those believers "to the end of the world." Now put 
 this together, and how could the apostles bring this witness 
 to all nations and through all ages, except either by not 
 dying, or, since they died even very early, by the instru- 
 mentality of writing ? 
 
 That Christ gave a call to the apostolate not merely to bring 
 the Gospel to those who were then alive, but to be until the 
 end his authoritative witnesses to all believers, is already ob- 
 servable from John xvii. 20, where Jesus prays, not only for 
 the apostles themselves, " but for them also that believe on 
 him through their word. " That this refers to all believers 
 among all nations and of all ages lies in the nature of the 
 case,' since the intercession of Christ applies to all his peo- 
 ple; but it appears, moreover, very clearly from the connec- 
 
468 § 80. THE INSPIRATION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 tion. There follows, indeed, a double "that" (iW): (1) that 
 they may all be one, and (2) that the world may believe 
 that thou didst send me. It is self-evident that the unity 
 of believers cannot refer merely to the immediate converts 
 of that time, and in the same way that the cosmos of all 
 ages must receive this witness. Now look at verse 14, 
 where Jesus declares that He has given this Logos as a 
 word of God first to the apostles, and that it is that Logos 
 which, by the apostolate, is to be brought within the reach of 
 the world of all ages, and it follows from this that in the mind 
 of Jesus this apostolic witness must remain available in a 
 fixed form after their death. Entirely in the same sense, 
 therefore, in which in Matt, xxviii. 19 he extends the sig- 
 nificance of the apostolate to all the nations and till the end 
 of the world. That the apostles themselves saw the excep- 
 tional significance of the apostolate is shown among other 
 things by John in his First Epistle, i. 1-3, in which he de- 
 clares of himself and of his fellow-apostles : (1) that they 
 received the manifestation so realistically that he even says : 
 " and our hands have handled ; " and (2) that they were 
 called to preach this manifestation ; and (3) that the fruit 
 of this preaching must be the adoption of converts into the 
 fellowship of the apostolate, because by this fellowship only 
 could they enter into the mystical union with God and His 
 Christ. We even see Paul taking measures, as long as the 
 Scriptura still tarries, to fill in the gap, when to Timothy he 
 writes : " 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" (2 Tim. ii. 
 2). The conception lies expressed very clearly in this that 
 the apostolate brings something to the world that is to re- 
 main for all time the fixed and reliable tradition. 
 
 This significance of the apostolate extends itself even 
 farther, when notice is taken of those utterances of Jesus 
 contained in John xiv. 25, 26 ; xv. 26, 27 ; xvi. 12, etc. 
 In John xvi. 12-15, the difference is clearly anticipated, 
 which later on was to assert itself between the gospel (to 
 evayjeXiov') and the apostolate (6 aTro'o-ToXo?). The task 
 
Chap. II] THE NEW TESTAMENT 469 
 
 of the apostles was to be twofold : (1) as witnesses of what 
 they had seen and heard, they were to embody the record 
 of the life and work of Jesus upon the earth in a well- 
 guaranteed tradition ; but (2) also, to reveal to the world 
 what, after His ascension, Jesus would testify and make 
 known unto them. Not as though this revelation after 
 Jesus' ascension should advance, in a Montanistic sense, be- 
 yond Jesus, for of this Jesus Himself declares, " I have yet 
 many things to say unto you," and the only reason why as 
 yet He did not reveal them was " that the apostles were not 
 yet able to bear it." This later revelation, indeed, will pro- 
 ceed in a different way, and come to them by the Holy 
 Ghost, i.e. by way of inspiration, but this will not render 
 the character of this later revelation different in kind ; for 
 the Lord declares emphatically that the Holy Ghost will take 
 from the things that are His, " What things soever he shall 
 hear, these shall he speak," and thus only be able "to declare 
 unto you the things that are to come." This excludes, 
 therefore, the representation that this working of the Holy 
 Spirit should consist in mystical leadings. Definite mate- 
 rial is here spoken of, which is present in the consciousness 
 of the Mediator ; which purposely He does not as yet impart 
 to His apostles ; and which, after His ascension, the Holy 
 Ghost will borrow as content from the Mediator-conscious- 
 ness (He shall take of mine), in order by inspiration to com- 
 municate it to the apostles. This is so strongly emphasized 
 that Jesus repeats the selfsame thought three times : (1) in 
 the thirteenth verse, " He shall not speak from himself, but 
 what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak " ; 
 (2) in tha fourteenth verse, " He shall glorify me : for he 
 shall take of mine " ; and (3) in the fifteenth verse, " there- 
 fore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto 
 you." Evidently no mystical sensations are here spoken of 
 which were to be quickened by the Holy Spirit, but thoughts 
 and purposes are referred to which were present in the con- 
 sciousness of the Mediator, and which are indicated by the 
 "of mine." Of these thoughts, it is said, "He will guide 
 you into all the truth " ; and of these purposes, " He will de- 
 
470 § 80. THE INSPIRATION OF [Div. Ill 
 
 clare unto you the things that are to come." And in both 
 cases it applies to a definite content, which is obtained by 
 hearing, and after that is transmitted by declaring. From 
 which it likewise follows that no reference is made here to 
 what Jesus spake after His resurrection, but exclusively to 
 that which only later on should enter into their conscious- 
 ness by inspiration. On the other hand, John xiv. 25, 26, 
 views what we call the gospel (to evayyeXiov). Here is 
 mention, not of what was still to be revealed, but of what 
 had been revealed unto them, and by a failing memory 
 might escape them. Against this the Holy Spirit shall 
 watch, since "He shall teach you all things, and bring to 
 your remembrance all that I [Christ] said unto you," a 
 process of inspiration, as will be seen later, of an entirely 
 different character, referring to the past, even as the inspi- 
 ration of John xvi. 12, to the things that are to come. And 
 if the question is raised how this double tradition, which the 
 apostolate was to bequeath to the Church of all ages, would 
 find an entrance and belief, John xv. 26, 27 gives answer; 
 for their witness would be accompanied and supported by 
 the witness of the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers. 
 
 With the holy apostle Paul, however, an exception took 
 place. With him there could be no remembrance by the Holy 
 Ghost, because he had not followed Jesus. Therefore, Paul 
 declares that the exalted Mediator had also revealed the Gos- 
 pel to him. This, indeed, is the only meaning that can be 
 attached to his statement in 1 Cor. xi. 23, " For I received 
 of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you," which 
 testimony he repeats in 1 Cor. xv. 3 almost literally, where 
 he treats of the resurrection of the Lord. This is likewise 
 referred to by what he says in 1 Cor. vii. 12, " But to the 
 rest say I, not the Lord," which, from the nature of the 
 case, may not be taken as though his advice following 
 should possess no Divine authority, but as indicating that 
 in His revelation of His earthly appearance the Christ had 
 given him no direction concerning this, so that with refer- 
 ence to this the apostle speaks, not from the remembrance, 
 but from the revelation of the Holy Ghost; which repre- 
 
Chap. 11] THE NEW TESTAMENT 471 
 
 sentation, with the apostolic Scripture before one's eyes, may 
 not be dismissed as being far-fetched. With so many words, 
 indeed, Paul testifies in Gal. i. 11, 12, " For I make known to 
 you, brethren, as touching the gospel which was preached by 
 me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receire it 
 from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through 
 revelation of Jesus Christ." For the matter in hand, how- 
 ever, this makes no difference. With Paul, also, there is a 
 difference between what is revealed to him of the past, and 
 what is given him by inspiration concerning the thoughts and 
 events, the knowledge of which was given by Jesus to His 
 Church after His ascension, through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The inspiration itself of the apostles will be considered in 
 a separate paragraph. For the purpose in hand it is suffi- 
 cient to have shown : (1) that the Old Testament postulated 
 a second revelation, which could only come later ; (2) that 
 this second revelation also was destined for all nations and 
 every age, and on this ground called for documentation ; 
 (3) that up to the time of Jesus' ascension apart only of this 
 second revelation had come, while another part still tarried, 
 and that the end can only come with the parousia ; (4) that 
 Jesus instituted His apostolate as a definite company (^kolvco- 
 via), and imposed upon this apostolate the task of being 
 His witnesses until the end of the world; (5) that Jesus, 
 in order that they might accomplish this task, promised 
 and granted them a double inspiration of the Holy Ghost ; 
 first that of remembrance (viroiJ.vrjaK'), and secondly that 
 of guidance (6S?j7j;o-ts) and of declaring (ava^^'yeXCa'); and 
 (6) that since Christ honored the Old Testament as an 
 authoritative Scripture for the confirmation and documenta- 
 tion of the revelation which preceded His advent, the idea 
 was given of itself to have a similar Scripture do service for 
 the confirmation and documentation of this second revelation. 
 
 The result, indeed, puts the seal upon this. Such a second 
 Scripture did arise of itself. This second Scripture legiti- 
 mized itself as a New Testament to supplement the Old Tes- 
 tament within a relatively short time, and has fused Avith it 
 into one whole in the consciousness of the Church. There is 
 
472 § 80. INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT [Div. Ill 
 
 no question here of a mechanical compulsion. The apostles 
 had no thought of preparing a book which, under the seal of 
 their name and common authority, was to be handed down 
 to posterity. The tie braided itself entirely organically 
 between this new Scripture and the ever broader circle of 
 believers. It was the Holy Spirit Himself who on one side 
 caused the component parts of this Scripture to originate, 
 and on the other side secured the choice of these docu- 
 ments in the churches. The hesitancy, which arose with 
 reference to a number of these documents, shows with what 
 unanimity the others obtained an immediate entrance, and 
 how conscientiously the work was undertaken. The idea 
 that such a second Scripture must come encountered no 
 opposition, but was alive in the heart as an idea and a 
 presumption, before it showed itself above the horizon. 
 Orthodox and heterodox united in this Scripture-idea, and 
 the result was, that in proportion to the measure in which 
 the oral tradition changed color and the spread of the church 
 threatened its unity, the significance of this second Scripture 
 was more and more felt, until at length there was a complete 
 documentation, not only of the shadows (a-tciai^ but also of 
 the fulfilment (jrXripaxTi.'i'), which was acknowledged by the 
 churches in all parts of the earth as clothed with Divine 
 authority. This acknowledgment implied that the authority 
 assigned to the New Testament was understood in the same 
 sense as the authority attached by Christ to the Old Testa- 
 ment. To the sense of faith both soon formed one organic 
 whole. Whatever dominion the Old Testament had, that was 
 the dominion that was attributed to the New Testament. 
 And though it is entirely true, in the strict sense, that 2 Tim. 
 iii. 16, and similar utterances, were written with exclusive 
 reference to the Old Testament, yet the Church was entirely 
 right when it applied this as a matter of fact to the New 
 Testament as well, since indeed, after the organic fusion of 
 both, one and the same life flowed through both parts of the 
 Scripture, and in both the Divine Word was communicated 
 unto us. No mistake was made even when they went 
 farther; and in the treatment of the organic life of the 
 
Chap. II] § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY 473 
 
 Scripture, utterances from the Psalms were also applied to 
 the New Testament. It was indeed well known that origin- 
 ally such utterances could refer merely to what was then 
 written ; but it was understood that the same physiological 
 law for one and the same life is valid in all its stages, and 
 that for this reason the explanation of what had already- 
 appeared on this plant of the Scripture applied also to the 
 branches which sprang from it at a later period. 
 
 This physiological unity of the organic life of the Scripture 
 demands that attention shall likewise be paid to the instru- 
 mental diversity by which it came into being. The unity 
 lies in the auetor primarius, but this can only be fully known 
 when the needed light is thrown upon the rich multiformity 
 in the auctores secundarii. Let attention, therefore, now be 
 centred upon that instrumental side of inspiration. 
 
 § 81. Unity and Multiplicity 
 
 The Holy Scripture offers itself to faith as a tinity, and it 
 is that unity which our old theologians called its essentia, i.e. 
 that which makes it Scripture. This unity becomes apparent 
 when Jesus simply quotes it with an "It is written," and 
 when, by His authority likewise, the Holy Scripture becomes 
 the name by which it is called. In this sense the Scripture 
 is the Word of God, and every distinction, by which we 
 have only a Word of God in the Scripture, is a denial of its 
 essentia or being. 
 
 This representation of its unity is not only right but of 
 highest right for faith, and if it did not give rise to such ter- 
 rible abuse, it might serve, if necessary, as the sole sufficient 
 one in the realm of faith. Since, however, this representa- 
 tion tempts one so readily to quote every sentence which 
 occurs in the Scripture, in whatever place, as forming by 
 itself a Divine saying, and thus to destroy the organic char- 
 acter of revelation, it is the mission of the church to keep 
 alive also the seuse'of the multiformity of the Holy Scripture. 
 Even though it is entirely true that Jesus briefly quotes with 
 an " It is written," and does this also when a word is quoted 
 which in the Old Testament does not occur immediately as 
 
474 §81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY [Div. lU 
 
 a saying of the Lord, yet with Jesus such an " It is written " 
 betrays always a spiritual significance. A word of Satan is 
 not an " It is written," neither is every saying of men, nor 
 even every utterance of God's ambassadors. Hence, in order 
 to be able to quote Scripture authoritatively, the guidance 
 of the Holy Spirit is necessary, to impart the spiritual tact of 
 distinguishing the gold from the ore. One needs only to turn 
 to the book of Job in order to perceive how much spiritual 
 maturity is required to know what may or may not be quoted 
 from among the numerous utterances of Satan, of Job, of his 
 three friends and of Elihu, with an " It is written." Every- 
 thing that grows on and in the stalk is by no means wheat, 
 and especially with finer plants it always takes the eye of the 
 connoisseur to distinguish fruit from what is no fruit. Upon 
 the multiplicity, therefore, in the case of the Holy Scripture, 
 emphasis must also be put, not from the desire to exalt the 
 human factor, but to keep the gold vein of the Divine factor 
 pure ; and this will do no harm, provided its organic unity, 
 and not its multiformity, is chosen as the starting-point 
 from which to arrive at its unity. In all organic life unity 
 in the germ is first, from which multiplicity spreads itself. 
 By fastening leaf, blossom and branch to each other you 
 never form a living plant. He who, in the case of the 
 Scripture, thus begins with the multiplicity of the human 
 factor, and tries in this way to reach out after its unity will 
 never find it, simply because he began with its denial in 
 principle. 
 
 It was not mistakenly, therefore, that a predestined Bible 
 was spoken of in Reformed circles, by which was understood 
 that the preconceived form of the Holy Scripture had been 
 given already from eternity in the counsel of God, in which 
 at the same time all events, means and persons, by which 
 that preconceived form would be realized in our actual life, 
 were predestined. Hence in the course of ages all sorts of 
 events take place, and persons appear who do not know of 
 each other, and in the midst of these events these several 
 persons are induced, without the knowledge of a higher 
 purpose, to commit to Avriting certain facts, thoughts and 
 
Chap. II] § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY 475 
 
 perceptions. These persons also write other documents, and 
 other persons among their contemporaries write as well as 
 they. But, nevertheless, all those other writings are lost, or 
 are put aside, while those special documents, which were 
 destined and ordered of God to compose His Holy Scripture, 
 are not merely saved, but are made honorable, are compiled, 
 and gradually attain that authority which He had ordained 
 for these Scriptures. Thus, according to a plan, known to 
 God alone, a structure is gradually raised on which in the 
 course of many ages different persons have labored without 
 agreement, and without ever having seen the whole. No 
 one of the children of men had conceived the plan, to com- 
 pile such a Scripture ; not one had added his contribution 
 with premeditation, nor exhorted others to supplement his 
 contribution with theirs. Thus the plan of the Holy Script- 
 ure was hidden, back of human consciousness, in the con- 
 sciousness of God, and He it is, who in His time has so 
 created each of these writers, so endowed, led and impelled 
 thein, that they have contributed what He wanted, and what 
 after His plan and direction was to constitute His Scripture. 
 The conception, therefore, has not gone out of men, but out 
 of God ; and it was in connection with this conception, that 
 in every document and by every writer in the course of the 
 ages there should be contributed that very thing, of such a 
 content and in such a form, as had been aimed at and willed 
 by God. There is no chance, and hence this composition 
 and compilation of human writings are not accidental, but 
 predetermined. And this whole has thus been ordained, and 
 in virtue of this fore-ordination has thus been executed, as 
 it had to be, in order to respond to the spiritual needs and 
 wants of the Church of God in every age and among every 
 nation. For, of course, in the strict sense it may be said 
 that every writing is predestined, and this we readily 
 grant; but when our Reformed circles spoke of a "pre- 
 destined Bible " they intended to convey thereby the idea 
 of a medium of grace, which was taken up as a link in 
 the counsel of God for the salvation of His elect. In the-- 
 accomplishment of this purpose lay the justification of the; 
 
476 § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY [Div. Ill 
 
 Scripture, and the result has fully shown that this wondrous 
 book contains within itself the mystery of being suited to 
 every nation, new to every age, profound for the scholar and 
 rich in comforts for the meek. By this Scripture the world 
 has been changed, and thanks to its power a moral authority 
 has been established among the nations, of which it was cor- 
 rectly prophesied by Kant, that though it might be destroyed 
 in part, it can never be superseded by another equally im- 
 mutable authority. In this universality this Scripture works 
 an effect which is beyond calculation, and its influence is not 
 capable of analysis. There it lies iu the midst of the Church 
 and of the nations. A certain mystical tie unites the life of 
 the soul to it, as a phenomenon. It makes thereby an im- 
 pression, and by that impression it fashions spirits. It does 
 this in very different ways, and no theory is able to trace or to 
 interpret the working of that impression. Its light and its 
 glow radiate solemnly, and the result is that the coldness of 
 human hearts retreats and the darkness is driven back. 
 Such is its majesty, and it is by that majesty, that as one 
 mighty yeypairTac, as one overpowering word of God, it 
 masters our sense of self. In that unitj^ it shines as the 
 Holy Scripture. 
 
 He who believes in God cannot represent it otherwise 
 than that there must be a Word of God, one coherent ut- 
 terance of His Divine thought. Not in that anthropomor- 
 phic sense in which we men string word to word, but, in 
 such a sense as becomes the Eternal One, who is not subject 
 to a succession of moments, in the rich and full unity of 
 the conception. And in that sense the Holy Scripture 
 speaks of the Logos of G-od, which is something entirely 
 different from his spoken words (^p-^fiaTa), and which in 
 itself indicates merely the psyche of the thought, inde- 
 pendent of its somatic clothing in language and sound. If 
 man is created after the Image of God, and thus disposed to 
 communion with the Eternal, then this Word of Crod also 
 must be able to be grasped by man ; and even after his fall 
 into sin, this Word of God must go out to him, though 
 now in a way suited to his condition. This takes place now, 
 
Chap. II] § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY 477 
 
 since man has received heing and consciousness, in two ways. 
 In the way of the esse by the incarnation of the Logos, 
 and in the way of consciousness as this selfsame Logos 
 becomes embodied in the Scripture. Both are the spoken 
 Word (Ad7os Tr/ao^OjOt/cd?) ; but in the one case it is the 
 Word "become flesh" (adp^ yevofievov'), in the other "writ- 
 ten" (e77/)a^o?), and these two cover each other. Christ 
 is the whole Scripture, and the Scripture brings the to esse 
 of the Christ to our consciousness. Care, however, must 
 be taken to guard against the mistake, that our conscious- 
 ness can only be wrought upon by the spoken word. Very 
 certainly this takes place with spoken words, and the Holy 
 Scripture emphasizes the fact that God the Lord, who gave 
 us language and in language our human word. Himself made 
 use of those words by which directly to address us. Sinai 
 bears witness to this. But besides through the ear, our con- 
 sciousness is also affected through the eye, both by real 
 revelation in events and by symbolical shadow and manifesta- 
 tion ; and it is by these three means, first, the spoken word, 
 secondly, the common or extraordinary inworking in the real 
 world, and third, the shadows, types and figures, that God 
 the Lord has brought to pass, that His thought Logos, His 
 divine Word, has been conveyed to sinners. Only when in 
 this wise these spoken words, signs and shadows are taken 
 together and joined in their organic relation, can the rich 
 revelation of the Word of God be viewed in its unity. Not 
 merely the spoken words, but also the signs, and not merely 
 these two, but likewise the shadows, in the relation in which 
 God Himself has revealed them, together give us the Word of 
 God. He only who places himself under the full impression 
 of this majestic whole, can and may say, that the Word of 
 God has been revealed to him. For this reason the Logos 
 of God is both violated and maimed, when it is sought in the 
 spoken words only, and when consequently one speaks of the 
 words of God in the Scripture. The Scripture as a whole, 
 as it lies before us as a unit, offers us the organic whole of 
 this threefold revelation of God, and he only who takes up in 
 himself that ivhole, has in himself the image of the full reve- 
 
478 § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY [Div. Ill 
 
 lation of God, and consequently possesses the Word of Q-od. 
 That God's Word is not in the Scripture, but that the Script- 
 ure itself is the photograph of God's Word, does not refer 
 therefore to its formal inspiration, but simply states, that you 
 cannot miss any part of that Scripture without marring the 
 picture, the photograph, the etching, the copy, which holds be- 
 fore our eyes the full image of God's word. To this unity 
 faith stretches forth its hands. From this unity of conception 
 floAvs the Divine authority, to which the child of God gives 
 itself captive. How this unity hides in that wondrous book 
 remains a mystery which refuses all explanation. Only 
 when you stand before it, at the proper distance, and with 
 the faith-eye of the connoisseur you gaze upon its multipli- 
 city of tints and lines, the full image discovers itself stereo- 
 scopically to you. Then you see it. Then you can no 
 longer not see it. The eye of your soul has caught it. 
 In all its glory it speaks to you. 
 
 But, of course, the multiplicity of that appearance does 
 not cease to exist on account of that unity. The Holy 
 Scripture is not abstractly transcendent. It is this in some 
 apocalyptical parts, but by no means when taken as a whole. 
 And as a protest must be entered against every effort to take 
 the revelation of God's consciousness to man as being simply 
 immanent, as though it consisted merely of the unnoticed influ- 
 ences upon our inner being, equally strong must our protest 
 be against the effort to interpret the Holy Scripture as a 
 transcendent phenomenon standing outside of our human 
 reality. Here, also, the parallel maintains itself between 
 the incarnate and the written Logos. As in the Mediator 
 the Divine nature weds itself to the human, and appears 
 before us in its form and figure, so also the Divine factor 
 of the Holy Scripture clothes itself in the garment of our 
 form of thought, and holds itself to our human reality. 
 This is what our old theologians meant by their combina- 
 tion of the first and secondary authors, but it is something 
 that goes yet farther ; for even when, on Sinai, God with 
 His own finger engraves in human words His law upon 
 the tables of stone, the revelation remains not absolutely 
 
Chap. II] § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY 479 
 
 transcendent, but makes use here, also, of the human as 
 instrument. All the shadows and types bear the same 
 mixed character. All of sacred history rests upon the 
 same entwining of both factors. And even in miracles, 
 the Divine factor remains never purely transcendent, but 
 in order to reveal Himself, ever enters into human reality. 
 Hence, in all parts of the rich scenery interpreted to you 
 by the Word of God, it is ever the transcendent. Divine 
 factor, which exhibits itself to your eye in a human form or 
 in a human reality. H, now, in order to be the bearer of the 
 Divine factor, that human form or that human reality were 
 carried up to its perfection, no contradiction would be born 
 from this in the appearance ; but this is not so. As the 
 Logos has not appeared in the form of glory, but in the form 
 of a servant, joining Himself to the reality of our nature, as 
 this had come to be through the results of sin, so also, for the 
 revelation of His Logos, God the Lord accepts our conscious- 
 ness, our human life as it is. The drama He enacts is a trag- 
 edy, quickening a higher tendency in the midst of our human 
 misery. The forms, or types, are marred by want and sin. 
 The " shadows " remain humanly imperfect, far beneath their 
 ideal content. The " spoken words," however much aglow 
 with the Holy Ghost, remain bound to the limitation of our 
 language, disturbed as it is by anomalies. As a product of 
 writing, the Holy Scripture also bears on its forehead the 
 mark of the form of a servant. This, then, deceives our 
 vision. This produces a result like what occurs in the case 
 of many paintings of the latest French school, in which, 
 at first sight, one sees, indeed, bubbles and daubs of paint, 
 and even tints and lines, but not the image ; and only after 
 repeated attempts a view is finally obtained, so that those 
 daubs and bubbles disappear, the tints and lines become 
 active, and the image stands out before us. This was 
 the case with Christ Himself. How many an intelligent 
 Jew has seen the Christ, but has failed to discover in 
 Him the Son of God. Somatically, by merely gazing upon 
 the multiplicity of the features of the phenomenon, this 
 was not possible. No chemical investigation, however ac- 
 
480 § 81. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY [Div. Ill 
 
 curate, could have discovered any difference between the 
 flesh and blood of Christ and ours. He had a face like 
 our face, an eye like our eye; and he only who took his 
 stand at the proper distance, and who himself had received 
 light in the eye of his soul, was able at length to see the 
 shining out of the Divine nature in that Rabbi of Nazareth. 
 Hence, from the attention bestowed upon the human phe- 
 nomenal in the Holy Scripture, you must never promise 
 yourself the impression of faith. This rather leads many 
 away from the unity, and as such it stands in the way 
 of faith. And however much it is your duty to study that 
 multiplicity and particularity in the Scripture (both materi- 
 ally and formally), yet from that multiplicity you must ever 
 come back to the view of the unity of the conception, if there 
 is, indeed, to be such a thing for you as a Holy Scripture. 
 The Scripture does not exist otherwise than after the "divers 
 portions and divers manners " of Heb. i. 1, but in this diver- 
 sity the principal thing is ever the word of G-od. 
 
 So far, therefore, as the representation of the secondary 
 authors (auctores secundarii) as amanuenses of the Holy 
 Spirit, or also as an instrument played upon by the Holy 
 Ghost, exclusively tended to point to that unity of concep- 
 tion, there is nothing to be said against it. In that sense, 
 one can even say that the Holy Scripture has been given us 
 from heaven. If, on the other hand, one goes farther, and 
 for the sake of maintaining that unity of conception closes 
 the eye to the many-sidedness and multiformity of the Script- 
 ure, and the organic way in which it gradually came into ex- 
 istence as a sum-total of many factors, then nothing remains 
 but a mechanical lifelessness, which destroys the vital, or-, 
 ganic unity. This was certainly not intended by our older 
 theologians. They, indeed, pointed, and sometimes even with 
 much detail, to the differing origin of the books, to the dif- 
 ference of style and content, to the difference of character of 
 the authors and of the vicissitudes of their lives, and also to 
 the different tendency of the parts of the Scripture. But 
 yet it can scarcely be denied that they had established them- 
 selves too firmly in the idea of a logical theory of inspira- 
 
Chap. II] § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 481 
 
 tion, to allow the animated organism of the Scripture to fully 
 assert itself. Tliis obliges us, just because we join ourselves 
 as closely as possible to the historic Theology of the Reforma- 
 tion, in order to prevent misunderstanding to explain in some 
 detail this very different and mviltiform character of the mul- 
 tiplicity in the Scripture, first, as it concerns the instruments 
 of inspiration, and then as it concerns inspiration itself. 
 
 § 82. The Instruments of Inspiration 
 
 Every revelation, which is not involuntary but voluntary 
 and intended, assumes a consciousness in God from which it 
 goes out, and a consciousness in man toward which it directs 
 itself. It assumes, in the second place, a content which can 
 take on the form of the conscious. And finally it assumes 
 an instrument or vehicle by which it is brought from the 
 consciousness of him who will reveal himself, into the con- 
 sciousness of him for whom the revelation is intended. All 
 revelation, therefore, falls away if the consciousness in God 
 be not taken as its starting-point, and becomes weakened 
 when, though not entirely pantheistically but in a panthe- 
 istic manner, one grants that perceptions arise in us, but 
 denies that the fruit of those revelations in our consciousness 
 Avas beforehand known and intended by God. In the second 
 place, the essential character of revelation is undermined 
 when, in a mystical sense, it is left to be choked in the 
 world of our emotions, rather than made to come to its sub- 
 limate in our consciousness. And, thirdly, revelation be- 
 comes darkened and clouded when one studies exclusively 
 its point of departure in God and its point of arrival in man, 
 without a due consideration also of th6 conducting wire or 
 line along which it directed itself to us. By our crea- 
 tion after God's image, we are authorized to take, with refer- 
 ence to this matter, the transmission from the consciousness 
 of one man to that of another as an analogy, and in that 
 case it is certainly true that this transmission is accomplished 
 most readily and most often by the vehicle of language ; but 
 by no means by this alone. In all sorts of ways also are we 
 able, without ever speaking a word, to convey something 
 
482 § 82. THE INSTEUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 from our consciousness to the consciousness of others. First, 
 there is that entire series of communications which is calcu- 
 lated upon the eye as the vehicle ; all object lessons, pictures, 
 the look of the eye, the changes of the facial expression, the 
 movements of the body, the pointing to something, the doing 
 of a symbolical or illustrative act, etc. To this is added, in 
 the second place, the strong impression of a deed, of a 
 repeated action, of the example. And, finally, in the third 
 place, there enters here for our consideration, that varied 
 hypnotizing influence by which one is able to subject the 
 psychic life of the other to his will. But however broad our 
 repertory may be for this purpose, it nevertheless remains a 
 limited one, because we have no power over the person him- 
 self ; neither have we the disposition of his lot. With God, 
 on the other hand, there is no such limitation. He can influ- 
 ence man by all the means that are present in his human 
 composition and in his surrounding world. Hence, for the 
 communication of His revelation, first of all He has the dis- 
 posal of all the means that are at our service ; but also, in 
 the second place, the human body and mind, and all increated 
 capacities and powers, and the conditions in which one may 
 be placed. None of these means may be taken as standing 
 dualistically outside of God and over against Him. God 
 Himself formed our consciousness, and preserves it in exist- 
 ence from moment to moment. All our nervous life is in 
 His hand and is His creature. Our imagination is a 
 capacity quickened in us by Him. Our language is lan- 
 guage wrought in us by Him. He gave us the susceptibility 
 for impressions by our sense of sight. The mystical influ- 
 ence, which is shown by biology or hypnosis, of soul upon 
 soul, has been thought out by Him and realized in us. To 
 which is added, moreover, that as our Creator He formed 
 our personality and our disposition, approaches us in the root 
 and centrum of our inner being, and can involve our life in 
 all those events and experiences whose impression in us He 
 will use for His ends. Thus, in the fullest sense of the 
 word. He has the whole of man at His disposal and the world 
 in which He has placed man. This leads of itself to the dis- 
 
Chap. II] § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 483 
 
 tinction between the subjective and objective instruments of 
 inspiration, and to the distinction between those means which 
 of themselves are present in man or in the world round about 
 him, and those which He purposely causes to originate or 
 institutes for this end. 
 
 Among these subjective and present means of inspiration, 
 we name internal address, external address and the impulse. 
 
 By internal address we understand that God speaks to 
 man, without making use of his organ of hearing, in the 
 same way in which, outside of our organs of speech and of 
 hearing, we hold a dialogue with ourselves. This is an 
 evTo<! \a\eiv (a speaking within), by which God the Lord 
 inworks directly upon our psychic consciousness, and there 
 causes such thoughts or perceptions to arise as He wills. 
 As a rule we are not able to do this immediately from man 
 to man. We generally employ in this an action which goes 
 out from our own consciousness to our nerves, thence to our 
 organs of speech, thence to the air, by the repercussion of the 
 air upon the auditory nerves of the other, and only along 
 this way enters into his consciousness. But already in 
 magnetic sleep we have an example of a transmission from 
 consciousness to consciousness, which does not stand in need 
 of this middle-link of speech and hearing ; and in the dia- 
 logue which we hold with ourselves from moment to mo- 
 ment, we perceive again and again that our organs of speech 
 do not operate, neither, indeed, our organs of hearing, and 
 that nevertheless successive changes of thought take place 
 in us. And since God has access to our consciousness, not 
 simply from without, but also from within. He cannot be 
 bound to organs of speech and hearing ; hence by this in- 
 ternal address we must understand that He brings thoughts 
 directly into our consciousness, as coming to us from Him, 
 which we understand as a dialogue of God and our soul. 
 In this sense Jesus constantly affirms, " As I hear, I judge " 
 (John V. 30), which cannot be interpreted otherwise than 
 as a constant internal address of God in His inner being. 
 With Adam, also, such internal address must be assumed 
 before the fall, so that only after the fall we read that he 
 
484 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Diy. Ill 
 
 heard God, as though His voice walked in the garden upon 
 the wind of the day ; an entirely natural description of the 
 perception of God's voice, now no longer within him, but 
 outside of him; not as internal address, but as external 
 address. It is self-evident that by sin the susceptibility for 
 this internal address was blunted, but this does not take it 
 away, that also after sin, in still the same way, but now from 
 the special principium, the Lord was able to reveal His 
 thoughts and thus also His words in man, viz. in the 
 prophets. This internal address takes account, of course, 
 of the observation of conceptions that are present in our 
 memory, and of the language in which we express these 
 thoughts and conceptions. There is something in this that 
 offends, if one takes it that the forming of our conceptions and 
 of our words is arbitrary and the fruit of conclusions (^eirt?) ; 
 but it has nothing strange in it, when one perceives that the 
 forming of conceptions and of words is the fruit of our nat- 
 ural disposition (^vo-t?) and is thus necessary, and has been 
 appointed, therefore, for us by God Himself. Moreover, we 
 leave it entirely undecided whether, in this internal address, 
 God forms these thoughts and words in our consciousness, or 
 whether He merely occasions such an urgency in our con- 
 sciousness as interprets itself to our conception in those given 
 words and thoughts. We read, to be sure, in Dent, xviii. 18, 
 " I will put my words in his mouth," an expression which, in 
 comparison with Exod. iv. 15 (where it is said to Moses : 
 " Thou shalt speak unto him and put the words in his mouth," 
 i.e. of Aaron), makes one almost think of a whispering in the 
 ear, even as Christ promises His apostles that "it shall be 
 given you in that hour what ye shall speak" (Matt. x. 
 19) ; but by no means prevents our accepting with this figure 
 of speech also that the inworking has taken place in the cen- 
 trum itself of the human consciousness, and from thence ex- 
 tended itself to the organs of speech. This, however, by no 
 means excludes the speaking through the organ of speech of 
 a human being without having the action go out to his organ 
 of speech. It is well known how, in magnetic sleep, one 
 person is able to accomplish this with the other. With 
 
Chap. 11] § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 485 
 
 those who were possessed similar phenomena occur. In our 
 dreams also our organs of speech sometimes utter words 
 which at least do not rise from our normal consciousness. 
 And the strongest proof for this lies in the speaking with 
 the glossolaly, by which the mouth uttered words which 
 were entirely foreign to the thought-sphere of the speaker. 
 Analogous to this is the speaking that has sometimes been 
 taught to birds, and which from the side of God occurs in 
 the significant speaking of the ass of Balaam. All these 
 analogies show that the organs of speech of one can enter 
 the service of the consciousness of another ; as, for instance, 
 when one who knows no Latin and has no understanding of 
 medicine has been magnetized, and dictates a prescription 
 which not he but his magnetizer has thought out. 
 
 The external address bears another character, and is even 
 said to be (Num. xii. 8) " mouth to mouth," or also (Exod. 
 xxxiii. 11) to take place "face to face." Here the emphasis 
 falls not upon what man speaks after the suggestion of God, 
 hut upon what he hears, even in such a way that the by- 
 standers also can hear it. This is most clearly seen in Exod. 
 xix. 9, where the Lord says to Moses : " That the people 
 may hear when I speak with thee." This direct address 
 appears equally clearly in the speaking from Sinai to the 
 people, of which we read in Deut. v. 26 : " For who is there 
 of all flesh that hath heard the voice of the living Crod speak- 
 ing out of the midst of the fire, as we have ? " An entirely 
 unique fact, spoken of with emphasis no less than four times. 
 With the call of Samuel the selfsame phenomenon appears. 
 Samuel heard the sound of a voice, which he first took to be 
 Eli's voice, and which only afterwards by the direction of 
 Eli was recognized by him as the voice of the Lord (1 Sam. 
 iii. 8, 9). What we likewise read of the voice of the Lord 
 at the baptism of Jesus, and from the cloud at His trans- 
 figuration, falls under the same category even as the speak- 
 ing of God to Adam after the fall, when he heard the voice 
 of the Lord walking in the garden upon the wind of the 
 
486 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 day. With respect to this external address Num. vii. 89 
 is especially noteworthy, where the very place is indicated 
 from which the voice went forth. There we read : " Then 
 he (Moses) heard the Voice speaking unto him from aiove the 
 mercy-seat that was upon the ark of the testimony,/rom betiveen 
 the two cherubim; and he spake unto him." The distinc- 
 tion between this external address and the internal address 
 allied to it, exists principally in this, that with the internal 
 address the voice of the Lord is observed as coming up from 
 within, while with the external address a perception arises 
 that the sounds come from without. At the foot of Sinai the 
 people hear the voice coming down to them from above. 
 Moses hears the voice come to him from between the 
 cherubim. Samuel observes the voice from the side of 
 Eli's chamber. At the baptism of Jesus the bystanders 
 heard the voice from heaven. According to 2 Pet. i. 17, 
 Peter heard the voice on Tabor " from the excellent glory," 
 etc. Of course the addresses of Jesus on the way to Damascus 
 and on the Island of Patmos do not lie in the same line. 
 After His ascension, Jesus bears somatically, also, our human 
 nature. The question with regard to His speaking from 
 heaven, therefore, is simply whether Jesus descended in order 
 to speak with Paul from the ordinary distance, or whether this 
 speaking took place in a way similar to what is indicated to us 
 by the telephone. With the speaking of God in the address, 
 on the other hand, the somatic remains wanting ; hence, also, 
 the organs of speech by which to form the words. The ques- 
 tion, therefore, here remains whether indeed this sound of a 
 voice was produced by the vibration of the air-waves, or 
 whether in the tympanum of the hearer a sensation was 
 occasioned similar to what we occasion by the inflection of 
 our voice. " He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? 
 He that formed the eye, shall he not see? " (Ps. xciv. 9). In 
 like manner, is not God, who has established for us so wondrous 
 a relation of voice, organs of speech, waves of air, tympa- 
 num, auditory nerve and consciousness. Himself able to use 
 each of these. His creatures, and apply them in like manner 
 as He appointed and maintains them for us from moment 
 
Chap. II] § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 487 
 
 to moment by His omnipresent omnipotence ? There is no 
 room here for choice, since the more subjective interpretation 
 is equally intricate, or, if you please, equally divinely-natu- 
 ral, as the more objective. Neither does the occurrence on 
 the way to Damascus, when the bystanders about Paul did 
 not hear what he heard, offer any explanation ; simply be- 
 cause the speaking of the glorified Christ rests upon the 
 somatic basis, which is not present with God, and the tele- 
 phone even now shows how one can hear what the other 
 does not observe. Whether, therefore, the address was 
 accomplished by God's working on the air-waves, or merely 
 upon the tympanum, the same effect wrought by us when we 
 use our organs of speech, cannot be decided ; if only we hold 
 fast to the fact that the person addressed heard words in his 
 own language, in the same way as though he were spoken to 
 by his neighbor. 
 
 Merely for the sake of completeness we add in the third 
 place the impulse. By itself the impulse is nothing else than 
 the " being moved " Q^epecrOai) of 2 Pet. i. 21, in entire agree- 
 ment with the "moving" D!?S of Judg. xiii. 25. This " mov- 
 ing " indicates merely that the one moved has received a push, 
 a touch which has driven him out from his repose, in the full 
 sense " an impulse urging the mind." "And the spirit of God 
 came upon Saul " (H^Vfll), in 1 Sam. xi. 6, has precisely the 
 same meaning. The most forcible example of this impulse, 
 however, occurs in Jer. vi. 11 and Jer. xx. 9, collato 7 ; in both 
 of which Jeremiah testifies that he experienced in his heart 
 an impulse so overpowering that, try as he might, he was not 
 able to offer resistance to it until it became to him "as a 
 burning fire shut up in his bones." This impulse we num- 
 ber among the subjectively present means, for the reason that 
 the poet and artist in general speak of similar experiences. 
 In the " Deus est in nobis, agitante calescimus illo," an allied 
 sensation announces itself, which is even experienced by the 
 writer of prose, when, as the French call it, he moves en veine. 
 Such an impulse also forms the background of heroism. 
 The hero feels in himself an impulse to action which he 
 
488 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Dit. Ill 
 
 cannot explain, either from the world about him or from his 
 world within. To him as well as to the artist this impulse is 
 a mystery. The question whether such an impulse from the 
 world of mysteries is not connected with the basis of genius 
 in such select spirits, need not detain us here. Nothing pre- 
 vents us from allowing that such a basis was also present in 
 the whole personality of Jeremiah. He even knew himself 
 to be prepared for his calling from his mother's womb. But 
 even if this impulse in connection with inspiration is noth- 
 ing else than the use of what is present in the subject, and 
 the application of that for which he had the susceptibility, this 
 impulse here bears nevertheless a peculiar stamp, insomuch 
 as it always occurs as an impulse of the Holy Ghost. This 
 is a closer definition, which certainly concedes the fact 
 that God the Lord can cause such an impulse to come to 
 us in the centrum of our psychical life ; but now employs 
 it for a definite purpose, limits it to the sphere of the holy, 
 and places it in connection with the entire plan of Reve- 
 lation, which He is in the act of giving. The "clothing" 
 (^^57)5 however closely allied to the " moving " (DSS), may 
 not be placed on a line with the impulse. The former indi- 
 cates the sensation, by which he who was apprehended feels 
 himself enveloped and overcome as by an unknown power. 
 It refers to a sensation, which, far from being an incitement 
 to action, rather impedes and paralyzes. The D3?S makes 
 active, the tJ^S/ passive. 
 
 The second class of subjective means of inspiration in- 
 cludes the tardemah, " sleep " (Hto'l'in), the chalom, " dream " 
 (Dlbri), and the chazon, "vision" (piH). 
 
 The Tardemah, which occurs with Adam in Gen. ii. 21, 
 Abraham in Gen. xv. 12, and Saul in 1 Sam. xxvi. 12, is men- 
 tioned as a deep sleep, which falls upon a person from with- 
 out. "Fall" (723) is the constant word with which this 
 " sleep " is construed, and while at one time it says that the 
 Lord caused such a sleep to fall, at another time it says 
 (1 Sam. xxvi. 12) that this deep sleep from the Lord had 
 
Chap. II] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 489 
 
 fallen upon them. The same word occurs in Job iv. 13 and 
 xxxiii. 15 to indicate a very deep sleep, which falleth upon 
 men, in slumberings upon the bed, but as shown by the connec- 
 tion in both cases, as a prelude to a Divine revelation ; while 
 in Isaiah xxix. 10 such sleep is mentioned in an unfavorable 
 sense, by way of a figure, to express a spirit of entire dul- 
 ness and insensibility which should be poured out upon the 
 people. This last, therefore, is a sleep in a metaphorical 
 sense, for which reason it reads " the spirit of deep sleep," 
 and consequently "pour" (1D3), and not "fall" (h^i), 
 is used as verb. In all other places, on the other hand, the 
 Tardemah is taken in its real sense, and occurs again and 
 again as an absolute ansesthesis, which is effected by God 
 upon the person, in order in this entirely passive state to 
 cause an entirely other world to reveal itself to his inner con- 
 sciousness, or as was the case with Adam, to operate upon 
 him in a violent way. The narcotic sleep offers itself as 
 analogy to this, and especially in the case of the violent 
 operation which Adam underwent, one thinks naturally of 
 the condition produced by chloroform or of the first effects 
 of strychnine. But though it appears from these analogies 
 that human nature is susceptible to such a state of absolute 
 insensibility, the action which took place remains never- 
 theless an effect of what God directly wrought, and so 
 far as the nature of the psychical life during this sleep 
 is concerned, it is an action of a different sort. It makes 
 the impression of an entire liberation of the psyche from the 
 connection which through the body it has with its surrounding 
 world: a leading back of the psychic life into its centrum, 
 and in that centrum a disclosure to the psyche of a mys- 
 terious world, in which God comes to it and speaks to it. 
 A form of revelation particularly noteworthy, because evi- 
 dently this Tardemah does not enter into this life, but iso- 
 lates the person, to whom the revelation comes, from this 
 life, and then deals with him according to the law which 
 applies to another than this earthly existence. 
 
490 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 The " dream " bears a different stamp. In the first place, 
 here sleep or slumber maintains its common character; 
 and, secondly, revelation-dreams exhibit almost always the 
 form of our common dreams, in so far as in these dreams 
 also an isolated drama is seen by the ego of the dreamer. 
 The world of dreams is still a mystery to us. No one 
 can tell whether in sleep one dreams only when on awak- 
 ening one remembers it, or whether one always dreams 
 when asleep but that as a rule in awaking one has no 
 remembrance of it. Our dreams bear very different char- 
 acters. In the common dream all connection is wanting 
 with the actual condition, consisting in the fact that we lie 
 in bed ; but with the nightmare one dreams mostly of excit- 
 ing experiences which overtake us while we lie there. In 
 what is more slumber than sleep we dream that we lie awake 
 and are not able to get asleep. He who saw us slumber 
 knows that we slept, but to us no transition took place from 
 our dajr into our night consciousness. The content of our 
 dreams generally is made up from images and remembrances 
 which lie in orderly arrangement in our mind, but now 
 appear ofttimes before us in entirely different combinations. 
 Generally the outlines of the images in our dreams are vague, 
 but often they are so sharply drawn, especially in the night- 
 mare, that what we see we could readily reproduce in a 
 drawing. There are dreams which as mere play of the 
 imagination pass away ; but there are also dreams which 
 work lasting effects, which discover one to himself, and 
 dreams which are not free from guilt. Holy and demo- 
 niacal influences often work side by side in our dreams. 
 Whether indeed this wohdrous world of our dreams simply 
 shows the aimless movement of the images in us, or whether 
 these dreams are the result of the activity of our spirits in 
 our sleep, and constitute a component part of the spirit's 
 activity, remains an absolute secret to us. This, however, 
 may be said, that our dreams cannot be verified by us, that 
 they are not consciously produced by us, but that they leave 
 the impression of a drama shown to us by some one outside 
 of ourselves, in which we ourselves are concerned, without 
 
Chap. II] § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OE INSPIRATION 491 
 
 knowing how, and by which an outside power leads us invol- 
 untarily into scenes which arise without our aid. 
 
 It must not be said, however, that the dream in reve- 
 lation is nothing else than a common dream, in which, sim- 
 ply, other images appear. Not in the ordinary sense, but 
 undoubtedly in a pregnant sense (sensu praegnanti), it is 
 said in 1 Sam. xxviii. 6 : " And when Saul inquired of the 
 Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor 
 by Urim, nor by prophets." Three distinct revelation-forms 
 are here mentioned in which Saul might have received an 
 answer, and of these three the dream is one. And it is note- 
 worthy that next to false prophets the pseudo-dreamers also 
 _are separately mentioned as " the dreamers of dreams " in 
 Deut. xiii. 1, 3. Hence he who dreamed such a dream did 
 by no means at his awakening entertain the opinion that it 
 had been a common dream, which he could safely pass by 
 and forget ; but he lived under the impression that something 
 had been shown or told him which was possessed of symbolic 
 or actual reality. The difference, therefore, between these 
 two kinds of dreams was clearly perceived. This much, 
 indeed, may be said, that in the scale of the means of reve- 
 lation " the dream " does not stand high. The " dream " 
 is, indeed, the common means of revelation for those who 
 stand outside of the sacred precincts, such as Abimelech, Pha- 
 raoh, Nebuchadnezzar. The false prophets imitated nothing 
 so easily as the dream (see Jer. xxiii. 32) ; and according as 
 the revelation becomes richer and clearer, the dream becomes 
 rarer. Neither with Moses, nor with the Christ, nor with 
 the apostles do we find the dream mentioned as a revelation- 
 form. When this dream was real, it consisted in this, that 
 in the dream God appeared and gave His charge. When it 
 was half-symbolic, as at Bethel, then the appearance of God 
 took place in a given surrounding. And if it was purely 
 symbolical, as with Pharaoh, then it needed the interpreta- 
 tion (f1"iriS), and was in itself unintelligible and incomplete. 
 Revelation, therefore, by the symbolical dream consists of 
 two parts : the dream itself and its interpretation, both 
 of which bear a supernatural character. Every effort to 
 
492 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 explain the interpretation as a simple application of the 
 rules of symbolism is vain, from the fact that in the case 
 of both Joseph and Daniel the interpretation of the dream is 
 not given by those who were versed in symbolism, but they 
 were unable to do this, and it is given only by men who stood 
 outside of this peculiar science, and who frankly declared 
 that this interpretation was no fruit of their ingenuity, but 
 of Divine suggestion. The peculiar character of the revela- 
 tion-dream, therefore, consisted in this, that the person to 
 whom it came saw, indeed, the scene or drama in a similar 
 way as with so-called common dreams, in his night-con- 
 sciousness ; but what he saw and heard was no product of 
 the hidden workings in his own psychical life, but of an act 
 of God in him. That, nevertheless, the drama in these 
 dreams was generally formed from remembrances and images 
 that were present in the memory and in the imagination of 
 the dreamer, does not conflict with this in the least. As 
 with internal address and external address the conceptions 
 and words maintain the connection with the subjective nature 
 of the person addressed, it is self-evident that a similar con- 
 nection existed in the dream between what was present in 
 the subjective imagination as constitutive element, and what 
 God showed him. Only thus was it rational. 
 
 The vision bears almost the same character as the dream, 
 with this difference, however, that the dream occurs when 
 one sleeps, while the vision appears on the horizon of our 
 inner consciousness when one is awake. As little as the 
 dream, however, is vision a phenomenon foreign to our nat- 
 ure, which occurs exclusively in the economy of revelation. 
 What is exceptional, therefore, by no means lies in the vision, 
 but in this, that God the Lord makes use of the visionary capa- 
 city of our psyche, by which to introduce something into our 
 consciousness . It must be granted that the dream is more com- 
 mon than the vision, but this is no proof that the visionary does 
 not belong to our nature. No one, indeed, will exclude from 
 our human nature a thirst and talent for art, even though this 
 
Chap. II] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 493 
 
 sesthetic power, with most people, never passes the poten- 
 tial stage ; and such is the case with the visionary capacity. 
 Whether or not it will discover its existence depends upon 
 the inner and outward disposition of the person. In the East 
 the chance for this is better than in the West. The Semitic 
 race developed this capacity more strongly than the Indo- 
 Germanic. By one temperament its development is favored; 
 by another weakened. In times of excitement and gen- 
 eral commotion, it is more usual than in days of quiet and 
 rest. He who is sesthetically disposed becomes more readily 
 visionary than the intellectualist. Sensitive nerves court the 
 vision more than what have been called nerves of iron. Psy- 
 chically diseased conditions are more favorable to the vision- 
 ary than the healthy and normal ; and often before dying a 
 peculiar visionary condition appears to set in, which is ex- 
 ceedingly worthy of note. Vivid imagination forms the 
 transition between the common wakeful consciousness and 
 real vision, which operates in a threefold form. It is strong- 
 est when one becomes agitated by a phantom, especially 
 when this is occasioned by an evil conscience. Macbeth 
 sees everywhere the image of Duncan, the king he murdered, 
 and in his inquiry whether that image is real, he is unable 
 to distinguish appearance from reality. Of an entirely dif- 
 ferent nature is what is called "absent-mindedness," i.e. a 
 life in another world than the real, either as the result of 
 much study and thought, or of the reading of history or 
 novels. This is carried so far by some people, that the very 
 members of their family affect them strangely at times, and 
 they imagine themselves to be in the companyof their novel he- 
 roes. Finally the third form is the vision of the artist, in whose 
 spirit looms the image, which from his spiritual view he will 
 paint on the canvas or chisel in marble. But these are not 
 visions in the real sense, since the horizon of our inner view 
 here still remains subject to the verification of our conscious- 
 ness. And this is the very thing lost with vision. Images 
 and forms then rise before us, which force themselves upon us 
 as an outside power, repress the autonomous activity of our 
 imagination, and bring us outside of ourselves. Then one 
 
494 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OE INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 is awake, and sits, stands, walks, or rides, and meanwhile 
 loses himself, and sees sometimes close at hand sharply out- 
 lined images in colors and in forms, which, even when the 
 vision departs, leave him a sharp and clear impression, so 
 startlingly vivid that he can scarcely make himself believe 
 it was not reality. Hyperesthesis can introduce such illusory 
 conditions, and can even assume the form of monomania 
 and be a precursor of insanity. In the "Fixed Idea" 
 (Zwangvorstellung), also, a visionary image may obtrude 
 itself upon us against our will. And finally we observe, 
 that vision occurs in rest, in action, in dialogue, and even 
 with the adoption of the person in the drama of the vision. 
 But in whatever form it occurs, it is always character- 
 istic of the vision that the person who sees it ceases to be 
 master in his own consciousness and in his own imagination, 
 and is nothing but a spectator, while another power is active 
 within him. 
 
 With this general discrimination of that which is visual, it 
 is not in the least surprising that in the Holy Scripture the 
 vision is also attributed to false prophets (Is. xxviii. 7, Jer. 
 xiv. 14, Ezek. xii. 24, etc.), and that outside of Scripture 
 even, in history, the visionary plays such an important 
 role. When, therefore, in the Holy Scripture the vision 
 (jitrt and ntn^. Gen. xv. 1) appears as a fixed form, espe- 
 cially of prophetical revelation, it must not be taken as though 
 there were anything uncommon iu this vision ; but it should 
 be understood in the sense that God the Lord made use of 
 the capacity for visions in man in order to reveal to us His 
 will and His counsel. At best it may still be remarked that 
 the revelation vision often appears with a certain connexity 
 and continuity. Not some strange vision now, and again 
 one some years after, but the vision is constantly repeated in 
 a definite series, even introduced by a vision of a call, by 
 which all the visions become together the successive acts 
 of one mighty drama. Thus construed, the visionary phe- 
 nomena are certainly subjected to a governing power, while 
 the visions themselves have nothing uncommon about them. 
 That which is uncommon consists exclusively in this, that 
 
Chap, n] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 495 
 
 God the Lord, announces Himself in the vision, that it is 
 He that shows what is seen, and that the visionary person 
 knows that he is dealing with God. 
 
 Of the content of the vision, it may be said that the same 
 remarks apply to it as apply to that of the " dream." The con- 
 tent is generally composed from the data which were present 
 in the imagination or in the memory of the visionary person ; 
 but from these data a new drama is composed, and in this 
 way all sorts of mysteries of the counsel of God are shown. 
 The difference, however, between the prophetic and apoca- 
 lyptic vision is apparent. In the first the vision joins itself 
 to the historic reality, in the midst of which the prophet 
 Hves, while in the Apocalypse the drama arises from the 
 hidden world and moves towards him. For which reason 
 the forms and images in the prophetic vision are mostly 
 known and common, while in the apocalyptic vision the 
 images are monstrous, or appear in a wondrous manner, and 
 sternly set themselves against every effort to reduce them to 
 a figure intelligible to us. Recall, for instance, the cheru- 
 bim in Ezekiel, or the appearance of Christ to John on 
 Patmos, as sketched in Rev. i. 13-16. The content, however, 
 of such a vision is not always dramatically realistic, so that 
 it contains both speech and action. There are also visions 
 that are purely symbolical (such as the well-known visions 
 of the olive tree, the flying scroll, etc., of Zechariah), 
 which, just like the symbolical dream, miss their aim unless 
 an interpretation accompanies them. Wherefore, both in 
 Zechariah and in the Apocalypse of John we find this sym- 
 bolic vision constantly followed by its interpretation. 
 
 The ecstasy needs no separate treatment here ; later, in con- 
 nection with prophetical inspiration, it will come in its own 
 order. Ecstasy is distinguished from vision in degree of 
 intensity, but not in kind. As soon as the action of the 
 visionary power communicates itself to the motory nerves, 
 and consequently withdraws the muscular action from the 
 will of the person, ecstatic conditions follow, which according 
 
496 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 to the intensity of the action exerted, are weak in impulse or 
 overwhelming in their pressure. A single word is needed 
 here concerning nst"lto (Mar'ah, vision), which does not stand 
 on a line with Hfrifi (Mach'zeh, vision). The mar'ah is to be 
 distinguished from the chazon, in so far that the mar'ah seldom 
 plays any part in the sphere of psychic-visions, and rather 
 indicates the seeing of a reality which reveals itself. Chazah 
 is a gazing at something that requires effort, and in so far 
 indicates the psychical weariness which the seeing of visions 
 occasioned, while Ra'ah of itself indicates nothing more than 
 the perception of what passes before us. When a Mar'eh 
 appears, the seeing of this form or image is called the Mar'ah. 
 Special mention of this Mar'ah occurs with Moses. After 
 him no prophet arose (Deut. xxxiv. 10) " whom the Lord 
 knew face to face"; and since this "face to face" is chosen 
 by the holy apostle, by which to express the immediate 
 knowledge of the blessed, with Moses also it must be taken 
 to mean a seeing of the reality of heavenly things. In Num- 
 bers xii. 6-8 it is said in so many words, that the Lord 
 reveals Himself to other prophets in a vision or in a dream, 
 but "my servant Moses is not so." With him the Lord 
 speaks "mouth to mouth, even apparently (ntj!"lD1), and not 
 in dark speeches ; and the similitude (HJISSri) of the Lord 
 shall he behold." i We need not enter here upon a study of the 
 character of this appearing of Jehovah, but we may say that 
 this is no seeing in the visionary condition, but rather the 
 falling away of the curtain behind which heavenly realities 
 withdraw themselves from our gaze. This was a temporary 
 return of the relation in which sinless man in paradise saw 
 his God. Not continuously, but only in those moments 
 in which it pleased the Lord to reveal Himself to Moses 
 " with open face." A form of revelation which, of course, had 
 nothing in common with the Christophany or Angelophany. 
 
 1 It is noteworthy that hnid is here used for common vision. A devia- 
 tion, which comes under the general rule, that a sharply drawn distinction 
 of conceptions and a consequent constant usage of words is foreign to the 
 Scripture. 
 
Chap. II] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 497 
 
 In this pregnant sense the Vision forms of itself the tran- 
 sition from the subjective to the objective means of revelation. 
 Distinction can here again be made to a certain extent 
 between such mediums of revelation (media revelationis) as 
 were present in the ordinary course of life, and those others 
 which in a supernatural way proceed from the special prin- 
 cipium ; even though it is self-evident that it is by no means 
 always possible for us to draw the boundary-line sharply 
 between the two. In itself, the birth of a person is a 
 common event; but when such a person is set apart and 
 anointed from the womb to a holy calling, in this very 
 birth already mingles the working of the special principium. 
 These objective means of revelation must claim our attention 
 here, because they also were made ancillary to inspiration. 
 This appears most forcibly in the case of the Christophany 
 and Angelophany, which is never silent, but always tends at 
 the same time to reveal to man what was hidden in God. This 
 applies also to the signs (mmj<) in the widest sense, because 
 all these, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, the per- 
 manent as well as the transient, uttered audible speech, or 
 tended to support a given revelation, to explain or to confirm 
 it. The field for this should therefore be taken as broadly as 
 possible. The whole appearing of Israel and its historic 
 experiences must here be brought to mind : all the difficul- 
 ties between Israel and its neighbors ; the national conditions 
 which the Lord called into life in and about Israel; the 
 covenant with His people; the persons which the Lord 
 raised up in Israel and put in the foreground; the natural 
 phenomena which Israel observed; the diseases that were 
 plagues to the people ; the tabernacle and temple-service, 
 — in short, everything comprised in the rich, full life that 
 developed itself in Israel. To this is added as a second factor, 
 but woven into the first, that series of extraordinary actions, 
 appearances and events which we are mistakenly wont to 
 view exclusively as miracles. It was under the broad and 
 overwhelming impression of this past, of this nation as a 
 whole, and of these events, that he grew up who was called 
 to extend the revelation, and was trained for that revelation ; 
 
498 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIEATION [Div. in 
 
 which education was still more definitely accentuated by 
 personal surroundings and experiences. 
 
 But besides this general service which the objective phe- 
 nomena rendered, both the ordinary and the extraordinary, 
 they tended at the same time, by inspiration, to reveal the 
 thoughts of God to the agents of His revelation. This 
 applies especially to the whole utterance of nature, in so far 
 as the veil, which by sin was put upon nature and upon our 
 eyes, was largely lifted in that higher life-circle of Israel, so 
 that the language of nature concerning "the glory of the 
 Lord, which filleth the whole earth," was again both seen and 
 heard. It will not do to view the revelation of the power of 
 God in nature as an outcome of mechanical inspiration. It was 
 established organically, in connection with whatthe messengers 
 of God both saw and observed in nature. This revelation 
 assumes a different character, when the "rainbow," the 
 " starry heavens," and the " sand of the seashore " are em- 
 ployed, not as natural phenomena, but in their symbolical 
 significance with respect to a definite thought of God. Only 
 then does that which is common in itself become a sign; as, for 
 instance, when Jesus points His disciples to the golden corn- 
 fields, and speaks of " the fields, that are white for the har- 
 vest." The speech, which in this sense goes forth from the 
 common phenomena of nature, can thus be strengthened by 
 the extraordinary intensity of their manifestations ; as, for 
 instance, the thunder in Ps. xxix. has become the voice 
 of the Lord — the lightning-bolt, more intensively violent in 
 Ps. xviii., the mighty storm-wind of Hahakkui ui., or these 
 three together upon Horeb. This significance can also be 
 emphasized by their strikingly noticeable succession, as in 
 1 Kings xix. 10-12. Striking events, like that meeting 
 with Melchizedek upon Abraham's return from war with 
 the mountainous tribes, may give, as here appears, an 
 entire series of thoughts from the revelation of God. What 
 is common in itself can become a sign, simply because 
 prophesied beforehand (for instance, 1 Sam. x. 7). And, 
 finally, all sorts of things that were common in themselves 
 can obtain a significance by their combinations or positions, 
 
Chap. II] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 499 
 
 such as the tabernacle, together with all the things that 
 belonged to the sacred cultus ; the memorial stones in Jordan ; 
 the boards which Isaiah put up in the market-place ; the 
 scrolls of the law and Tephilloth, and even the iron pan of 
 Ezekiel. With all these things and phenomena, common in 
 themselves, the " sign " originates ; either because God at- 
 taches a definite significance to them, or because they derive 
 that significance from history or from attending circumstances. 
 And it is not so much these things themselves, but much 
 more the significance, original or given to them, which, 
 understood by faith or indicated by a special inworking of 
 the Holy Spirit, rendered service as an instrument to reveal 
 and to inspire the thought of God. 
 
 This applied in still stronger measure to those extraordi- 
 nary phenomena and events which are called "wonders" 
 (nsifi), or, in narrower sense, are spoken of as wonderful 
 works (Niphleoth). The root from which these spring 
 has been spoken of in connection with our study of the 
 special principium, and the effort to explain them subjectively 
 may be said to have been abandoned. If it is entirely true 
 that they mostly fell to the share of believers, and that 
 unbelievers sometimes did not see what believers saw very 
 clearly, this affords not the least ground to subjectivize 
 the miracles as such, after the intention of the Holy Script- 
 ure. Together with those single wonders, which one ob- 
 served and another not, there are a number of others, which 
 revealed themselves with an overwhelming impression to all 
 that were present. Just remember the exodus from Egypt 
 and the miracles in the wilderness. Again, it may not be 
 forgotten that the simple presence of a fact is not enough to 
 cause it to be perceived. As often as our mind is abstracted, 
 and our attention refuses its action, it occurs that something 
 is said or done in our presence which escapes our notice. Of 
 this, therefore, nothing more need be said. All these medi- 
 tation-theories have had their day, and nothing remains 
 except the absolute denial of the miracle on one hand, and 
 on the other hand the frank confession of its reality. Mean- 
 while, in the matter of inspiration, we are less concerned about 
 
500 § 82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 tlie reality of the miracle, or the general revelation of God's 
 power, which it reveals, than about the sense, thought, or 
 significance which hides in these "wonderful works." In 
 those miracles and signs there also lies a language, and in the 
 matter of inspiration that language claims our attention. 
 This peculiar language lies in all the phenomena and events 
 which are extraordinary ; and therefore no distinction need 
 here be made between the Theophanies, the miracles in 
 nature, the miracles of healing and of destruction, etc. In 
 all these miracles a thought of God lies expressed, and in the 
 matter of inspiration that thought of God is the principal 
 interest. For this reason, however, the reality should not 
 be looked upon for a moment as accidental or indiiferent. 
 Without that reality even thought misses its ground in God, 
 and it is by this very union and combination of to 6v with the 
 mind that thought receives its ratification, and comes to us, 
 not as an idea suggested by ourselves, but as a communica- 
 tion from God to us. The principal thought in all miracles 
 now is the thought of redemption. When the existing order 
 of things distresses us, and turns us pessimistic, and places 
 nature with its curse over against us and above us, as a power 
 against which all resistance is vain, the miracle proclaims 
 that that power is not the highest, that the heavens of brass 
 above us can be opened, and that there is still another reality, 
 entirely different from this order of things, which does not 
 clash with our moral aspirations, but is in harmony with 
 them. The world, such as it became by the curse, and now 
 is, under the tempering of that curse by common grace, 
 offends the only fixed point which the sinner retains in 
 his moral consciousness, viz. his sense of right. Wrong tri- 
 umphs again and again, while innocence suffers. Between 
 the hidden life and outward conditions there is no harmony, 
 such as our sense of right postulates. It is this problem 
 which presented itself with great force in Israel, and for 
 which no solution is given except in the miracles. The 
 miracles voice a palingenesis which, first in the psychical 
 and after that in the physical world, shall hereafter dis- 
 solve all dissonance in entire harmony. Every miracle is a 
 
Chap. II] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 501 
 
 real prophecy of the parousia and of the restitution of all tldngs 
 which it introduces. The miracle is the basis of the hope, in 
 that entirely peculiar significance which in Scripture it has 
 along -with, faith and love. It shows that something different 
 is possible, and prophesies that such it shall sometime he. 
 It is an utterance of that free, divine art, by which the 
 supreme artist, whose work of creation is broken, announces 
 the entire restoration of his original work of art, even in its 
 ideal completion. Hence there can be no question of a " vio- 
 lation of the order of nature." This assumes that this order 
 of nature has obtained an independent existence outside of 
 God, and that at times God interferes with this independent 
 order of things. Every such representation is deistic at 
 heart, and in fact denies the immanent and omnipresent om- 
 nipotence by which God supports the whole cosmos from 
 moment to moment, and every order in that cosmos. The 
 miracle, therefore, may not be interpreted as being anything 
 else than an utterance of the special principium, taken as 
 principium essendi. An utterance which, preformative and 
 preparative, and thereby at the same time annunciatory, 
 views and ends in the parousia. The Niphleoth, therefore, 
 include the spiritual as well as the material miracles. They 
 react savingly against sin as well as against the misery which 
 flows from sin. 
 
 Hence the miracles are no disconnected phenomena, but 
 stand in connection with each other, and, as was shown above, 
 they form one organic whole, the centre of which is Christ 
 as the " Wonderful " and its circumference His people. The 
 great central miracle, therefore, is the Incarnation, which in 
 turn lies foreshadowed in the Christophanies. With those 
 Christophanies the manifestation consisted in this, that, as in 
 paradise God had created the body of Adam, He likewise here 
 provided a human body, which presently returned to nothing, 
 and merely served to render the appearance as of a man pos- 
 sible. In the plains of Mamre Abraham does not perceive at 
 first that he is dealing with anything else than a common 
 human occurrence. Even where angel appearances are spoken 
 of, we may not represent angels as winged beings. Angels 
 
502 § 82. THE ESrSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION [Div. UI 
 
 have no bodies; they are spirits; and they appear with wings 
 only in the symbolic representation of the vision. In real 
 appearances they always stand before us in the form of a man. 
 All this, however, was altogether outside our nature. It gave 
 us to see what was like unto our nature, not what was of our 
 nature. Thus Christ is the "Wonderful" (Is. ix. 6), and in 
 connection with this there arranges itself about His person 
 the whole miracle-cyclus of His baptism, the temptation in the 
 wilderness, the transfiguration upon Tabor, the voice in the 
 temple, the angel in Gethsemane, the signs at the cross, 
 the resurrection and the ascension, in order to be succeeded 
 by the second miracle-cyclus of the parousia. In like manner 
 we see that entire series of Niphleoth, or mighty works, 
 going out from Christ and becoming established by Him in 
 the sphere of the elements, in the vegetable kingdom, in the 
 animal kingdom, and among men — a series of miracles, the 
 afterglow of which still gleams in the miracles of the apostles. 
 Peter, indeed, testifies (Acts iii. 16) that the authorship of 
 the healing of the cripple lay in Christ. 
 
 In this organic connection the one group of miracles ap- 
 pears before us which is immediately connected with Christ. 
 To this is joined a second group of miracles which does not 
 point to the Christ, but to the appearance and the mainte- 
 nance of His people. The fixed point in this group is the 
 miraculous birth of Isaac, placed in the foreground as the 
 great "wonder" by Paul in Rom. iv. 17 sq. What lies 
 behind this merely serves to prepare the ground, and render 
 the appearance of God's people possible. Only by the call- 
 ing of Abraham and the birth of Isaac, when he and Sarah 
 had become physically incapable of procreation, is this people 
 born upon this prepared ground, and come to its incarna- 
 tion. This was the great mystery. After this follows in the 
 second place the miracle-cyclus of Egypt, of the wilderness, 
 and of the taking of Canaan. Then the miracles which 
 group themselves about Elijah and Elisha in conflict with 
 the worship of Baal. And finally the group of miracles 
 which, outside of Canaan, is seen in the midst of the 
 heathen, when the great conflict between Israel and the 
 
Chap. II] §82. THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION 503 
 
 nations was temporarily ended witli the apparent destruc- 
 tion of Israel, as with its Golgotha. 
 
 Of course it extends beyond the lines of our task to 
 work out more fully this concentric exposition of miracles. 
 We merely wanted to show that in this entire phenomenon 
 of miracles there lies one continuous manifestation of the 
 great predominant thought of Redemption. This manifesta- 
 tion by itself was not enough to cause the thought that 
 expressed itself in it to be understood and to be transmitted. 
 To the " handling with hands " (yfrjjXafj^av) of 1 John i. 1 is 
 added the "seeing" (Oecopeiv), and it is only by that seeing 
 that insight is obtained into the meaning and significance of 
 the miracle. So much, however, is evident that the sight of 
 these several miracles, or the reading of the narrative, counts 
 among the means used by God in the revelation of Himself 
 to the holy men of old. This is true in a twofold way : 
 First, in so far as the miracles occasioned a deep impression 
 of God's presence and of His overwhelming omnipotence, by 
 which the ban, put upon believers by the superior power of 
 the cosmos, was broken, and they were set free and faith 
 was wakened. And secondly, because in each miracle by 
 itself and in the mutual connection of all these wonderful 
 works one grand, ever- varied thought of God expressed itself, 
 the language of which only needed to be understood in order 
 to have one's spiritual consciousness enriched. It should 
 be noted, however, that the holy men of God separated that 
 God who manifests Himself in His miracles, so little from 
 the God who created and maintains the cosmos, that in 
 their perception the glory of the Lord in creation and in 
 nature constantly identified itself with that other glory 
 which He revealed to and in His people. The last four 
 Psalms show this most plainly : First, in Ps. cxlvii. 1-11 
 the glory of God in nature is sung, in verses 12-14 the 
 glory of God's people appears, in verses 15-18 the power of 
 God over nature is again exalted, and finally we read, " He 
 sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments 
 unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation." Thus 
 to the singer the Niphleoth of the natural and special prin- 
 
504 § 83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION {Div. Ill 
 
 cipium form one grand whole, while the antithesis is not 
 lost for a moment. In the same way, in Ps. cxlviii. all that 
 lives not only, but every creature that exists, is poetically 
 called upon to praise Jehovah, while the manifestation of 
 the special principium asserts itself in the end, when it 
 reads : " And he hath lifted up the horn of his people, the 
 praise of all his saints ; even of the children of Israel, a peo- 
 ple near unto him. Hallelujah." And comparing Ps. cxlix. 
 with cl. it is seen that in Ps. cxlix. the glory of the Lord 
 among His people is the theme of the Hallelujah, while 
 in Ps. cl. it is His greatness as creator and preserver of 
 everything. Doubtless the singers and prophets of Israel 
 owed this majestic conception of nature, which is entirely 
 peculiar to Israel, to the prayer (Ps. cxix. 18), Open thou 
 mine eyes, that I may behold, etc. ; only by the working of 
 the special principium were they enabled to see the great- 
 ness of the Lord in the utterances of the natural princip- 
 ium ; but with this result that they by no means viewed the 
 miracles as standing isolated by themselves, but always with 
 the Niphleoth in the realm of nature for their background. 
 
 Thus we see that apart from real inspiration itself, all sorts 
 of subjective as well as objective mediums of inspiration were 
 employed by God, by which either to prepare His servants 
 for inspiration, to impart it unto them, or to enrich, ratify, 
 or explain its content. 
 
 § 83. The Factors of Inspiration 
 
 In the study of the factors of inspiration proper we begin 
 with a sharp distinction between inspiration as a means of 
 revelation and inspiration of the Holy Scripture. If, for in- 
 stance, I take the fiftieth Psalm, the questions may be asked 
 how, in what way, and on what occasion the singer was in- 
 spired with the content of this song, and what the relation is 
 between what he himself sang and what God sang in and 
 through him ; but these are entirely different from the ques- 
 tion by what action of the Holy Spirit this ancient song, in 
 just this form, was adopted into the holy codex, by which it 
 became a word of God to His whole church. For the pres- 
 
Chai». II] § 83. THE FACTOKS OF INSPIRATION 505 
 
 ent, however, this latter question as to the special inspiration 
 of the Holy Scripture may be passed by. It can only be con- 
 sidered when the inspiration of revelation has been explained 
 more fully. The thought cannot be entertained that a 
 prophet like Amos, as an inspired person, may never have 
 spoken or written anything more than those nine chapters we 
 now have as oracles of God in his name. In length these nine 
 chapters are scarcely equal to one short sermon. The asser- 
 tion, therefore, is none too strong, that he spoke under 
 prophetic inspiration at least twenty times as much, while 
 whatever has been lost has nothing to do with the inspiration 
 of the Holy Scripture. With these nine short chapters only 
 can there be a question of this. The two kinds of inspiration, 
 therefore, must be kept apart, and we must consider first 
 what came first, viz. inspiration as the means employed of 
 God, by which to cause His revelation-organs to speak, sing, 
 or write what He desired and purposed. It cannot be de- 
 nied that in the Holy Scripture, even for the greater part, 
 utterances occur from the revelation-organs which make 
 the impression of being the utterance of their subjective 
 consciousness, but back of which a higher motive appears to 
 have been active, flowing from another consciousness stand- 
 ing above them. In Psalm xxii., for instance, a speaker is 
 evidently present who moans from the depths of his own 
 sorrows, but before the song is ended the impression is 
 received that an altogether different " man of sorrows " 
 addresses you. Nothing derogatory is here implied to the 
 more objective medium of inspiration treated in the former 
 section, by which foreign words and scenes affected the ear 
 and eye of the men of God. But in the Holy Scripture 
 these objective means of revelation are not the rule, and the 
 greater part of the content of the Scripture presents itself 
 as having come forth subjectively from the human author, 
 while nevertheless in his subjective utterance there worked 
 a higher inspiring irvevfia ; and it is properly this action of 
 the Holy Spirit which here introduces inspiration as means 
 of revelation in its narrowest sense. For this reason inspira- 
 tion bears one character in lyric poetry, and another with 
 
506 § 83. THE FACTOKS OF INSPIRATION [Div. II] 
 
 the prophets, and still another with the Chokma, with Christ 
 and with the apostles, so that each of these kinds of inspira- 
 tion must separately be considered. But these lyrical, pro- 
 phetical, chokmatic inspirations, etc., have something in 
 common, and this must first be explained. 
 
 Inspiration rests upon the antithesis between the Spirit 
 of God and the spirit of man, and indicates that the Spirit of 
 God enlists into His service the spirit of man, disposes of it, 
 and uses it as His conscious or unconscious organ. In this 
 the human spirit is either more active or passive, in pro- 
 portion as it has greater or lesser affinity to what God wiU 
 reveal by it. If that affinity is entire, as is the case in 
 some apostolic epistles, the action of the human spirit will 
 seem to be the sole factor, and inspiration will scarcely be 
 observed ; while, on the other hand, where this affinity is 
 very limited, as is the case with the most of Ezekiel's visions, 
 the human spirit appears as little more than a phonograph, 
 which serves to catch the action of the Spirit of God. 
 This inspiration lies grounded in the nature of our human 
 spirit. This is no isolated potency, but one that is pervasive. 
 Our spirit can be affected by other spirits, and this can be 
 done in two ways : either by entering in by the periphery, 
 in order thence to approach the centrum of our spirit ; or by 
 entering into that centrum, in order thence to extend itself 
 to the periphery. A great orator approaches his hearers in 
 the periphery of their consciousness, and thence penetrates 
 to the roots of their sense of self ; while, on the other hand, 
 the biologist or hypnotizer finds a means in the nervous 
 system by which to penetrate at once to the centrum of the 
 human spirit, and is able from thence to reach the periph- 
 ery in such a way that the mesmerized subjects think and 
 speak as he wills. Such a central inworking upon the 
 human spirit goes out from the Spirit of God, and by in- 
 version from Satan. Our spirit in our innermost being is 
 not independent, but dependent, and, even without inspira- 
 tion (taken in its narrower sense of means of revelation as 
 Theopneustic), workings and inspirations from the spiritual 
 world go out to the centrum of the life of our soul, which 
 
Chap. U] § 83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION 507 
 
 affect us for good or for evil. The poetical impulse, the 
 inner promptings in every department of art, heroism, en- 
 thusiasm, animation in speech and writing, the stimulus of 
 genius, premonition, and in connection with this the entire 
 chapter of divination and all that it entails, show incontest- 
 ably that our consciousness is not a boat propelled solely by 
 the oar-stroke of our own exertions, but that it may likewise 
 carry a sail which may be filled by winds over which we 
 have no control. 
 
 Passing by Satanic inspiration, which will be discussed 
 later in connection with the energumens, this general inspi- 
 ration finds its ground first of all in the omnipresent imma- 
 nence of Q-od. ("In him we live and move and have our 
 being.") There is not merely an " of him " and a " through 
 him," but also an " in him." He is the fountain of all good, 
 not in the sense that now and then we fill our life-jar with 
 waters from that fountain, and afterward live of ourselves, 
 but in the sense that, like plants, we flourish by the side 
 of that fountain, because the root of our life is constantly 
 refreshed by waters from that fountain. This relation of 
 God is defined, in the second place, more closely by our 
 creation after the image of Q-od. If one may say so, there 
 is a general inspiration of God in all nature. It is lasting 
 and limited in animal instinct, and in a measure even in 
 wine and in the stimulating agents of several medicines. 
 When a dog jumps in the water to save a child, there is an 
 inspiration of God in that animal ; and when thunder dis- 
 tresses us, and fresh mountain air makes breathing an ex- 
 hilaration, there is inspiration of a higher power. But witL 
 man, this inspiration assumes a special form by virtue of the 
 affinity between God's Spirit and ours. God is Spirit. This 
 is, according to Christ, to ovtco^ 6v of His being, and conse- 
 quently with us also the deepest point of our human life lies in 
 our pneumatical existence. In so far as our nature is created 
 after the image of God in original righteousness, this excel- 
 lency could be lost and our nature become depraved; but not 
 our creation after God's image so far as it pertains to its essence 
 (quod ad substantiam). Our human nature is unassailable. 
 
508 §83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION [Div. HI 
 
 The capability of having consciousness, which is the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of the pneumatical, has not been lost, and 
 in this lies man's openness to inspiration (^Inspirationsfdhig- 
 keif). Hence, inspiration can work in the unconverted as 
 well, as was the case with Balaam and Caiaphas, and though 
 it generally occurs in connection with conversion, it is by no 
 means dependent upon this. The creation of man as a pneu- 
 matic being opens the possibility of communion between his 
 spirit and the Spirit of God, by which the thoughts of God 
 can be carried into his thoughts. To which is to be added, in 
 the third place, that man is created, not as one who is always 
 the same, but as a self-developing being, and that it is his 
 end (reXo?) that God shall be in him and he in God, so that 
 God shall be his temple (Rev. xxi. 22), and he a temple 
 of God (Eph. ii. 21). This, likewise, offers the means by 
 which the influence of the Spirit of God upon his spirit 
 can be supremely dominant. 
 
 Care, however, should be taken against a confusion of 
 terms, lest by an exchange with its metonymy inspiration 
 itself escape from our grasp. Inspiration is not the same 
 as communion. This, indeed, places the ego of man over 
 against the ego of God, and makes them wed or enter into 
 covenant, but ever in such a way that the ego of man accepts 
 the communion, enters upon it, and lives in accordance with 
 it, — a unity, but one which rests upon a duality. Neither 
 may we confuse the ideas of inspiration and mystical union. 
 This, indeed, rests upon the necessary and natural union 
 between the head and members of one organism and the 
 body of Christ, and is not grounded in the consciousness, 
 but in the essentia. The mystical union makes us one plant 
 with Christ. Neither, again, may inspiration be confused 
 with regeneration and with its consequent enlightening. To 
 illustrate : inspiration is the use of the telephone, in order to 
 communicate a thought, while regeneration is the act which 
 repairs the telephone when out of order. With such 
 a man as Isaiah, regeneration was the means to save him 
 unto life eternal, and inspiration to make him of service to 
 the Church of God. Every effort, therefore, to interpret 
 
CiiAi'. 11] § 83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION 509 
 
 inspiration from an ethical basis, and to understand it as a 
 natural fruit of sanctification, must be resisted. The possi- 
 bility of inspiration does not depend upon the normal or 
 abnormal condition of the nature of man, but lies in his 
 nature as a pneumatic being, which as such is open to the 
 central inworking of the Spirit of God. 
 
 Hence, with inspiration we deal with three factors : 
 (1) with the spirit that inspires (spiritus inspirans), (2) with 
 the spirit of man that is inspired (spiritus hominis cui inspi- 
 ratur), and (3) with the content of what is inspired. 
 
 In God who inspires, inspiration assumes thought and will. 
 He who pantheistically denies consciousness in God or 
 merely darkens it, abandons every idea of inspiration. For 
 this very reason God is ever revealed unto us in the Holy 
 Scripture as the light, and this light in God is pictured as 
 the brightness from which the light of self-consciousness 
 is ignited in our spirit. "In thy light shall we see light." 
 Nothing, therefore, can be present in our consciousness but 
 God knows it. " For there is not a word in my tongue, but, 
 lo, Lord, thou knowest it altogether." That this does not 
 refer to our words merely, appears sufficiently clearly from 
 the statement, that " the righteous God trieth the heart and 
 reins " (Ps. vii. 9) ; for by that word " reins " the deepest root 
 is indicated in the subsoil of our conscious soul-life. The most 
 complete transparency of pure, clear consciousness is like- 
 wise a characteristic of the being of God, by which His the- 
 istic existence stands or falls. The ethical representation 
 must, therefore, be dismissed, that inspiration gives rise 
 to certain perceptions in us, which only afterwards produce 
 thoughts in our human consciousness. At heart, this is 
 nothing but the pantheistic representation of a deep (^u^o?) 
 out of which the thought separates itself in us only. If 
 it is asked whether consciousness in God is anthropomorphic, 
 and whether our world of thought is not limited by and bound 
 to the finite, we readily reply: that the question contains some 
 truth. The apostle himself acknowledges that our knowledge 
 is a knowledge "in part," and that all omv gnosis will sometime 
 pass away, in order to make room for a higher "seeing." 
 
510 §83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 He, however, who infers from this, that for this reason there 
 is no consciousness in God, contradicts the apostle's assertion 
 that even to us a still higher form of consciousness is com- 
 ing. If consciousness could assume one form only, even the 
 finite form of our consciousness by day, the conclusion would 
 certainly be correct. But this is not true, since conscious- 
 ness has many forms, one by day and one by night, one 
 without and one in ecstasy, one now and one in the realm 
 of glory, which proves it to be entirely natural that con- 
 sciousness in God has its own Divine form. Neither does 
 this end the question. That Divine consciousness has affin- 
 ity to our human consciousness. " We shall know, even as 
 we are known." If it is self-evident, that our future con- 
 sciousness must stand in the genetic connection of identity 
 with our present consciousness, this of itself provides the 
 bridge which connects the divine consciousness with ours. 
 Even among men, the consciousness of a child differs from 
 the consciousness of a man, and yet the greater can enter 
 the consciousness of the child. Consciousness differs with 
 each and all, but true love is able to place itself in another's 
 place ; yea, in another's consciousness. With reference to 
 its formal side, susceptibility for learning foreign languages 
 sufficiently shows that consciousness is possessed of very 
 great pliability, and is by no means frozen solidly in its 
 form. If these are features in us of the image of God, 
 we may safely conclude, that in the consciousness of God 
 (1) there is affinity to our consciousness ; and (2) the 
 possibility is found of entering into the form of the con- 
 sciousness of another. This becomes a certainty, when 
 you remember, that God Himself has fixed the form of our 
 consciousness, and has first thought it in this way before 
 He created it. Our form of consciousness, therefore, is not 
 a strange something to God, for He knew it before He 
 enriched us with it. And though we grant unconditionally 
 that the thoughts of God may not be assumed as clothed in 
 our forms, we maintain that God is able to cast them into 
 our consciousness-form, and hence is also able to think them 
 in our form. 
 
Chap. II] § 83. THE FACTORS OP INSPIRATION 511 
 
 Next to this clear consciousness of thought, inspiration 
 assumes in God -who inspires the will to inspire this or that 
 thought. This element of the will was neglected in former 
 times, but in the face of the pantheistic representation of in- 
 voluntary communication it now deserves a special emphasis. 
 A twofold inspiration goes out from us : one is voluntary, 
 the other involuntary. Voluntary when purposely we try 
 to exert a certain influence; involuntary when our act or 
 person exerts an influence independently of our will. This 
 is so, because our self-consciousness is exceedingly limited, 
 so that we observe a very small part only of the working 
 that goes out from us. With God, however, this is not so. 
 He is not like the star that sparkles without knowing it, but 
 is transparent to Himself to the deepest depths of His Being 
 and the utmost circumference of His action. Here, there- 
 fore, is no door that stands open for every passer-by to look 
 in at will, but a door which on each occasion is opened. 
 Inspiration of itself, therefore, presupposes in God the will 
 and the purpose, from His Divine consciousness, to intro- 
 duce into the consciousness of man this or that thought, 
 transposed and interpreted into our form of thought, and 
 thus to reveal it among men. 
 
 The second factor that claims our attention is the spirit 
 that is inspired ; viz. the spirit of man. The nature of this 
 human consciousness may differ materially, and this differ- 
 ence may arise from its disposition as well as from its con- 
 tent. With reference to the disposition there can be affinity, 
 neutrality, or opposition. In the case of the venerable 
 Simeon in the Temple, there was a strong affinity of mind 
 and inclination to the inspiration that was given him. The 
 disposition of Jeremiah in Chapter xx. of his oracles bears 
 witness to a strong opposition against inspiration; while 
 in Chokmatic poetry the disposition of the singer does 
 not appear, and thus remains neutral. Of course, with 
 affinity and sympathy the subjective expression is far more 
 strongly apparent; with an antipathetic disposition more 
 
512 § 83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 violence must be done to the man of God ; and with a neu- 
 tral disposition neither the subject nor the feelings of the sub- 
 ject come to light. With a sympathetic disposition and a 
 neutral mind both, it is possible that the revelation-organ 
 itself should not observe that inspiration takes place, as is seen 
 in many a Psalm and in the prophecy of Caiaphas, John xi. 
 50 and 52. The strongest possible expression for inspiration 
 is the "Now this he said not of himself." Connected with 
 this appears also the difference between aphoristic, more con- 
 tinuous, and altogether continuous inspiration. We catch 
 inspired words from the lips of Zechariah and Simeon, with 
 whom it is restricted to one single inspiration ; we read of 
 prophets and apostles, with whom repeated inspiration fre- 
 quently bore an official character ; and in Christ, of whom 
 it is written that the Spirit not merely descended upon Him, 
 but also remained upon Him, we see an inspiration in His 
 human consciousness, which ever continues, — " As I hear, I 
 judge " (John v. 30). 
 
 But the content at hand in their consciousness must like- 
 wise be taken into account. By consciousness in this con- 
 nection we do not merely understand the action of thinking, 
 but also, sensation, perception, and observation in the general 
 sense. With a man of genius from the upper strata of society, 
 like an Isaiah, the content of this consciousness was, of course, 
 much richer than with Amos, who had lived in the country 
 among herdsmen ; and, on the contrary, poorer with James, 
 who originally was a fisherman, than with Paul, who had 
 attended the schools of learning. If, in such a conscious- 
 ness, the conceptions and representations are already present 
 which are necessary for the oracle as its component elements, 
 the oracle needs merely to effect the new combination. If, 
 on the other hand, they are wanting, the material of imagery 
 for the symbolical manifestation must be borrowed from the 
 content of the imagination. Though, thus, the so-called o-w- 
 T^ptja-i's (i.e. our memory, our store of things) is in the first 
 place the all-important factor, the imagination is needful as 
 well, and not merely for the images in its portfolio, if we may 
 so express ourselves, as for what, perhaps, the imagination is 
 
Chap. 11] §83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION 513 
 
 capable of doing with those images. Even outside of inspira- 
 tion, with writers of note, you will see that series of images in 
 the foreground which are in harmony with their inner nature ; 
 and in proportion as the writer lives either by apprehension 
 or by conception, the images will lie loosely among his words 
 or they will dominate his style. The many-sided content of 
 the consciousness must not be estimated by what lies ready 
 for use at a given moment, but also by its almost forgotten 
 treasures. All that has ever gone through our memory has 
 left its impression behind, and we often discover that there 
 has been stored in our consciousness the memory of con- 
 ditions, persons, names and conceptions, which, except 
 for some impulse from without, would never have recurred 
 again to our mind. And finally, to this content of our con- 
 sciousness must be added all that which, outside of us, has 
 been chronicled and committed to writing or image, and 
 thus lies in reach to enrich our consciousness. The sig- 
 nificance of this ready material in the consciousness, or of 
 whatever else our consciousness has at its disposal, be- 
 comes plain at once, if we but recognize the organ of reve- 
 lation to be a messenger who has something to communi- 
 cate, on the part of God and in His name, to His Church. 
 If, for instance, a superior ofiBcer in the army has to employ 
 a captured farm-hand to send tidings to an inferior officer who 
 has command in some distant town, the entire communication 
 must be committed to writing, or, if the man is clever, be ex- 
 plained to him clearly and in detail. If, on the other hand, 
 the officer sends an adjutant who saw the battle from begin- 
 ning to end, and knows the position of the entire army, a hasty 
 word in passing whispered in his ear is sufficient, and quick 
 as lightning the adjutant rides to obey the given order. 
 
 It must not be imagined, however, that in the case of inspi- 
 ration God the Lord is limited by this affinity of disposition, or 
 by this content of the consciousness. Most of the apocalyptical 
 visions rather prove the contrary. We have simply intended 
 to indicate that, as a rule, that affinity and that content of the 
 consciousness are employed by God as elements in inspiration. 
 This is true even theologically; not as if God, for the sake of 
 
514 § 83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 the success of Revelation, selected the most suitable persons 
 from among those who were accessible, but rather that He 
 Himself caused these men to be born for this purpose, predes- 
 tined them for it, and caused them to spend their youth amid 
 such circumstances and surroundings, that in His own time 
 they stood in readiness as suitable instruments. As Jeremiah 
 declares that to him it was said: "Before I formed thee in 
 the belly I knew thee : and before thou earnest forth out of the 
 womb I sanctified thee. I have appointed thee a prophet unto 
 the nations " (Jer. i. 5). This constitutes the fundamental 
 thought which dominates the appearance of the revelation- 
 organs from first to last. The words, "I know thee by 
 name," in Ex. xxxiii. 12, indicate the same thing. And 
 what is said of the ideal prophet in Isa. xlix. 1, 2, 5, by 
 virtue of the comprehensive character of predestination, applies 
 to all. This predestination cannot be limited to these men 
 personally, for it embraces the whole sphere of life from 
 which they sprang and in which they appeared. Such in- 
 spiration would simply have been inconceivable in England 
 or among any of our Western nations. Our consciousness 
 stands too greatly in need of sharp conceptions, visible out- 
 lines and rigid analysis. Since the world of thought that 
 discovers itself to us in inspiration lies at first concentrated 
 in its centrum, from whence it only gradually proceeds, there 
 could be no question here of sharply drawn lines as the result 
 of rigid analysis. The lines of the acanthus leaf cannot be 
 admired so long as this leaf still hides in the bud. Inspirar 
 tion, therefore, demanded a human consciousness that was 
 more concentrically constituted, and this you find in the 
 East, where dialectic analysis is scarcely known, while intui- 
 tion is so much more penetrative, for which reason it describes 
 its content rather in images than in conceptions. Moreover, 
 intuitive consciousness lends itself more easily to that pas- 
 siveness which, in a measure, is needful with all inspiration. 
 The Western mind reacts more strongly and quickly against 
 impressions received; the Oriental has that passive recep- 
 tivity by which he surrenders himself to perceptions and drifts 
 along with their current. He is more deeply inspired by nat- 
 
Chap. II] §83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION 515 
 
 ure, and therefore more susceptible to the Divine influence 
 (jirda-x^ip vTTo tou ^eoO) which is the characteristic of all 
 inspiration. While we are more ready to speak, the Oriental 
 is more inclined to listen; he does not know what conver- 
 sation is, in our sense of the word, and that very inclina- 
 tion to listen aids his predisposition to inspiration. To this 
 we may add, that among the nations of the East, Israel 
 possessed these peculiarities in that modified form which pre- 
 vented one-sidedness. It was Eastern, but formed the fron- 
 tier against the West. The intuitiveness of the Israelitish 
 consciousness, therefore, did not easily turn into an extrava- 
 gant fancifulness, neither was it lost in a deep revery. The 
 Jew possesses all needful qualities to secure a position of in- 
 fluence for himself in the Western world. Within himself he 
 carried two worlds, and this rendered Israel more capable 
 than any other people of receiving inspiration and of repro- 
 ducing it intelligibly to the Western world. Paul, the dia- 
 lectician, and Zachariah, the seer of visions, were both from 
 Israel. In connection with this, the Jew in the East had 
 that peculiarity, which still marks the French of to-daj^, of 
 being inflamed by an idea, which is no result of logical 
 thought, but springs from national life. The promise given 
 to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees becomes the pole-star to 
 Israel's life as a nation. That one animating thought ele- 
 vates Abraham above Lot, and presently Jacob above Esau, 
 maintains Israel's independence in Egypt, appears again and 
 again during the period of the Judges, finds at length its 
 embodiment in the idea of the King, finds its acme in the 
 expectation of the Messiah, and preserves Israel in Babylon 
 under Antiochus Epiphanes, under Herod, and in its periods 
 of deformation. From the nature of the case, such an idea 
 animating an entire people is a valuable preparation for in- 
 spiration. It accustoms the whole nation to live under a 
 higher inspiration. It has its disadvantages; life in an imagi- 
 nary world may tempt to sin, as it did Tamar, and feeds false- 
 hood especially, which is one of Israel's characteristic sins, but 
 this is the defect of its quality, and does not affect its excel- 
 lence in the least. 
 
516 § 83. THE l^ACTORS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 If such was the general soil prepared in Israel for inspira- 
 tion, there was added to this in the second place that particu- 
 lar factor, which intensified and specialized this predisposition 
 in individual persons. This took place in their creation, this 
 creation being taken in connection with their genealogical 
 origin, and going back, therefore, into the generations. But 
 with all the emphasis this genealogical connection deserves, 
 there is, nevertheless, the individual creation of the person, 
 the moulding of his disposition, the tuning of the harpstrings 
 of his heart, the endowment of him with charismata and 
 talents, and the quickening in him of what in lesser measure 
 was common to all his people. An election, if you please, 
 not to salvation, but to service, to the task of an holy voca- 
 tion, together with the fitting out of the elect one with every 
 requisite for that service. The bow is provided, and also the 
 arrows in the quiver. What lies hidden in the natural dis- 
 position is brought out by the leadings of Providence in 
 education and surroundings, — Moses at Pharaoh's court, 
 David as the shepherd lad, Peter and John the fishermen 
 on the waters of Gennesareth. The casting of the net, the 
 watching of the water's ripple, the quiet waiting of an almost 
 inexhaustible patience for higher power to send fish into the 
 net, and the constant readiness with fresh courage and hope of 
 blessing to begin anew, constitute a choice preparation of the 
 spirit for that restful and soulful abiding for the work of 
 grace, in which it is known that God alone brings souls into 
 His nets. To these leadings of Providence is added, as a 
 rule, the leadings of grace, which God the Lord imparted to 
 His chosen organs of revelation. By this grace most of them 
 were personally regenerated, and thus themselves established 
 in the salvation, the inspiration of which fell to their share. 
 In an uncommon way this increased the affinity between 
 their own spirit and the Spirit of God, as well as between the 
 content of their consciousness and the content of their inspi- 
 ration. Not in the sense, as stated above, that inspiration 
 itself might be explained from this ethical affinity. He 
 who affirms this virtually places the inspiration of prophets 
 and apostles in line with the animation of poets and preachers. 
 
Chap. II] §83. THE FACTORS OF ASPIRATION 517 
 
 A virtuoso on the organ will work charms, if need be, from 
 a poor instrument ; but only when the organ is worthy of him 
 will his talent be shown in all its power : but who will say 
 that for this reason his playing proceeds from the excellence 
 of the organ ? No, the excellence is his who plays, and the 
 organ merely serves as instrument. In the same way, the 
 ethical excellence of the organs of revelation must certainly 
 be taken into account, but it may not be said that this ethical 
 excellence gave birth to inspiration. God alone is He who 
 inspires, and even Isaiah or John are never anything but 
 choice instruments, animated and tuned by God, who plays 
 on them His inspiration. The difference of disposition in 
 these instruments, however, determines the difference of 
 intensity of inspiration. As " a virtuoso on the violin" can 
 only exhibit a part of his art on a violin of two strings, and 
 only on the full-stringed instrument can bring all his powers 
 into play, so the holy playing of inspiration that sounds in our 
 ears, is entirely different, far richer, and infinitely more inten- 
 sive, when God makes use of a David or a Paul than when 
 Nahum comes from the woods or James' epistle is unrolled 
 before us. There are certainly degrees of inspiration. Hab- 
 akkuk affects one more mightily than Haggai. And with 
 the same organs of revelation inspiration is at one time much 
 richer and fuller than at another time, which undoubtedly 
 depends again upon the mood of the singer or writer. But 
 however necessary the close study of these degrees may be, 
 and however often we may be permitted to connect them 
 with the subjective disposition of the instrument used, never- 
 theless, to derive inspiration itself from this, can never be 
 allowed. All these differences may modify, specialize, and 
 graduate the effect of inspiration, but inspiration itself does 
 not proceed from the consciousness of man, but always from 
 the consciousness and the will of God. All efforts to ex- 
 plain inspiration ethically is a passing into another genus, 
 and is a leap from the ethical into the abstract life of our 
 consciousness. 
 
 Finally, there maj^ be added the ready help which every 
 later inspiration found in that which had gone before, as well 
 
518 § 83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION [Div. in 
 
 as in the progress of the revelation of salvation, to which it 
 ran parallel. The content of inspiration is not aphoristic. 
 The one rather builds upon the other. In its beginnings, 
 therefore, inspiration is mostly concentric and deep, and only 
 gradually passes over into detail and moves upon the surface. 
 As a rule, at least, the person to be inspired knew what 
 had formerly been inspired to others, and with these earlier 
 inspirations his own inspiration formed a concatenation of 
 ideas. It connected itself with these. It found in them a 
 thread wliich it spun to greater length. It is no inspiration 
 now in China, then again in Rome, presently in India or in 
 Elam, but an inspiration which uses men from one and the 
 same milieu of life, and which historically exhibits a certain con- 
 tinuity. For which reason the very images perpetuate them- 
 selves with a certain continuity, and certain forms and ways 
 of speech pass on from one to the other. Just bring to mind 
 the Root, the Shepherd and the "sheep of his pasture." If on 
 account of this, numerous factors were present in the conscious- 
 ness of the person about to be inspired for the use of Him 
 who inspires, the same applies to the actual dispensation of 
 grace in Israel. There is not merely a disclosing of the 
 holy world above to the consciousness, but the creation as 
 well of a reality in Israel, which bears a holy character. 
 This has its beginning already in the wondrous birth of 
 Isaac. This reality establishes itself in the people, accent- 
 uates itself in the tribe of Judah and in the house of 
 David; in its usages and institutions; in its holy ceremo- 
 nials, and in the types which point to the full reality 
 to be realized by the Incarnation. From the nature of the 
 case, this reality also exerted an influence, moulded and fash- 
 ioned the more finely disposed spirits in Israel, and enriched 
 the consciousness of those who were to be inspired with 
 those ideas and representations and images, which were fit 
 in every way to do service in inspiration. It made the lan- 
 guage, in which Jehovah was to interpret His Divine thoughts, 
 altogether a richer vehicle for inspiration. 
 
Chap. II] §83. THE FACTORS OF INSPIRATION 519 
 
 The third factor which claims our attention in inspiration 
 is that which is inspired : ~ Id quod inspiratur. This content 
 of inspiration is not accidental. It does not consist of 
 magic sentences, nor yet of enigmatical communications 
 concerning secret powers or incidental events. The whole 
 content of what is inspired is taken from the counsel of 
 God, and is dominated by the supreme thought of how 
 the profaned majesty of God, both in man and in the 
 cosmos, may again come to its theodicy. We have pur- 
 posely taken pains to state the case in these definite terms, 
 because the limitation of that content to the salvation of 
 man's psychical life both is irrational and is contradicted by 
 the Holy Scripture. The latter needs no explanation, and 
 so far as the first is concerned, it would be irrational to 
 intend exclusively the salvation of our psychical life, since 
 the conditions of our somatical life are equally disabled. 
 Irrational, to fix the eye upon the salvation of man alone, 
 since man is an organic part of the cosmos. And it would be 
 equally irrational to find the end of inspiration in man, since 
 either the confession of God must be abandoned, or all things 
 must find their end in Him. At this very point the effort 
 falls away to seek the content of what was inspired exclu- 
 sively in what is ethical-religious. This ethical-religious 
 does not exist in isolation. In the case of the individual 
 person it touches his body and circumstances as well ; in the 
 case of a people, its earthly existence, its history, and its 
 ' future. Separation, therefore, is here impossible. Even as 
 you cannot find a man except in his body, you cannot expect 
 to find what is inspired except it is alike psychical, somatical 
 and cosmical. However, it may and must be granted that 
 the content of what is inspired does not lend itself to this 
 cosmical, except in so far as it stands in central connec- 
 tion with the work of the Holy Spirit. Not because the rest 
 is indifferent, but because inspiration has a purpose of its 
 own ; viz. to introduce into the consciousness of the Church 
 of God that world of thought which belongs to palingenesis. 
 What lies outside of this is not received by the Church as 
 such, but by the members of the Church, as "men and citi- 
 
520 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 zens," in a natural way. And the question, whether the nat- 
 ure of this content joins itself to what God who inspires 
 finds on hand in the person whom He inspires is answered 
 as follows : that the restoration of what was profaned of ne- 
 cessity joins itself to the condition of the profaned, and that 
 the organs of revelation, whose own condition was that of 
 depravity, and who themselves lived in this desecrated cosmos, 
 found, both in themselves and in that cosmos, the canvas 
 stretched on which the floral designs of grace were to be em- 
 broidered. 
 
 § 84. The Forms of Inspiration 
 
 Man received in his creation more than one string to the 
 harp of his soul, and according to the nature of the objects 
 that hold his attention his mood changes, he strikes a different 
 key, and his mental action assumes new phases. The lyrical 
 world differs in principle from the epical ; the dramatic im- 
 pulse far exceeds both in creative power ; while, on the other 
 hand, poetical inspiration accentuates itself least in didactic 
 poetry. Thus the human mind is disposed by nature to a 
 multiformity of expression, which sustains connection with the 
 multiformity of material that engages our attention. And 
 since there is a wide difference in the material that consti- 
 tutes the content of Revelation, it is entirely natural that 
 the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has made use of that 
 multiformity of our spiritual expression, and thus assumes 
 at one time a lyric character, at another time an epical, some- 
 times even a dramatic, but especially also one that is didactic. 
 To some extent one may even say that in these aesthetic 
 variegations certain fundamental forms are given for inspi- 
 ration, and if need be the entire content of the Scripture 
 might be divided after these four fundamental types. Since, 
 however, outside of the Scripture also these four fundamental 
 types continually overlap each other and give rise to mixed 
 forms, it is more advisable to borrow the division of these 
 types from the content of the Scripture itself. This we do 
 when we distinguish between lyric, chohnatic, prophetic and 
 apostolic inspiration, among which the inspiration of the 
 
Chap. II] § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 521 
 
 Christ stands as univocal, and to which is added the later 
 graphic inspiration in the narrower sense. 
 
 Let each of these types be separately considered. 
 
 Lyric inspiration comes first, because lyric itself, to some 
 extent, bears an inspired character, and so oifers us the 
 most beautiful analogy to holy inspiration, and really sup- 
 plies the only trustworthy key for the correct interpretation 
 of the lyrical parts of the Scripture. Real lyric, worthy of 
 the name, is not the passionate cry which describes in song 
 the concrete, personal experience of sorrow or of joy, but 
 appears only when, in the recital of concrete and personal 
 experience, the note is heard of that which stirs the deeper 
 depths of the hidden life of the universal human emotions, 
 and for this reason is able to evoke a response from other 
 hearts. In his Aesthetik, ii., p. 568 (3d Ausg. Lpz. 1885), 
 Carri^re states it thus : " That which is entirely individual 
 in lyric poetry obtains the consecration of art only by being 
 represented as it answers to the nature of man, and by strik- 
 ing the chord of something universally human, whereby it is 
 reechoed in the hearts of others." Even this statement is 
 not sufficiently full ; for when, by his personal emotions, the 
 lyric poet has descended to the depths where his own life 
 mingles with the waters of human experience, he has not 
 reached the deepest bottom of this ocean. That which is 
 common in the emotional life of humanity is not grounded 
 in itself, but derives its powers of life from the immanence 
 of God, whose Divine heart is the source of the vital breath 
 that stirs and beats this ocean. Von Hartmann (^PMlosophie 
 des Schonen, ii., p. 736) very properly observes that there is 
 " a mode of feeling which transcends the purely anthropologi- 
 cal" which, from his Pantheistic point of view, he explains 
 more closely as " an extension of self -feeling (Selbstgefiihl) 
 unto a form of universal sympathy (AUgefiihl), the outreach 
 of this sympathy (Weltschmerz) toward the world-ground, 
 i.e. its expansion into the intuition of the Divine (Gottes- 
 schmerz)." Reverse this, and say that his concrete feeling 
 is governed by the universal human feeling, and that, so far 
 as it affects him, this universal human feeling is governed 
 
522 §84. THE rORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div, III 
 
 by the vital emotions in God, and the pathway of lyric inspi- 
 ration is cleared. In every lyric poet you find first a con- 
 siderable commotion of feeling, occasioned by his own joy or 
 sorrow, or by the weal or woe of that which he loves. Sec- 
 ondly, that sense of solidarity, by which in his personal 
 emotions he discerns the wave-beat of the human heart. 
 And finally, there works in him a dominant power, which, 
 in this universal human emotion-life, effects order, reconcilia- 
 tion, or victory. However subjective the lyric may be, it 
 always loses the personal subject in the general subject, and 
 in this general subject the Divine subject appears dominant- 
 Since we may speak to this extent of a certain Divine in- 
 spiration in the case of all higher lyric, it is readily seen how 
 naturally lyric lent itself as a vehicle for holy inspiration, and 
 required but the employment in a special way of the Holy 
 Spirit, to effect the lyric inspiration of the Psalmist. 
 
 The lyric poet does not merely sing for the sake of sing- 
 ing, but from the thirst for deliverance. Under the weight 
 of unspeakable joy or of consuming sorrow he is near being 
 overcome. And now the spirit arouses itself within him, 
 not to shake himself free from this feeling of sorrow or joy, 
 but, luetor et emergo, to raise the head above those waves of 
 the ocean of his feeling, and either pour oil upon the seeth- 
 ing waters, that shall quiet their violence, or bring those 
 waves into harmony with the wave-beat of his own life, and 
 thus effect reconciliation, or, finally, with power from on high 
 to break that wave-beat. This is always done in two stages- 
 First, by his descent from the personal into the solidary- 
 human. He aptly remarks : I am not alone in these sorrows ; 
 there are " companions in misery " (consortes doloris) ; hence 
 that sorrow must have deeper causes. And secondly, frons 
 this "companionship in misery" he reaches out after the liv- 
 ing God, who does not stand as a personified Fate over against 
 this necessity, but with Sovereign Authority bears rule over it. 
 It is evident, that God the Lord has led His lyric singers per- 
 :sonally into bitter sorrows, and again has made them leap for 
 joy with personal gladness. But it also appeairs, in the second 
 place, that these experiences of deep sorrow and high-strung' 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 523 
 
 gladness almost never came to them in concrete-individual, 
 and, therefore, to a certain extent, accidental circumstances, 
 but that almost always their lot in life was interwoven with 
 the lot of their people, and thus from the start bore a solidary 
 character. David views even his sicknesses as standing in 
 connection with the combat he wages for God and His people. 
 However, you observe, in the third place, that in and through 
 the utterance of personal feeling, once and again a higher and 
 a more general subject, and, if you please, another ego, sup- 
 plants the ego of the singer, and often ends by God Himself 
 in the Messiah testifying through the mouth of the singer. 
 This makes a confusing impression on him who does not 
 understand lyric, and is the cause of many an error in 
 exegesis. But this phenomenon, which at first sight seems 
 somewhat strange, becomes entirely clear when in this in- 
 stance also you allow the antithesis to be duly emphasized 
 between sinful and sanctified humanity, between humanity 
 in its state of depravity and humanity in the palingenesis. 
 The lyric poet who stands outside of the palingenesis can- 
 not descend deeper than the emotional life of fallen human- 
 ity, and if from thence he presses on to God, he can do 
 nothing more than was done by Von Hartmann, who, be- 
 ing depressed by sorrow, through the world-sorrow (Welt- 
 schmerz) reached the supposed God-sorrow (Gottesschmerz), 
 and thus falsified the entire world of the emotions. Such, 
 however, was not the case with the singers of Israel. From 
 their personal joy and grief, they did not descend to the gen- 
 eral human feeling, but to the emotion-life of humanity in the 
 palingenesis, i.e. of God's people. And when in God they 
 sought the reconciliation between this higher life of the palin- 
 genesis and actual conditions, their God appeared to them in 
 the form of the Messiah, that other subject, who sang and 
 spake through them, and caused them simultaneously to expe- 
 rience the reconciliation and the victory over sorrow and sin. 
 In the imprecatory Psalms, especially, this is most strongly 
 apparent. Applied to our human relations in general, the 
 imprecatory Psalm is, of course, a most grievous offence to 
 our feelings, and entirely beneath the nobility of lyric. If, 
 
524 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 on the other hand, you place the lyric singer of the impre- 
 catory Psalms under the absolute antithesis between that 
 which chooses for and against God ; if you separate him from 
 his temporal-concrete surroundings, and transfer him to the 
 absolute-eternal, in which everything that sides with God lives 
 and has our love, and everything that chooses eternally against 
 God bears the mark of death and rouses our hatred, then the 
 rule, " Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee ? " becomes 
 the only applicable standard, and whatever departs from this 
 rule falls short of love for God. When Jesus speaks of the 
 man who should have a millstone hanged about his neck, that 
 he may be drowned in the depths of the sea, the same fun- 
 damental tone which sounds in all the imprecatory Psalms is 
 sounded also by Him. As unholy and repulsive as the im- 
 precatory Psalms are in the lips of those who apply them to 
 our relative universal human life, they are solemnly true and 
 holy when you take your stand in the absolute palingenesis, 
 where God's honor is the keynote of the harmony of the hu- 
 man heart. This is naturally denied by all those who refuse 
 to believe in an eternal condemnation of those who continue 
 in their enmity against the Almighty ; but he who in unison 
 with the Scripture speaks of " a going into everlasting pain," 
 from this absolute point of view cannot resent the imprecatory 
 Psalm, provided it is taken as a lyric. 
 
 (2) Chokmatic inspiration certainly belongs to didactic 
 poetry, but forms, nevertheless, a class by itself, which, out- 
 side of the domain of poetry, can make its appearance in 
 prose. Under Chokmatic inspiration, the parables, too, are 
 classed, and other sayings of Christ which are not handed down 
 to us at least in a fixed form. When the question is asked 
 in what particular didactic poetrj"- distinguishes itself from 
 non-didactic, testhetici say that the didacticus first thinks, 
 and then looks for the image in which to clothe his thoughts, 
 while the non-didactic lyricist, epicist, or dramatist feels the 
 initiative arise fi'om phantasy, and only derives the form from 
 the ideal image. In itself, inspiration is much less strong 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 525 
 
 with the didacticus, and there are didactic poets with whom 
 poetical inspiration is altogether wanting. With this kind 
 of poetry, inspiration is not in the feeling, neither in the 
 imagination, or in the heroic impulse, but exclusively in the 
 sway of the consciousness. Not as a result of his discursive 
 thought, but by an impulse of his perception, the real didac- 
 ticus is impelled to song. By his immediate perception he 
 understands what he sees the other does not understand, 
 and this he communicates to him in song. Subsidiarily to 
 this, is added that the didacticus, since he does not speak 
 as one who is learned, but sings as one who is wise, is, at the 
 same time, in sympathy with symbolism which unites the spir- 
 itual with the material world, and therefore expresses himself 
 in the form of nature-illustrations and parables. In the Chok- 
 mah, this universal human phenomenon obtained a character 
 of its own. Even as the prophet, the "wise man" was an iso- 
 lated phenomenon in Israel. Similarly to didactic poetry, this 
 Chokmah confines itself mostly to the domain of the life of 
 nature and to the natural relationships of life. That life of 
 nature and of man, in its rich unfolding, is the realization 
 of a thought of God. It is not accidental, but develops 
 itself after the Divine ordinances, which, even as the exist- 
 ence of life, are the outflow of a Chokmah in God. Nature 
 does not observe this, but man perceives it because, created 
 after God's image, he is himself an embodiment of that thought 
 of God, and is therefore himself a microcosmos. In his per- 
 ception lies a reflected image of this Chokmah, which by 
 nature is Wisdom, and not science, but which only by analy- 
 sis and synthesis can become science. The purer and clearer 
 that glass of his perception is, the purer and clearer will 
 the image of that Chokmah reflect itself in him. For this 
 reason, Adam was created, not merely in justice and holiness, 
 but also in original wisdom. By sin, however, this percep- 
 tion became clouded. There was a twofold cause for this. 
 First, it reacts no longer accurately, and again, because 
 nature itself and man's life in nature have become entangled 
 in much conflict and confusion. For this reason, this natural 
 Chokmah does no longer give what it ought to give ; it works 
 
526 §84. THE POEMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. lU 
 
 most effectively with simple folk, to whom only separate 
 problems present themselves, but it refuses its service to the 
 more richly developed mind, which faces all problems at once, 
 and thus necessitates it by way of analysis to seek refuge in 
 close thought. Palingenesis meanwhile presents the possibil- 
 ity of resuscitating again this original wisdom in fallen man, 
 and, at the same time, of giving him an insight into the order 
 and harmony which hide behind the conflicts of our sinful 
 life, and are active to provide the cleansing of them. This 
 does not happen to everybody, not even though the enlight- 
 ening has entered in, but it takes place with those individuals 
 whom God has chosen and inspired for this purpose, and 
 these are the real, specific, wise men, and what they produce 
 is called the Chokmah. In this, therefore, we deal with an 
 activity of the Holy Spirit, which directs itself to this orig- 
 inal sense-of-life, to this practical consciousness of nature 
 and life, and clarifies this, so that the wise man discerns 
 again the wisdom which is apparent in God's creation and in 
 life, is affected by it, and proclaims it in parable or song. 
 This Chokmah, however, does not appear to him as arising 
 from his subjective consciousness, but as addressing him 
 from another subject, such as Wisdom, which must not be 
 taken as a personification, but as the pure word in God (see 
 1 Cor. i. 30), that to him coincides with the image of the 
 Messiah. This does not imply that for this reason the solu- 
 tion of all problems, as for instance the problem of the incon- 
 gruity in the suffering servant of God, stands clear and plain 
 before his eyes. On the contrary, there are conflicts, which 
 cannot be explained on chokmatic ground, but the impres- 
 sion of the Chokmah is, nevertheless, so overwhelming that 
 the interrogation mark after these problems bears in itself 
 the prophecy that it shall sometime disappear. Hence the 
 "wise man " stands over against the " scorner," the " fool," and 
 the " ungodly," who think after their fashion to have found a 
 solution in cynicism, but have abandoned God and faith in 
 his wisdom. To the wise man, on the other hand, the fear 
 of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. God must not be 
 wiped out for the reason that we are not able to indicate 
 
Chap. 11] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 627 
 
 harmony between Him and the world ; but from Him every 
 departure must be made, even though by doing this we 
 should lose the world. This assertion may not methodisti- 
 cally be applied to discursive thought. It only applies to 
 that Wisdom of which it is asked in Job xxxviii. 36, " Who 
 hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given 
 understanding to the mind?" The entire action, by which 
 this wisdom is quickened, follows along the inward way, and 
 does not come from without. For which very reason it could 
 become a vehicle of inspiration. This also applies to its form, 
 which is almost always symbolical, entirely apart from the 
 question whether it is more commonly lyrical, epic, or dra- 
 matic. Its form is and remains that of the Proverb (^tl^tS), 
 the utterance of a thought in its material analogy. In the 
 "riddle" (HTn) and "enigma" (HSi'^'^tS), which words indi- 
 cate entwining and intertwisting, the symbolical character 
 may be less clearly apparent ; in both forms, however, lies the 
 same symbolical tendency. The phenomena are significant 
 of something, they are reminders of a thought, which comes 
 from God, and can be understood by us ; not by these phe- 
 nomena themselves, but by the affinity of our spirit to Him 
 who speaks in them. And since this Wisdom does not consist 
 of thoughts loosely strung together, but forms one organic 
 whole, and needs the light of grace, by which to solve the 
 problems of sorrow and of sin, this Wisdom at length concen- 
 trates itself in Christ Jesus, whom finally the apostle places 
 over against the foolishness (/icopia) of the world as the in- 
 carnated Wisdom (Chokmah or ao^Ca). 
 
 - (3) So far as its result is concerned, Prophetic inspiration 
 is distinguished from the lyric and chokmatic chiefly by the 
 fact that in general it exhibits a conscious dualism of subject, 
 whereby the subject of the prophet has merely an instru- 
 mental significance, while the higher subject speaks the 
 word^ That other higher subject appears sometimes in 
 lyrics (Ps. ii. et al.} and in the Chokmah (Prov. viii. et al.}, 
 but where it does this appearance bears no dualistic charac- 
 
528 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 ter, and at least never becomes antithetic as in prophecy 
 (Jer. XX., Ezek. iii., et al.}. In the lyric and in the Chok- 
 mah there is " Konsonanz " of subjects, never " Dissonanz." 
 In prophecy, on the other hand, duality of subject is the 
 starting-point for the understanding of its working, and is even 
 present where it is not expressly announced. Nothing can 
 be inferred concerning this from the word S<''33. The ety- 
 mology of the word is too uncertain for this. Who indeed 
 will prove whether we must go back to S''i3, SSi, H'2, which 
 would be identical with ^a-, in ^VA"') or to K'D3? Or also 
 whether the form XQ is a passive or intransitive katil-form, 
 and whether, if effundere, to pour out, is the primary mean- 
 ing of this root, we must think of a poured-out person, or of 
 a person who causes his words to flow out like water across 
 the fields ? One can offer conjectures, but to infer anything 
 from the etymology as to the meaning of the word is at 
 present simply impossible. The synonyms also, ns"l and Hlh, 
 merely indicate that the prophet is some one who is given 
 to seeing visions. From the description of some of these 
 visions, as for instance the vision of the calls, from the phe- 
 nomena that accompanied them, and from the form in which 
 the prophet usually expressed himself, it can be very defi- 
 nitely shown, on the other hand, that, as subject, he felt him- 
 self taken hold of by a higher subject, and was compelled to 
 speak not his own thoughts, but the thoughts of this higher 
 subject. The frequent repetition of the "Thus saith" (HS 
 "IttS!) proves this. In Jeremiah's spiritual struggle (Jer. xx. 
 7 sq.') this antithesis reaches its climax. In 2 Sam. vii. 3 
 Nathan first declares as his own feeling that David will 
 build the temple, while in verses 4, 5 he receives the pro- 
 phetical charge to announce to David the very opposite. In 
 Tsa. xxxviii. 1-5 we read the twofold " Thus saith," first, that 
 Hezekiah will succumb to his sickness, and then that he will 
 again be restored. The fundamental type is given in Deut. 
 xviii. 18 as follows : " I, Jehovah, will put my words in his 
 mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall com- 
 mand him." We find this all-prevailing fundamental thought 
 still more sharply brought out by Ezekiel in Chap. ii. 8: "But 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 629 
 
 thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee ; open thy mouth, 
 and eat that I give thee." And in Chap. iii. 1, 2 : " Son of 
 man, eat that thou findest, eat this roll, and go and speak. 
 So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll." 
 To eat is to take up and assimilate in my blood a material or 
 food which originated outside of me. This, therefore, is a 
 most definite indication that the subject from whose con- 
 sciousness the prophecy originated is not the subject of the 
 prophet, but the subject Jehovah. Whichever way this is 
 turned, the chief distinction in prophecy is always that the 
 subject of the prophet merely serves as instrument. 
 
 From this, however, it must not be inferred that the char- 
 acter or disposition of this instrumental subject was a matter 
 of indifference. The same musician who at one time plays 
 the flute, the other time a cornet, and at still another time a 
 trumpet, produces each time entirely different tones. This 
 depends altogether upon the instrument he plays and the 
 condition of the instrument. In the same way this per- 
 sonal character and present disposition of the prophet will 
 give tone to his prophecy to such an extent that with 
 Isaiah the result is entirely different from what it is with 
 Hosea, and with Jeremiah from what it is with Micah. Only 
 do not lose from sight that this noticeable difference in 
 prophecy, which is the result of the great difference between 
 prophet and prophet, was also determined by the higher 
 subject. As the player chooses his instrument according to 
 the composition he wants to be heard, Jehovah chose His 
 prophetical instrument. God the Lord, moreover, did what 
 the player cannot do : He prepared His instrument Himself, 
 and tuned it to the prophecy which by this instrument He 
 was to give to Israel, and by Israel to the Church of all ages. 
 If thus without reservation we must recognize the personal 
 stamp which a prophet puts upon his prophecy, it may never 
 be inferred that the fons prophetiae is to be sought in him, 
 and that the primoprimae issues of thought should not come 
 from the consciousness of God. We may even enter more 
 fully into this, and confess that it was the preparation, educa- 
 tion, and further development of a prophet and his lot in life 
 
530 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. ni 
 
 generally that brought it about that in his consciousness all 
 those elements were available which God the Lord should need 
 for His prophecy. It may indeed be assumed that the ethno- 
 logical and political knowledge of the kingdoms with whom 
 Israel came in contact, and from which so many judgments 
 proceeded, was present in the synteresis of the prophets. The 
 capacity to gather thoughts and unite them into an opinion 
 may likewise have been active in the instrumental subject. 
 This much, however, remains fact, that so far as the ego of 
 the prophet was active in this, it did not go to work from its 
 own spontaneity, but was passively directed by another sub- 
 ject, in whose service it was employed. 
 
 Even this does not end our study of the anthropological basis 
 of prophecy. Ecstasy, which is so strongly apparent on the 
 heights of prophecy, is no uncommon phenomenon. We 
 know as yet so very little of the nature and working of 
 psychical powers. Biology, magnetic sleep, clairvoyance, 
 hypnotism, trance, insanity, telepathy, as Stead called his 
 invention, are altogether phenomena which have appeared 
 from of old in all sorts of forms, and which science has too 
 grossly neglected. Evidently these workings are less com- 
 mon in quiet, peaceful times, and show themselves with 
 more intensity when public restlessness destroys the equi- 
 librium. This accounts for the fact that at present they 
 are prominently coming again to the front. This at least is 
 evident, that our psyche, over against its consciousness, as 
 well as with reference to its body, can become so strongly 
 excited that common relations give place to those that are 
 entirely uncommon. Whole series of stations lie between 
 common enthusiasm and wild insanity, by which in its course 
 this action assumes a more or less concrete, but ever modi- 
 fied, form. And so far as insanity has no directly physical 
 causes, it carries wholly the impression of being a tension 
 between the psyche and its consciousness, which is not 
 merely acute, but becomes chronic, or even permanent. Ec- 
 stasy is commonly represented as being the outcome of the 
 mastery of an idea, a thought, or a phantom over the psyche, 
 and by means of the sensibilities over the body, to such an ex- 
 
Chap. II] § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 531 
 
 tent that for the moment the common working of the senses 
 and of the other spiritual powers is suspended, and psyche 
 and soma are used entirely as instruments of this mania, 
 idea, or visionary image. If we combine these ecstatic phe- 
 nomena with the biological, i.e. with the power which the 
 psyche of one can obtain over the psyche of another, and 
 grant that the power which other men can exert upon us can 
 be exerted upon us much more strongly by God, we must 
 conclude that in prophecy also God the Lord made use of 
 factors which He Himself had prepared in our human nature. 
 With this difference, however, that in this instance He makes 
 use Himself of what at other times He places at the disposal of 
 biologians. A complete analogy to prophecy would be given 
 in this, especially if Stead's ideas about his so-called thought, 
 which rests upon the system of telepathy, were found to be 
 true. He asserts to have reached this result telepathically, 
 — that at a distance of ten or twenty miles, without any 
 means of communication whatsoever, one man wrote down 
 literally what the other man thought. This may lack ex- 
 citement and passion, but by no means excludes ecstasy; 
 it is well known that besides a passionate, there is also an en- 
 tirely restful, ecstasy, which, for the time being, petrifies a 
 man, or causes him to lie motionless as in deep sleep. 
 
 If we inquire what the prophets themselves relate concern- 
 ing their experience in such prophetic periods, a real differ- 
 ence may be observed. At one time the seizure is violent, at 
 another time one scarcely receives the impression that a seiz- 
 ure has taken place. When that seizure comes they receive 
 the impression of a ti^27, i.e. as though they are put into a 
 strait-jacket by the Spirit. This admits of no other explanation, 
 except that they lost the normal working of their senses and 
 the common use of their limbs. There is an lad laKwah 
 which takes hold of them ; which indicates that the pressure 
 came not gradually, but suddenly, upon them. Sometimes a 
 " fall " is the result of this ; they fell forward, not because they 
 wanted to kneel down, but because their muscles were para- 
 lyzed, and, filled with terror, they fell to the ground. Mean- 
 while they perceived a glow from within which put them as 
 
532 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 on fire, as Jeremiah declares that it became a fire in his bones 
 which he could not resist. Ezekiel testifies (iii. 14), "I went 
 in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, and the hand of the 
 Lord was strong upon me." At the close of the ecstasy the 
 prophet felt himself worn-out and faint, and pathologically 
 affected to such a degree that he said he was ill. In that 
 condition he saw visions, heard speaking and saw whole 
 dramas played; and when presently he is again so far re- 
 stored to himself that he can speak, the continuity of his 
 consciousness is by no means broken. He knows what hap- 
 pened with him, and tells what he saw and heard. By itself 
 there is nothing strange in all this. That which is distinc- 
 tively prophetic does not consist of these psychical phenomena. 
 These were common with pseudo-prophets. But these phe- 
 nomena, which were commonly produced by pathological 
 psychical conditions, or by superior powers of other persons, 
 by the influence of mighty events, or by demoniacal influ- 
 ences, in prophecy were worked hy God that He might use 
 them for His revelation. 
 
 This dualistic character of prophecy, coupled with the 
 repression of the human subject, prompts us to explain 
 prophecy as being epical, even if at times this epical utterance 
 receives a lyrical tint. In the epos the effo of the singer 
 recedes to the background, and the powerful development of 
 events, by which he is overwhelmed, is put wholly to the 
 front. An epos teaches almost nothing about the poet him- 
 self. To such an extent is his personality repressed in the 
 epos. The second characteristic of the epos is, that the singer 
 not merely communicates what he has seen and heard, but 
 also pushes aside the veil, and makes you see what mysterious 
 powers from the unseen world were active back of all this, 
 and that the things seen are in reality but the effect worked 
 by these mysterious factors. To this extent the epos corre- 
 sponds entirely to the content of prophecy, and only in the 
 third point does the epos differ from prophecy. In the epos 
 the poet deals merely with tradition, subjects it to his own 
 mind, lifts himself above it, and exhibits his sovereign power by 
 pouring over into the word, i.e. in the epos, what has happened, 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 533 
 
 but at the same time, and this is the triumph of the epos, ex- 
 plains it and makes it understood. And the epical poet differs 
 from the prophet in this very thing; the epicus rules as artist, 
 while passively the prophet undergoes inspiration from a 
 higher subject. "We may grant that the epical poet also in- 
 vokes a higher inspiration, as is shown in the "Jerusalem De- 
 livered ; " and the " breathe into my bosom " (tu spira al petto 
 mio) is certainly a strong expression, but with Tasso it is fol- 
 lowed immediately by the statement : " and forgive if I mingle 
 fiction with truth — if I adorn my pages in part with other 
 thoughts than your own," which were inconceivable with the 
 passivity of the prophet. 
 
 If it is asked, where lies the mighty fact, which appears 
 epically in the epos or Word of prophecy, we answer, that 
 prophecy takes this drama from the counsel of God. While 
 Chokmatic inspiration discovers the ordinances of God that 
 lie hidden in creation, and lyric interprets to us the world of 
 our human heart, in prophecy there is epically proclaimed the 
 ordinance of God with reference to history, the problem of the 
 world's development. This history, this development, must 
 follow the course marked out by God in His counsel, and 
 to some extent it amounts to the same thing, whether this 
 course is seen in the facts or is read from God's counsel. The 
 program lies in the counsel of God, in history the perform- 
 ance of the exalted drama. Meanwhile there is this note- 
 worthy difference between the two, that in the days of the 
 prophets especially, the drama had been worked out only 
 in a very small part, while in God's counsel the complete 
 program lay in readiness. And secondly, even so far as it 
 realized God's counsel, history could never be understood in 
 its mystical meaning without the knowledge of God's counsel. 
 It is noteworthy that the compilers of the books of the Canon 
 classed Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings with the prophets 
 as the former prophets, and that the later prophets join them- 
 selves to these, as the later. If dioramatically we transfer the 
 Oracles of what we call the prophets to beyond the last judg- 
 ment in the realm of glory, and add Joshua to Kings inclusive, 
 these together give us both parts of the drama, viz. (1) what 
 
534 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 was already performed, and (2) what was to follow; while 
 the comparison, for instance, of Kings with Chronicles makes 
 the epical excellence of the former to appear clearly above the 
 latter. The drama then begins from the moment God's 
 people are settled in the Holy Land. What lies behind this 
 is not history, but preparation. The Thorah gives the 
 Toledoth. With Israel in Canaan the starting-point is given 
 for the all-governing drama. What lies back of that is a 
 description of the situation by way of prologue. With Joshua 
 the drama begins, and ends only when the new humanity 
 shall enter upon the possession of the new earth, under the 
 new heaven. In this drama the prophet stands midway. 
 As a Semite he knew but two tenses, the factum and fiens, a 
 perfect and an imperfect. The prophetical narrative presents 
 that part of the programme which is performed. It does 
 this epically, i.e. with the disclosure of the Divine agencies 
 employed ; while that which is to come is not seen by the 
 prophet in reality, but in vision. Always in such a way, 
 however, that to him a review of the whole is possible. He 
 therefore is not outside of it, but stands himself in its midst. 
 In his own heart he has passed through the struggle between 
 this Divine drama of redemption and the roar of the nations, 
 whose history must end in self-dissolution. He is conscious 
 of the fact that that spirit of the world combats the Spirit of 
 God, not only outside of, but also within, the boundaries of 
 Israel. Thus by virtue of his own impulse he pronounces 
 the Holy Spirit's criticism upon the unholy spirit of the 
 world, and is filled with holy enthusiasm in seeing in vision, 
 that that Spirit of God and His counsel shall sometime 
 gloriously triumph. Thus there is an organic connection be- 
 tween what was, and is and is to come ; a connection between 
 one prophet and another; a connection also with the same 
 prophet between the series of visions that fall to his share ; 
 and this states the need of the vision of the call, in which 
 God revealed to him, that he himself was called to cooperate 
 in the realizing of the Divine counsel and in the further un- 
 veiling of the drama. It is as foolish therefore to deny the 
 element of prediction in prophecy, as it is irrational to make 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 535 
 
 real prophecy consist of single aplioristical predictions. Un- 
 doubtedly in the main prophecy offers the unveiling of that 
 which is to come provided it is viewed from the point where 
 the prophet stood and lived, so that very often he himself is 
 active in the process which reflects itself in his Oracle. 
 
 The apocalyptic vision only forms an exception to this, 
 which exception, however, accentuates the more sharply the 
 indicated character of common prophecy. The Apocalypse 
 does not move from the prophet to the horizon, but leaves 
 between him and the horizon nothing but a vacuum, in order 
 suddenly to cause a vision to appear on that horizon, which is 
 to him surprising and strange. A veil is pushed aside, Avhich 
 mostly consists of this, that " the heavens were opened," and 
 when the veil is lifted, a scene reveals itself to the eyes of 
 the seer which moves from the heavens toward him. Hence, 
 the Apocalypse unveils the end, and is by its very nature 
 eschatological, even when its meaning is merely symbolic. It 
 rests upon the assumption that the end is not born from the 
 means, but that, on the contrary, the end is first determined, 
 and that this end postulates the means by which to realize 
 it. Hence, it is far moi'e severely theological than common 
 prophecy, since it takes no pains to join itself to human his- 
 tory, but abruptly shows itself on the horizon. God's coun- 
 sel is what is really essential. From that counsel God shows 
 immediately this or the other part, and for this reason the 
 forms and images of apocalyptic vision are described with so 
 great difficulty. The purpose in hand is to show the seer a 
 different reality from that in which he actually lives, a real- 
 ity which surely is analogous to his own life, but as under 
 the antithesis of the butterfly and the caterpillar. How could 
 the form of the butterfly be made more or less clear in out- 
 lines borrowed from the caterpillar, to one who knows a cater- 
 pillar but not a butterfly ? This is the problem which every 
 apocalyptical vision faces. The forms and images, therefore, 
 are composed of what the prophet knows, but are arranged 
 in such different combinations and connections as to produce 
 a drama that is entirely abnormal. The appearance of Christ 
 in His glory on Patmos is truly the brilliancy of the butter- 
 
536 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 fly, but sketched in forms borrowed from the caterpillar. 
 From this, however, the apocalyptic vision derives its artistic 
 composition. This does not imply that the sesthetic element 
 is wanting in common prophecy ; but in this no tableaux 
 are exhibited which, in order to be exhibited, must first be 
 arranged. With the apocalyptic vision, however, this is 
 indispensable. On the prophetic horizon, which at first is 
 vacant, it must show its form or drama in such a way that, 
 however strange it may be to him, the prophet, nevertheless, 
 is able to receive and communicate it. It is Divine art, there- 
 fore, which makes the composition correspond to its purpose, 
 and this accounts for the fact that the artistic Unity, in the 
 symmetry and proportion of parts, in symbolism, and in num- 
 bers, is seen so vividly in the Apocalypse. This is not arti- 
 ficial, but spontaneous art. By counting it over, the fact has 
 been revealed that the allegro in Mozart's Jupiter Symphony is 
 divided into two parts of 120 and 193 bars ; that the adagio of 
 Beethoven's B-major symphony separates itself into two parts 
 of 40 and 64 bars. Naumann has found similar results in the 
 master-productions by Bach. The proportion of the golden 
 division always prevails in highest productions of art. No 
 one, however, will assert that Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven 
 computed this division of bars. This artistic proportion 
 sprang spontaneously from their artistic genius. In the 
 same way the unity of plan (Gliederung) in the Apocalypse 
 must be understood, just because in vision the action of the 
 seer is least and the action on the part of God is greatest. 
 
 The exhibition and announcement of things to come, i.e. 
 the predictive character, belongs not merely to the Apoca- 
 lypse, but to common prophecy as well. " Before it came to 
 pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say. Mine idol 
 hath done them." " I have declared the former things from 
 of old; yea, they went forth out of my mouth, and I 
 shewed them; suddenly I did them, and they came to pass" 
 (Isa. xlviii. 3-5, passim). Entirely in the same sense in 
 which Jesus said to His disciples, " And now I have told you 
 before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may 
 believe " (John xiv. 29 ; comp. xiii. 19 and xvi. 4). However 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 537 
 
 Strongly it must be emphasized, therefore, that in the person 
 of the prophet, in his disposition, education, surroundings, 
 position in life, and in his preparation in the school of the 
 prophets, a number of data are present which claim our 
 notice in connection with his prophecies, all this, however, is 
 no more than the preparation of the soil, and the seed from 
 which presently the fruit ripens comes always from above. 
 Even when seemingly he merely exhorts or reproves, this 
 preaching of repentance or reproof is always the coming into 
 our reality of what is ideal and higher, as the root from which 
 a holier future is to bloom. 
 
 (4) The Inspiration of Christ. — Since inspiration has been 
 interpreted too exclusively as Scripture-inspiration, too little 
 attention has ever been paid to the inspiration of the Christ. 
 The representation, however, that the Christ knew all things 
 without inspiration spontaneously (sponte sua), is virtu- 
 ally the denial of the incarnation of the Word. The con- 
 sciousness of God and the Mediatorial consciousness of the 
 Christ are not one, but two, and the transfer of Divine 
 thoughts from the consciousness of God into the conscious- 
 ness of the Christ is not merely inspiration, but inspiration 
 in its highest form. The old theologians indicated this by 
 saying, that even the Christ possessed no archetypal, but 
 ectypal theology, and he obtained this via unionis, i.e. in 
 virtue of the union of the Divine and human nature. In 
 this there is merely systematized what Christ Himself said : 
 (John xiv. 10) " The words that T say unto you, I speak 
 not of myself " ; (John vii. 16) " My teaching is not mine, 
 but his that sent me " ; (John xiv. 24) " The word which 
 ye hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me " ; (John 
 V. 30) " As I hear, I judge " ; (John viii. 26) " The things 
 which I have heard from him these speak I unto the woi-ld " ; 
 and (John xii. 49) " The Father which sent me, he hath given 
 me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should 
 speak." This in itself is the natural outcome of His real 
 adoption of human nature ; but the necessity for this, more- 
 
538 § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 over, was the greater, on account of His assuming that nature 
 in all its weakness, with the single exception of sin (Heb. iv. 
 15), which at this stage indicates that in Jesus no falsehood 
 was arrayed against the truth, which, as with the common 
 prophets, had first to be repressed. But in Christ there 
 was an increase in wisdom, a gradual becoming enriched 
 more and more with the world that lived in the conscious- 
 ness of God. This was effected by the reading of the Script- 
 ures, by the seeing of things visible in creation, by His life 
 in Israel, as well as by prophetical inspiration. In that sense, 
 the Holy Spirit to Him also was given. In connection with 
 His preaching we are told, "For he whom God hath sent 
 speaketh the words of God: for he giveth not the Spirit by 
 measure " (John iii. 34), an utterance which, as seen from 
 the connection, may not be interpreted ethically, which would 
 have no sense, but refers to inspiration. This " not by meas- 
 ure " is also evident in this, that all kinds of inspiration, the 
 lyric, chokmatic and epical-prophetical, unite themselves in 
 Jesus, while everything that is connected with the suppres- 
 sion of vital energy, the will, or mistaken thoughts in the 
 case of the prophets, in the case of Jesus falls away. Even in 
 inspiration. He could never be passive without becoming active 
 at the same time. That the form of vision never takes place 
 with Jesus, but all inspiration in Him comes in clear concept 
 (notione clara), has a different cause. Before His incarna- 
 tion, the Christ has seen the heavenly reality which to 
 prophecy had to be shown in visions : " I speak the things 
 which I have seen with my Father" (John viii. 38) ; "and 
 bear witness of that we have seen " (John iii. 11). One may 
 even say that the sight of this heavenly reality was also 
 granted Him after His incarnation : " And no man hath as- 
 cended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, 
 even the Son of Man, which is in heaven" (John iii. 13). 
 This very absence, in the case of the Christ, of all instru- 
 mental means, which were indispensable with the prophets 
 because of sin, together with the absence of all individual 
 limitation ("for he had not taken on man, but man's 
 nature," non hominem sed naturam humanam assumpserat). 
 
Chap. II] § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 539 
 
 gives that absolute character of the teaching " as one having 
 authority " to what He spake as the fruit of the inspiration, 
 in virtue of the Divine union, the impression of which to this 
 day, in the reading of His Word, takes hold of one so over- 
 whelmingly. Entirely in harmony with this, the Scripture 
 indicates that inspiration had in Him its centrum. He 
 is the prophet; who spake in the Old Covenant by the 
 prophets ; after His ascension bears witness by His apostles ; 
 and who is still our prophet through the Word. (See Deut. 
 xviii. 18 ; 1 Pet. i. 11, " The spirit of Christ which was in 
 them testified beforehand " ; John xvi. 13). 
 
 (5) The Inspiration of the Apostles. — He who derives his 
 conception of inspiration exclusively from the inspiration of 
 the prophets, is bound to conclude that there is no question 
 of inspiration in the case of the apostles. In the case of the 
 apostles, indeed, inspiration bea:s an entirely diiferent charac- 
 ter from that of the lyric, chokmatic, or prophetical organs of 
 the Old Covenant. This difference sprang from a threefold 
 cause. First from the fact that the Holy Spirit had now been 
 poured out and had taken up His abode in the Church of God. 
 This difference is most succinctly stated by the antithesis of 
 inshining (irradiatio) and indwelling (inhabitatio). Secondly, 
 from the fact that with the apostles inspiration adapted itself 
 to their official function. And thirdly, from the fact that 
 they came after the Incarnation, which the seers of the Old 
 Covenant anticipated. As soon therefore as, on Patmos, 
 inspiration deals no longer with the reality which appeared 
 in the Christ, but refers to things to come, inspiration resumes 
 with them its prophetical character, viz. in its apocalyptical 
 form. The revelation that came to Peter was equally vision- 
 like. And so far as Paul had not belonged to the circle of 
 Jesus' disciples, an entirely separate calling, tradition and 
 ecstasy were given him, which were needful to him and 
 adapted to his isolated position. With these exceptions, 
 there is nothing that suggests inspiration in the oral and 
 written preaching of the apostles, as given in the Acts and 
 
540 .§84. THE FOKMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 in their Epistles. They speak as though they speak of 
 themselves, they write as though they write of themselves. 
 In all probability the same phenomenon showed itself in 
 the hundred or more of their addresses and epistles, of 
 which no reports have come to us. The "cloke and the 
 parchments left at Troas," as an incident, stands by no 
 means by itself. Almost the entire contents of apostolic 
 literature bears the same ordinary character. If from out- 
 side sources nothing were known of the inspiration of the 
 prophets, the simple phrase " Thus saith the Lord " already 
 shows that there is at least the pretence of inspiration. 
 With apostolic literature, on the other hand, the sugges- 
 tion of inspiration scarcely presents itself. In 1 Cor. vii. 
 10, coll. 12, we even read of an antithesis between "I 
 give charge," and " Yea, not I, but the Lord," but this 
 refers to the difference between what Paul knew from the 
 special revelation given to himself (1 Cor. xi. 23, "For I 
 received of the Lord"), and by apostolic inspiration, as he 
 expressly adds at the close of this same chapter: "And I 
 think that I also have the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. vii. 
 40). That inspiration, however, took place with the apos- 
 tles, appears meanwhile from Matt. x. 19, 20 ; John xvi. 
 12-14, 14-26, etc.; from Acts xv. 28, "For it seemed good 
 to the Holy Ghost, and to us " ; from 1 Cor. ii. 10-12, 
 " But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit," and 
 this Holy Spirit alone could reveal to them the deep things of 
 God. Paul, as well as the other apostles, had not received 
 the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, and 
 the effect of this is that he knew the things that were freely 
 given by God. The same appears from 2 Cor. iii. 3, where 
 on the tables of the heart an epistle of Christ is said to be 
 written, not with ink, but " with the spirit of the living God," 
 and instrumentally this was effected by the apostles: "min- 
 istered by us." In Eph. iii. 5 it is stated that the mystery, 
 which had been hidden from former generations, " hath now 
 been revealed unto his holy apostles in the Spirit." In Rev. i. 
 10 John declares even, " I was in the Spirit." Paul does not 
 hesitate to say that what they had heard of him is not a 
 
Chap. II] §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 541 
 
 "word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God" 
 (1 Thess. ii. 13). 
 
 Evidently with them this inspiration was the working of 
 the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and this indwelling de- 
 mands full emphasis. In the first place they had received 
 inworkings of the Holy Spirit before the Day of Pentecost, 
 and, in breathing on them, Jesus had officially communicated 
 to them the gift of the Holy Ghost. Before Pentecost more- 
 over they had been regenerated, for Jesus had prayed, not 
 that Peter might have faith, but that the faith which he had 
 might not fail. Nevertheless Jesus repeatedly declares that 
 only when the Holy Spirit shall have been sent them from 
 the Father, shall real apostolical inspiration begin, as it did 
 on Pentecost in the sermon of Peter. In the Old Covenant 
 the Holy Spirit stands truly "in the midst of them" (Isa. 
 Ixiii. 2) ; but He is not yet the formative principle (princi- 
 pium formans) for the circle. That circle was still national, 
 and not yet oecumenical. It only became such on the Pente- 
 costal Day, when the Church appeared, liberated from the 
 wrappings of Israel's national life, as an independent organ- 
 ism, having the Holy Spirit as its Trvevna. Neither this 
 mystery nor this difference can be more fully explained 
 here. For our purpose it is enough, if the difference is 
 made clear, that after Pentecost there was the indwelling 
 of the Holy Spirit, while before that day there were merely 
 radiations and inworkings as from without. From the nature 
 of the case this was bound to give to inspiration an entirely 
 modified form. Now it came no more as from without, but 
 from within, and that same Holy Spirit, who, in us, prays 
 for us with unutterable groanings, was able in like man- 
 ner to use, guide, and enlighten the consciousness of the 
 apostles, without any break taking place in them as of a 
 duality ; yea, without their own perception of it. To this is 
 added, as we observed, in the second place, that the impulse 
 for the working of this inspiration lay in their official func- 
 tion itself. Dualistic action of the Holy Spirit is thereby 
 not excluded with them, as when, for instance, the Spirit says 
 to Peter : " Behold, three men seek thee " (Acts x. 19), or 
 
542 §84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 when the Holy Spirit did not suffer Paul to go into Bithynia 
 (Acts xvi. 7), etc. As a rule, however, such a break did not 
 occur, and their official calling itself formed the basis on 
 which inspiration took place. The prophets' appearance was 
 also official, but in a different sense. Their prophecy itself 
 was their office, hence this office was very aphoristic and 
 without a cosmical basis. But the apostles had to discharge 
 the regular duties of a fixed office, which found its bed in life 
 itself. This office was continued until death, and inspiration 
 was merely given them, to direct their service in this office. 
 They do not speak or write because the Spirit stimulates 
 them to speak, or impels them irresistibly to write, but be- 
 cause this was demanded of them by their office. Thus 
 inspiration flowed into their everyday activity. This in- 
 volves in the third place the different point of view, occupied 
 by prophets and apostles, with reference to the centrum 
 of all revelation ; viz. the Christ and His truth. It is the 
 antithesis of imagination and memory, poetry and remem- 
 brance. With the prophets, who came before the incar- 
 nation, the centrum of revelation could assume no other 
 form than the dioramatic figures of their representation, 
 while the apostles, who came after the Christ, testified of 
 what they had heard and seen and handled of the Word of 
 life. What was vague with the prophets, with them was 
 concrete. Not the poetical, but the remembering spirit strikes 
 with them the keynote. Since the inspiration of the Holy 
 Spirit ever joins itself to what is present in its organ 
 and adapts itself to this, it is evident that the inspiration, 
 which with the prophet worked upon the poetical side of his 
 consciousness, was with the apostle first of all a "remem- 
 brance " (John xiv. 26). Their spiritual activity, however, 
 did not limit itself to this. They had to proclaim the mes- 
 sage, and for this they were endowed with the remembrance. 
 In the second place they were to announce things to come, 
 and for this they were given the apocalyptic vision. But in 
 the third place they had to give the apostolic reflection con- 
 cerning the " word of life " ; and for this the Holy Spirit led 
 them into the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii. 10-12). And 
 
Chap. II] § 84. THE FORMS OF INSPIRATION 543 
 
 here we do not speak of any apostolic dogmatics, or of a 
 Pauline Theology. He who does this destroys the essential 
 difference between the apostle as "the first teacher of the 
 whole Church" and the common ministers of the Word. 
 The apostolate may not be thought to be continued either in 
 the papistical or Irvingite sense, nor can it be made common 
 in an ethical way with the ministry of the Word. According 
 to John xvii. 20, 1 John i. 3, etc., the apostolate is univoca. 
 Only by their preaching does the Christ appear to the 
 consciousness of humanity, in order successively to be 
 assimilated and reproduced by this human consciousness in 
 dogma and theology. The apostles have dug the gold from 
 the mine, and from this gold the Church has forged the 
 artistic ornaments. 
 
 Every effort, therefore, to make the inspiration of the 
 apostles identical with their enlightening must be resisted. 
 For this places them virtually on a plane with every regener- 
 ated child of God, that shares the enlightening with them. 
 This would be proper, if the enlightening were already abso- 
 lute in the earth. This, however, it is not. No less than sanc- 
 tification enlightenment remains in fact most imperfect till 
 our death, however potentially it may be complete. The 
 apostles never claimed that they had outgrown sin. Romans 
 vii., which describes Paul's spiritual state as an apostle, 
 sufficiently proves the contrary. Galatians ii. also shows an 
 entirely different state of things. With so much of un- 
 holiness still present in them, how could their enlightening 
 have been complete ? Their partial enlightening would never 
 have been a sufficient cause for the absolute authority of 
 their claims. This is only covered by the inspiration, which 
 ever accompanied them, both in the remembrance and in the 
 revelation of the mystery. 
 
 A single remark should be added concerning the char- 
 ismata, and more particularly about the "speaking with 
 tongues," since the apostles themselves thus spoke. It is 
 evident at once that this speaking of tongues was essentially 
 different from the apostolic inspiration, in so far as it made 
 a break in the consciousness, and repressed the activity of 
 
544 § 85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 the consciousness of the apostles, and caused a mightier 
 spirit to control their spirit and organ of speech. This 
 speaking in tongues falls under the category of inspiration 
 only in so far as it establishes the fact, that an inspiring 
 mind (auctor mentalis) outside of them gave direction to 
 what was heard from them. Our space does not allow a 
 closer study of this speaking with tongues, neither does it 
 lie in our way to consider here the charismata in general. Be 
 it simply stated, however, that they belong to the ecstatic 
 phenomena. According to 1 Cor. xiv., the content of the 
 glossolaly could be interpreted, but he who spake did not 
 understand it himself. In so far, therefore, it must be judged 
 by the analogy of the mesraerizer who causes his medium, 
 who knows no Latin, to write Latin words, provided, how- 
 ever, this phenomenon be not taken as being brought about by 
 causing the spirit to sleep, but, on the contrary, as wrought 
 by high exaltation. 
 
 § 85. G-raphieal Inspiration 
 
 All that has thus far been said of inspiration does not refer 
 at all to the Holy Scriptures as canonical writings. Suppose, 
 indeed, that you knew that from the consciousness of God, 
 by the Holy Spirit, inspiration had taken place in the con- 
 sciousness of psalmists, teachers of wisdom, prophets and 
 apostles, what warrant would this be, that what the Holy 
 Scripture offers you, was really taken from the sphere of 
 this inspiration, and had come to you in a sufficiently trust- 
 worthy form ? What has been said thus far of the means and 
 forms of inspiration refers to the prophetic, psalmodic, chok- 
 matic and apostolic appearance among the people, in the gate, 
 at the temple and in the first Christian circles. The field 
 which this inspiration covered was incomparably larger than 
 that which bounds the domain of the Scripture. Think how 
 much must have been spoken by a man like Isaiah during 
 all the years of his prophetic ministry. Compare with this 
 his small book in our Hebrew Bible, of a little more than 
 four quires, and you will be readily convinced that Isaiah 
 spoke at least ten or twenty times as much again. How 
 
Chap. II] § 85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION 545 
 
 little is known to us of the preaching of most of the apostles, 
 even of Peter and Paul, who for many years discharged their 
 apostolic mission. What are thirteen epistles for a man like 
 Paul, whose life was so active, and whose connections were 
 so widely ramified? How much of controversy has been 
 raised about his epistle to the Laodiceans, as though, indeed, 
 that were the only one that was not included in the Script- 
 ure ? On the other hand, what a large part of Scripture is 
 left uncovered by inspiration, as thus far viewed. Even 
 though you count Samuel and Kings among the prophets, 
 the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Esther and Nehemiah, etc., 
 are still left over. And, in the third place, even if there 
 were not this difference of compass, still what has been thus 
 far treated of could never result in anything more than that 
 such an inspii-ation had taken place in a whole series of am- 
 bassadors of God, while the compilation of what they sang or 
 spake under this inspiration had received no supervision. 
 
 With this in mind, we purposely distinguish graphic in- 
 spiration from the other forms of inspiration; so that by 
 graphic inspiration we understand that guidance given by 
 the Spirit of God to the minds of the writers, compilers 
 and editors of the Holy Scriptures, by which these sacred 
 writings have assumed such a form as was, in the coun- 
 sel of salvation, predestined by God among the means of 
 grace for His Church. To prevent any misunderstanding, 
 we observe at once that in an epistle like that to the Gala- 
 tians, this graphical inspiration coincides almost entirely with 
 the apostolic inspiration, for in an epistle that Avas sent, the 
 apostolic inspiration itself bore a graphic character. Never- 
 theless, the one conception is here not entirely covered by 
 the other ; so far, indeed, as there was a choice between several 
 epistles, or between several copies of the same epistle, another 
 factor came into play. Moreover, we grant that it would be 
 more logical, to class that which is not indicated as graphic 
 inspiration as a subdivision under the activity of God with 
 respect to the canon (actio Dei circa Canonem), which in 
 turn belongs under the works of God pertaining to provi- 
 dence (opera Dei, quoad providentiam), and more particu- 
 
546 §85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 larly to special providence (quoad providentiam specialem). 
 For instance, the fact that the Epistle to the Colossians is, 
 and the epistle to the Laodiceans is not, included, may have 
 been caused by the preservation of the one and the loss of 
 the other. There is, then, no question of a choice by men, 
 nor of any inspiration to guide that human choice. It was 
 simply the providence of God which allowed one to be lost 
 and the other to be kept. To us it would be even preferable 
 to treat this whole matter under the science of canonics, disci- 
 plina canonica (which follows later), and much confusion 
 would have been prevented, if this Divine activity in behalf 
 of the Canon had always been distinguished in principle from 
 the real inspiration. Now, indeed, there is a confusion of 
 ideas, which to many renders a clear insight almost impossi- 
 ble. A content like that of the second Psalm was certainly 
 inspired to David, when this song loomed before his spirit and 
 shaped itself in a poetical form. This, however, did not assign 
 it a place in the Scripture, neither did this sanction it as an 
 inspired part of the Holy Scripture. Since vre have been 
 accustomed to pay almost no attention to the original in- 
 spiration, and for centuries have applied inspiration indis- 
 criminately to all parts of Scripture, according to their 
 content and form, ecclesiastical parlance does not permit the 
 conception of inspiration to be entirely ignored in the com- 
 piling and editing of the books of the Holy Scripture. This 
 is the less necessary, since in this compiling and editing an 
 activity from the side of God was exerted upon the spirit of 
 man, which, to some extent, is of one kind with real inspira- 
 tion. Let it never be lost from sight, however, that this 
 graphic inspiration was merely one of several factors used 
 by God in the " divine activity in behalf of the Canon." 
 
 This graphic inspiration is least of all of a uniform charac- 
 ter, but it differs according to the nature of the several parts 
 of the Holy Scripture. It is least evident, as observed before, 
 in the apostolic epistles, since these were prepared in writing. 
 Neither can graphic inspiration have been greatly significant 
 in purely lyrical poetic-productions, which were bound to their 
 poetic form, and committed to writing by the poet himself. 
 
Chap. 11] §85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION 547 
 
 This simply required such a formulation of the content of his 
 memory, that nothing was changed in it, or, if anything was 
 changed, that this change also took place under the leading 
 of God's Spirit. Then follow those productions of chokma- 
 tic, prophetic, or lyric-didactic content, which were digests of 
 longer recitations. As in the case of more than one prophet, 
 the oral author superintended this digest himself, or some 
 other person compiled the content of their Divine charge or 
 teaching and committed it to book-form. With the latter 
 especially graphic inspiration must have been more active, to 
 direct the spirit of the writer or compiler. The working of 
 graphic inspiration must have been still more effective in the 
 description of the apocalyptic vision, especially when this 
 assumed such proportions as the vision of John on Patmos. 
 To obey the order of the " write these things " and in calmer 
 moments to commit to writing what had been seen in ecstasy 
 on the broad expanse of the visionary horizon, required a 
 special sharpening of the memory. And at the same time 
 it was necessary that in the choice of language and expres- 
 sion the writer should be elevated to the heights of his sub- 
 ject. But even this was not the department in which the 
 activity of this graphic inspiration reached its highest point. 
 This took place only in the writing of those books, for which 
 no inspired content presented itself, but which the writer 
 had to compose himself; that is, the historical books. With 
 these writings also, as shown by their contents, there was no 
 elimination of those natural data implanted in man for this 
 kind of authorship, and made permanent by common grace; 
 on the contrary, graphic inspiration adapts itself wholly 
 to these natural data. The same methods pursued in our 
 times, for the writing of any part of history, were pursued 
 by the historiographers of the Old as well as of the New Tes- 
 tament. Oral traditions are consulted, old chronicles and 
 documents are collected, inquiry is made of those who may 
 have knowledge of the particulars involved, and in this way 
 a representation is formed of what actually took place. Thus 
 Luke (i. 1) himself tells us, (1) that " many have taken in 
 hand to draw up a narrative," (2) that he makes distinction 
 
548 §85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 between the things of which he had entire and partial cer- 
 tainty, (3) that he lias carefully investigated once more all 
 things from the beginning, (4) that he is particularly guided 
 by the tradition of ear- and eye-witnesses, and (5) that then 
 only he deemed himself competent to write a narrative of these 
 things in good order (/ca^ef^?). This excludes every idea 
 of a mechanical instillation of the contents of his gospel, and 
 may be accepted as the rule followed by each of the histori- 
 ographers. Of course the question of the origin of the narra- 
 tive of the creation cannot be included or classed under this 
 rule. No man was present at the creation. Hence no one 
 but God Himself, who has been present ever since He brought 
 it to pass, can be the author of what we know concerning it. 
 And this is taken entirely apart from the closer distinction, 
 whether the first man had received that insight into the origin 
 of the paradise, of sun, moon and stars, or whether this was 
 granted to the Church at a later period, after the separa- 
 tion from the Heathen. For all those things, on the other hand, 
 which happened to or by man, which were matters of human 
 experience, seen and heard, transmitted by oral tradition, and 
 cooimitted to writing in whatever way, the sacred historiog- 
 rapher followed the ordinary method, and discovered at every 
 turn the still imperfect standpoint at which the historiogra- 
 phy of the times stood. In their writings it is seen that they 
 consulted tradition, inserted sections from existing works, 
 examined genealogies and other documents, and collected 
 their material in this entirely natural way. This was the 
 first task of their mind. Then came the second task, of 
 making choice between different traditions and diverging 
 documents. In the third place was added the more impor- 
 tant task of understanding the invisible motive of this his- 
 tory, and of observing in it the doings of God. And finally 
 their latest task consisted in committing to writing the 
 representation of the past which in this way had formed 
 itself in their minds. And this brincrs to light what we mean 
 by graphic inspiration. Even where providentially good tra- 
 dition and trustworthy documents were within reach, their 
 attention had to be directed to them. They needed guidance 
 
Chap. II] § 85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION 549 
 
 in their choice between several, ofttimes contradictory, repre- 
 sentations. In the study of the mystical background of this 
 history their mind had to be enabled to perceive the Divine 
 motives. And finally in the writing of what had matured in 
 their mind, their mind and their mind's utterance had to be 
 shaped after the mould of the Divine purpose that was to be 
 realized by the Scripture in His Church. To some extent 
 it can be said that none but natural factors were here at work. 
 It often happens in our times that an author gets hold of a 
 correct tradition, consults trustworthy documents, writes as he 
 ought to write, obtains a just insight into the mysticism that 
 hides in history, thus forms for himself a true representation, 
 and commits this faithfully to writing. But in this case 
 these factors were subject to higher leadings, and upon choice, 
 inventiveness, study of conditions, forming of representations, 
 insight into the mysticism of history, and upon the final 
 writing, the. Holy Spirit worked effectively as a leading, 
 directing and determining power; but the subjectivity was 
 not lost. No one single subject could receive in himself the 
 full impression of a mighty event. To see an image from all 
 sides, one must place himself at several points and distances. 
 Hence we find in the Holy Scripture not infrequentlj'- more 
 than one narrative of the same group of events, as for instance 
 in the four Gospels ; these are no repetitions, but rise from 
 the fact that in the consciousness of one subject the interpre- 
 tation, and hence also the reproduction, of the incident was 
 necessarily different from those of his fellow-laborer. This 
 is the life of history. It gives no notarial acts, but reproduces 
 what has been received in the consciousness, and does this 
 not with that precision of outline which belongs to archi- 
 tecture, but with the impressionistic certainty of life. This 
 excludes by no means the possibility that the writings thus 
 prepared were afterward reviewed by second or third editors ; 
 and here and there enriched by insertions and additions. 
 From their content this very fact is evident. Graphic inspira- 
 tion must then have been extended to these editors, since 
 they indeed delivered the writings, in the form in which they 
 were to be possessed by the Church. This gives rise to the 
 
550 §85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION [Div. lU 
 
 difficulty, that after the Church had entered upon the posses- 
 sion of such writings, unauthorized editors still tried to intro- 
 duce modifications, which did not belong to them, and these 
 of course must be excluded. This indeed is related to the 
 general position occupied by the Church over against the 
 Scripture, which tends at no time to allow the certainty of 
 faith to be supplanted by the certainty of intellect. As soon 
 as it is thought that the holy ore of the Scripture can be 
 weighed in the balance with mathematical accuracy, the eye 
 of faith becomes clouded, and the gold is less clearly seen. 
 
 The answer to the question as to our right to accept such 
 a graphic inspiration is given in §§ 77 and 78. It is the self- 
 witness (^avTOfiaprvpiov') of the Scripture, which it gives of 
 itself in the central revelation of the Christ. Christ indeed 
 gives us no theory of graphic inspiration, but the nature of 
 the authority, which He and His apostles after Him attributed 
 to the Scripture of His times, admits of no other solution. 
 The " all Scripture is theopneustic " is not said of the inspira- 
 tion of the psalmists, wise men, and prophets, but of the 
 products of the writers. This certainly declares that they 
 remained writers in the strictest sense, even as compilers 
 and examiners of their material, as compositoi's and in 
 artistic grouping of the contents, but that in all these func- 
 tions the Holy Spirit worked so effectively upon the action 
 of their human minds, that thereby their product obtained 
 Divine authority. Of course not in the sense that the con- 
 tent of what they rehearsed obtained thereby a Divine char- 
 acter. When they relate what Shimei said, it does not make 
 his demoniacal language Divine, but it certifies that Shimei 
 spake these evil words ; always impressionistically, however, 
 the same as in the New Testament. When in the four Gos- 
 pels Jesus, on the same occasion, is made to say words that 
 are different in form of expression, it is impossible that He 
 should have used these four forms at once. The Holy 
 Spirit, however, merely intends to make an impression upon 
 the Church which wholly corresponds to what Jesus said. 
 The same is the case with what is written in the Old Testa- 
 ment. The composition of this had taken place under one 
 
Chap. II] § 85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION 551 
 
 continuous authority, which justifies citation with an " it is 
 written," such as was done by Jesus, but which modified it^ 
 self in nature and character according to the claims of the 
 content. 
 
 For him who has been brought to the Christ, and who on 
 his knees worships Him as his Lord and his God, the end 
 of all contradiction is hereby reached. When the Christ, 
 whose spirit witnessed beforehand in the prophets, attributes 
 such authority to the Scripture of the Old Covenant, and by 
 His apostles indicates the ground for that authority in the 
 Theopneusty, there is no power that can prevent the recog- 
 nition of that authority by him who believes in Jesus. Not 
 to recognize it would avenge itself in the representation that 
 in the very holiest things Christ had wholly mistaken Him- 
 self. This would imply the loss of Ms Saviour. The objec- 
 tion will not do, that one learns to know the Christ from 
 the Scripture, so that faith in the Saviour can follow only 
 upon a preceding faith on the Scripture. The reading of the 
 Scripture as such, without more, will never be able to bring 
 one single soul from death unto life. The Scripture by 
 itself is as dull as a diamond in the dark ; and as the dia- 
 mond glistens only when entered by a ray of light, the 
 Scripture has power to charm the eye of the soul only when 
 seen in the light of the Holy Spirit. Christ lives, and by 
 His Holy Spirit He still works upon the heart and in the 
 consciousness of God's elect. Sometimes palingenesis takes 
 place in very infancy. If this were not so, all children 
 dying young should have to be considered as lost. Dur- 
 ing the period of early bringing up, many children show that 
 the enmity against God was broken in their youthful hearts, 
 before they came to read the Scripture. In fact, it is in- 
 correct to say, that we come to the Scripture first, and by 
 the Scripture to Christ. Even when, after having learned 
 to read the Scripture, in later years one comes to Christ 
 as his Saviour, the Scripture may cooperate instrumentally, 
 but in principle the act of regeneration ever proceeds from 
 heaven, from God, by His Christ; while, on the other hand, 
 without this avwOev (from above) the most careful study 
 
552 § 85. GRAPHICAL INSPIRATION [Div. Ill 
 
 of the Scripture can never lead to regeneration, nor to a 
 " being planted together " with Christ. Tradition, supported 
 and verified by the Scripture, is surely the ground of a 
 purely historic faith in Christ, but this faith at large fails, as 
 soon as another interpretation of the Scripture gains the day. 
 The outcome shows, that where, on the other hand, the revela- 
 tion of power from heaven (^dvwdev} really has taken place, 
 and transformed the mode of the soul's life and conscious- 
 ness, even in times of spiritual barrenness, the worship of 
 Christ has again and again revived; and amid general 
 negation, the most learned individuals have bowed again to 
 the authority of the Scripture, in the same way in which 
 Jesus recognized it. The words once spoken by Jesus in the 
 temple at Jerusalem (John vii. 17), " If any man willeth to 
 do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of 
 God," is truly the canon here. In Christ we only see and 
 handle the Divine, when transformed in our inner being and 
 life, and without this preceding change of heart and our 
 acceptance with Christ, even though an angel were to come 
 down from heaven in visible form, no one would ever sub- 
 ject himself to the word of God. The starting-point must 
 ever lie in our inner ego, and without this starting-point in 
 sympathy with the revelation of the Scripture, everything 
 in us tends to disown the authority of the Scripture, and 
 to resist it with all our powers. 
 
 That our human ego, nevertheless, can be brought to accept 
 and appropriate to itself the special revelation, is a result of 
 the fact that of all the ways and means of inspiration, the 
 self-revealing God has never employed any but those which 
 were present in man by virtue of creation. The whole ques- 
 tion of inspiration virtually amounts to this: whether God 
 shall be denied or granted the sovereign right of employing, 
 if so needed and desired, the factors which He Himself 
 created in man, by which to communicate to man what He 
 purposed to reveal respecting the maintenance of His own 
 majesty, the execution of His world-plan, and the salvation 
 of His elect. 
 
Chap. II] § 86. TESTIMONIUM SPIRITUS SANCTI 553 
 
 § 86. Testimonium Spiritus Sancti, or The Witness of the 
 
 Holy Spirit 
 
 The point of view held by our Reformers is (1) that true 
 faith is a gift of God, the fruit of an operation of the Holy 
 Spirit; and (2) that true faith, as the Heidelberg Catechism 
 teaches, first of all consists of this, " that I hold for truth all 
 that God has revealed to us in His Word." This agrees en- 
 tirely with what was said at the close of the former section. 
 Not merely historical, but true faith is unthinkable in the sin- 
 ner, except he embrace "the Christ and all His benefits." 
 This, however, by no means exhausts the meaning of what is 
 understood by the " witness of the Holy Spirit," or the testi- 
 monium Spiritus Sancti. This goes far deeper. Although it 
 is entirely logical, that he who believes on Christ as God mani- 
 fest in the flesh, cannot simultaneously reject the positive and 
 definite witness borne by that Christ concerning the Scriptures 
 of the Old Covenant, this proof for graphic inspiration is, 
 and always remains, a proof obtained by inference, and not 
 by one's own apprehension. The two grounds for faith in 
 graphic inspiration must be carefully distinguished, for, though 
 the faith that rests upon the testimony of Christ is more abso- 
 lute in character, the " witness of the Holy Spirit," though it 
 matures more slowly, is clearer and more in keeping with the 
 freedom of the child of God. It is with this as it was with 
 the people of Sychar, who first believed because of the say- 
 ings of the woman, and later believed on the ground of their 
 own sight. The link between these two is the authority of 
 the Church (auctoritas ecclesiae). Although the Reformers 
 rightly contested the auctoritas imperii, as they called it, viz. 
 the imperial authority, which Rome attributes to the utter- 
 ance of the ecclesiastical institutions, they never denied the 
 authority of dignity (auctoritas dignitatis) of the Church as 
 an organism, nor of the Church as an institution. From the 
 ethical side it has been made to appear, in recent times, that 
 our faith in the Scripture floats on the faith of the believers, 
 in distinction from the authority of the Church, and this re- 
 fers to an important element which was originally too much 
 
554 § 86. TESTIMONIUM SPIRITUS SANCTI, OR [Div. ni 
 
 neglected. An unpardonable mistake, however, was com- 
 mitted, from the ethical side, when this was indicated as the 
 starting-point (So? /xoi' ttov arM^, and, worse still, when it was 
 left to this so-called " faith of the believers " to decide what 
 should be accepted from the Scripture, and what was to be 
 rejected from its content. To be able to furnish such a testi- 
 mony, the believers must have an authoritative organ, i.e. it 
 must appear as an instituted body. Thus we would have 
 come back to Rome's shibboleth, " the Church teaches," 
 Ecclesia docet. Since, on the other hand, " the faith of the 
 believers " was taken, as it voices itself without this organ, all 
 certainty, of course, was wanting, and in the stead of " the 
 faith of the believers," there now appeared the interpretation 
 of " the faith of the believers," as given by A or B. And this 
 resulted in the free use of this pleasing title for all that was 
 held true by individual ministers and their private circles. 
 What thus presented itself as an objective, solid basis, ap- 
 pears to have been nothing but a subjective soil of sand. 
 Moreover, in this wise " the believers " as such were exalted 
 above the Christ. For where Christ had testified in the 
 strictest sense to a graphic inspiration of the Old Testament, 
 " the believers " contradicted Him, declared that this interpre- 
 tation was erroneous, and consequently faith was to be pinned 
 to what was claimed by "the believing circle," and not to 
 what was confessed by Him. 
 
 The element of truth in this representation is, that the 
 Church forms a link in a twofold way between faith in the 
 inspiration of the Scripture upon the authority of Christ, and 
 faith in this inspiration on the ground of the testimony of the 
 Holy Spirit. In the first place, it cannot be denied that the 
 Church is one of the factors by which he who formerly stood 
 out of Christ is brought to Christ. " How shall they believe 
 in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they 
 hear without a preacher?" (Rom. x. 14). However much 
 regeneration may be an act of God in the heart of the sinner, 
 immediately effected, independently of all instrumental help, 
 no conscious faith on Christ can develop itself from this 
 " seed of God " (airepijia 6eov) without preaching, which intro- 
 
Chap. II] THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 655 
 
 duces the image of Christ and. His work into the human con- 
 sciousness. Preaching is here taken in the broadest possible 
 sense, not merely as cateohization and as preaching of the 
 Word, but as including all communication of man to man, 
 orally or in writing, by which the form of Christ is brought 
 in relief before the seeking eye of faith. So far, therefore, 
 the link of the Church claims our notice, and in proportion 
 as this appearance of the Church is purer or less pure, faith 
 in Christ will be richer or poorer. Augustine's saying, 
 "Evangelio non crederem nisi ecclesiae me moveret autori- 
 tas " (i.e. " I could not have believed the Gospel, except as 
 moved by the authority of the Church"), contains some- 
 thing more still. In this saying, the Church appears not 
 merely as the preacher of truth, but as an imposing phenom- 
 enon in life which exerts a moral power, and which, itself 
 being a work of Christ, bears witness to the "founder of 
 the Church" (auctor ecclesiae). It is the revelation of the 
 spiritual power of Christ in His Church, which as a spiritual 
 reality takes hold of the soul. For this very reason the inter- 
 pretation of this word of Augustine by the Romish dogmati- 
 cians, as an auctoritas imperii, or imperial authority, to be 
 attributed to the instituted Church, is wrong, and it was 
 equally wrong to interpret the Gospel Evangelium as the " In- 
 spired Sacred Scripture," for then Augustine should have 
 begun by subjecting himself to this official authority of the 
 Church. Suppose, indeed, that such an arbitrary subjec- 
 tion would have been conceivable, the word moveret would 
 have been put to an impossible use. An imperial authority 
 does not move (movet), but commands (iubet) and compels 
 (cogit). What remains of this, therefore, is no other than 
 what we, too, confess; viz. that as a herald of the Gospel 
 (praedicatrix Evangelii) and as an imposing spiritual phe- 
 nomenon, the Church is one of the factors used by the Holy 
 Spirit in bringing the regenerate to a conscious faith in Christ. 
 To this is added, in the second place, the very important 
 significance of " the communion of saints." Even though it 
 is not impossible in the absolute sense that faith can be main- 
 tained in isolation, isolation, nevertheless, goes against the 
 
556 § 86. TESTIMONIUM SPIRITUS SANCTI, OK [Div. HI 
 
 nature of faith ; and it remains a question whether any one 
 but Christ Himself, in that absolute sense, has stood alone 
 in his faith. This is the very profound meaning of Geth- 
 semane. Sin, and hence unbelief, scatters, individualizes, 
 and pulverizes ; but grace, and hence faith, restores Ufe in 
 organic connection, viz. the life of each member in the body. 
 And what applies to leing applies also to the consciousness; 
 here it is also an " apprehending with all the saints" (Eph. 
 iii. 18). The power of public opinion shows how mightily 
 this factor inworks upon our own conviction; and as there 
 is a public opinion in the things of the world, there is 
 also a certain fides communis, or, if you please, a public 
 opinion in the communion of saints. And in so far the ethi- 
 cal school maintains correctly that "the faith of the be- 
 lievers " supports the faith of the individual, and exercises a 
 certain authority over it. This factor works in a threefold 
 way : (1) in an historical sense, in so far as the testimony of 
 the ages comes to us in tradition and writings ; (2) in a 
 catholic sense, insomuch as the general appearance of the 
 universal Church always includes a certain confession of 
 faith ; and (3) in an empirical sense, if we ourselves per- 
 sonally come in contact with confessors of Christ, move in 
 the circles of the children of God, and thus experience 
 immediately the influence of the communion of the saints. 
 In this we are not dealing with the Church as an institution, 
 but with the Church as an organism. And though it must 
 be granted that the influence of this public opinion, if 
 untrue, can inwork disastrously upon our conviction, so that 
 spiritual criticism only keeps us in the right path, it is never- 
 theless entirely true that this communis fides, this public 
 opinion among the children of God, this "faith of the be- 
 lievers " as it may be called, imprints in our consciousness 
 the image of Christ as the Saviour of the world, and sup- 
 ports in us faith in the Holy Scripture. 
 
 This, of course, cannot be the last point of support, and 
 therefore the Reformers wisely appealed on principle to the 
 " witness of the Holy Spirit." By this they understood a tes- 
 timony that went out directly from the Holy Spirit, as author 
 
Chap. II] THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 557 
 
 of the Scripture, to our personal ego. They did not call it 
 an internal (internum) but an external proof (argumentum 
 externum), for the reason that it did not rise from our ego, 
 but from without us, from God, it moved itself toward our 
 ego. It has often, however, been wrongly represented that 
 by this witness was meant in a magic sense a certain "ec- 
 stasy " or " enthusiasm," and that it consisted of a supernatu- 
 ral communication from the side of God, in which it was said 
 to us, " This Scripture is my Word." Thus it has been rep- 
 resented by some who were less well informed, but never by 
 our theologians. On the contrary, they have always protested 
 against this representation ; the more since experience taught 
 that all such interpretation led at once to a false mysti- 
 cism, and thereby undermined the authority of the Scripture. 
 For then, indeed, the revelation of God, which one imagines 
 and declares himself to have received, is placed ahove the 
 Scripture, and in the end the Scripture is rejected. No, the 
 representation of the Reformers was this, that this witness is 
 to be taken as " light so irradiating the mind as to affect it 
 gently, and display to it the inner relations of the truth that 
 had hitherto been concealed." Hence it was a subdivision 
 of the enlightening, but in this instance directed immedi- 
 ately upon the Holy Scripture, and not upon its inspiration, 
 but its Divine quality. First one stood before the Holy 
 Scripture as before a foreign object which did not suit his 
 world of conceptions, and over against which, in his world- 
 consciousness, one assumed essentially not merely a doubt- 
 ful, but a hostile attitude. If meanwhile the change of our 
 inner being has taken place by palingenesis, from which 
 there has gradually sprung in our sense and in our con- 
 sciousness a modified view of ourselves, of the things of this 
 world, and of the unseen world, which withdraws itself from 
 our natural eye, this enlightening of the Holy Spirit creates 
 discord between our deepest life-consciousness and the con- 
 sciousness of the world, which formerly ruled and still presses 
 itself upon us. And in this struggle the Holy Spirit opens 
 our eyes, that in the Holy Scripture we may see a represen- 
 tation of our ego, of the world and of the eternal things. 
 
558 § 86. TESTIMONIUM SPIEITUS SANCTI, OR [Div. m 
 
 which agrees with what we seek to defend in the combat 
 against the naturalistic consciousness of the world. Hence 
 a process is here involved. The more deeply we are led by 
 the Holy Spirit into the knowledge of ourselves as sinners, of 
 the unreality of the world, and of the reality of the Divine, 
 the more intense becomes this struggle, and the more evident 
 grows the affinity between the work of the Holy Spirit in us 
 and in that Holy Scripture. Thus the veil is gradually 
 being pushed aside, the eye turns toward the Divine light 
 that radiates from the Scripture, and now our inner ego sees 
 its imposing superiority. We see it as one born blind, who 
 being healed, sees the beauty of colors, or as one deaf, whose 
 hearing being restored, catches the melodies from the world of 
 sounds, and with his whole soul delights himself in them. 
 
 In this connection the so-called internal proof for the 
 Divine character of the Holy Scripture must also be under- 
 stood. In a later period it has been made to appear that the 
 " heavenly majesty of the doctrines, the marvellous complete- 
 ness of the prophecies, the wonderful miracles, the consent 
 of all its parts, the divineness of the discourse," and so much 
 more, formed a system of outward proofs able to convince 
 the reason without enlightenment; but our first theologians, 
 at least, did not attach such a meaning to them. They 
 taught that these inner relations of the Scripture were under- 
 stood, and thus were able to serve their real purpose only 
 when, by enlightening, the spiritual understanding had been 
 clarified and purified. He only, who in palingenesis had 
 experienced a miracle in his own person, ceased to react 
 against miracles, but rather invoked them himself. He who 
 had observed the fulfilment of several prophecies in his own 
 spiritual life, understood the relation between prophecy and 
 its fulfilment. He who heard the music of the Divine 
 melody of redemption in his own soul was rapt in wonder 
 (rapiebatur in admirationem), as they expressed it, in listen- 
 ing to the Oratorio of Salvation proceeding from the heavenly 
 majesty of doctrine in the Holy Scripture. As the Confessio 
 Belgica states in Art. 9, that we even believe the mystery of 
 the Trinity " from their operations, and chiefly by those we 
 
Chap. H] THE "WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 559 
 
 feel in ourselves," our faith in the Divine character of the 
 Scripture rests upon the experience of spiritual life that ad- 
 dresses us from that Scripture. That similarity of personal 
 experience fosters affinity, quickens sympathy and opens eye 
 and ear. In by far the greater number of cases this testimo- 
 nium Spiritus Sancti works gradually and unobserved. The 
 " enlightening " increases gradually in intensity, and in pro- 
 portion as it grows stronger we see more, and see with more 
 certainty, and stand the more firmly. Sometimes, however, 
 this witness of the Holy Spirit becomes more incisive in 
 character. This is especially noticeable in days of general 
 apostasy, and then the child of God is fully conscious of 
 this incisive inworking. Living in a society of high intel- 
 lectual development, and taking notice of what is contributed 
 by reason without enlightening to enervate the Divine char- 
 acter of the Holy Scripture, inwardly most painful discord is 
 born. Doubt is contagious. When with firm tread you 
 walk along your well-chosen way, and without hesitancy 
 at the cross-road turn to the right, you are involuntarily 
 brought to a standstill, and shocked for a moment in your 
 feeling of assurance, when three or four persons call out after 
 you that you should turn to the left. As in sanctification 
 you are made to err in this way from time to time with 
 respect to the Holy Scripture, you may be led to doubt, 
 and even for a while pursue wrong paths. But this will not 
 be permanent. The work of grace is not left to yourself, but 
 with a firm hand is guided by the Holy Spirit, who in no 
 mechanical way, but by a richer spiritual experience, at 
 length restores you to seeing again what is truly Divine. 
 And when the Holy Spirit enters accusation against us in 
 our own soul that we kick against the pricks, and depend 
 more on our own and Satan's word than on His Word, and 
 moves and implores us with groanings unspeakable that for 
 the sake of the glory of God and our salvation we attach 
 again a greater significance to His Word than to any other, 
 then there comes that incisive, and therefore decisive, mo- 
 ment when the child of God lays the hand on his mouth, 
 and with shame and confusion turns his back upon doubt, in 
 
560 § 86. TESTIMONIUM SPIRITUS SANCTI, OK [Div. Ill 
 
 order that in contrition and soitow he may hearken again 
 to the Holy Spirit as the speaker in His Word. As said 
 before, however, this incisive character is not borne by the 
 witness of the Holy Spirit in every person, nor at all times. 
 As the conversion of many people has taken place almost 
 without observation, which often happens in the quieter walks 
 of Christian life, and the conversion of a few only, who at 
 first wandered far off, is incisive like that of an Augustine, 
 such also is the case here. For the most part this witness 
 works gradually and unobserved, and only in exceptional 
 cases is it as lightning that suddenly flames through the 
 skies. 
 
 From the nature of this witness of the Holy Spirit, it 
 follows at the same time, that it begins with binding us 
 simply to the Holy Scripture in its centrum. It is the central 
 truth concerning our ego, concerning the world about us, 
 and of the true reality which is with God, that takes hold of 
 us, convinces and follows after us, until we give ourselves 
 captive to it. This central truth will take hold of one by 
 this, and of another by that utterance, in proportion as our 
 inner life is tuned to it ; but the first impressions will always 
 cause us to descend into the depths of misery and ascend to 
 the heights of redemption. How far the authority, which 
 from this spiritual centrum obtains its hold on us, extends 
 itself later to those things in the Scripture that lie on the 
 periphery, is a question devoid at first of all spiritual sig- 
 nificance. Conditions are conceivable in which, after one is 
 captured centrally by the Scripture, the clashing is continued 
 for many years between our thinking and acting on the one 
 hand, and that which the Scripture lays upon us in the name 
 of the Lord as faith and practice (credenda and agenda). 
 Graduallj^ however, an ever more vitally organic relation 
 begins to reveal itself between the centrum of the Scripture 
 and its periphery, between its fundamental and its derivative 
 thoughts, and between its utterances and the facts it com- 
 municates. That authority which at first addressed us from 
 that centrum only, now begins to appear to us from what has 
 proceeded from that centrum. We feel ourselves more and 
 
CuAP. II] THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 561 
 
 more captivated by a power, whose centrum cannot be 
 accepted without demanding and then compelling all un- 
 observedly an ever more general consent for its entire 
 appearance, and all its utterances. Thus it ends as Scripture 
 by imposing sacred obligations upon us, as Soli/ Book by 
 exercising over us moral compulsion and spiritual power. 
 And in the end the connection between its form and content 
 appears so inseparable, that even the exceptional parts of its 
 form appeal to us, and, in form and content both, the Script- 
 ure comes to stand before us as an authority from God. 
 
 But this process of conviction worked in us by the Spirit, 
 is always a spiritual work, which has nothing in common 
 with the learning of the schools ; it is moreover incapable 
 of maintaining itself theoretically and of continuing itself 
 according to a definable system. By itself it tends no further 
 than to bear spiritual testimony to our personal, regenerated 
 ego concerning the Divine character of everything the Holy 
 Scripture teaches and reveals ; and without more, the truth, 
 for instance, of graphic inspiration can never be derived from 
 it. If, however, an absolute certainty concerning this Divine 
 character of the content of the Scripture has been sealed in 
 the personal consciousness of man by this witness of the 
 Holy Spirit, the effect of this goes back to the two former 
 stages of the public opinion (communis fides), and the cleav- 
 ing to Christ. With this conviction, which is now his own for 
 good and always, he, who has been set free from the veil that 
 darkly hung between, does not stand alone, but feels himself 
 assimilated by the illuminated consciousness which in the 
 communion of the saints is distinguished from the natural 
 consciousness of the world. This assimilation becomes the 
 stronger, according to the greater vitality of the child of 
 God in him, by which he is evermore being changed into the 
 image of the Son of God. Thus there originates a communion 
 of consciousness not merely with those round about us, but 
 also with the generation of saints of former ages, affinity of 
 life with the saints that have gone before, unity of soul- 
 conceptions with the martyrs, with the fathers of the Church, 
 with the apostles, and so at length with Christ Himself and 
 
562 § 86. TESTIMONIUM SPIEITUS SANCTI, OR [Dit. in 
 
 with the faithful of the Old Covenant. In the life-conscious- 
 ness of that sacred circle the positive conviction prevails, 
 that we have a graphically inspired Scripture, on which we 
 lean and by which we live ; and that this is not contingent, 
 nor accidental, but necessary. This faith in the Scripture is 
 found as an indispensable and an entirely natural component 
 part in the life-consciousness of this circle. And when in 
 experience the riches of the Scripture contents become ever 
 more precious to the heart, resistance is no longer possible. 
 The power of assimilation is too strong, the general unsanc- 
 tified human consciousness loses all its power, and at length 
 the believer must accept the equally general, but now sanc- 
 tified, human consciousness, including this component part of 
 its content. If then, finally, the believer goes back to the 
 first stage in his Christian life, i.e. to his personal faith in his 
 Saviour, and realizes that Christ himself has presented the 
 Holy Scripture — which the common opinion in the com- 
 munion of saints has adopted in its world of thought as 
 theopneustic, and of the Divine truth of which, thanks to 
 the " Witness of the Holy Spirit," he is himself firmly con- 
 vinced — as the product of the Holy Spirit, the assurance 
 of his faith on this point is immovably established, and to 
 him the Scripture itself is the principium, i.e., the starting- 
 point, from which proceeds all knowledge of God, i.e. all 
 theology. 
 
 In this sense the Holy Scripture was the principium of 
 Theology to our fathers, and in the same sense it is this to 
 us. Hence this principium, as such, can be no conclusion 
 from other premises, but is itself the premise, from which 
 all other conclusions are drawn. Of course this does not 
 dismiss the fact, that objections, derived from the common 
 norma of our thought, can still be entered against the Holy 
 Scripture and its alleged character ; in this, indeed, every one 
 should be left free, and these objections it is the task of The- 
 ology squarely to face. This, however, can be considered only 
 in the science of the canon (disciplina canonicae) and the 
 science of the text (ars textualis). We merely observe that 
 on the one hand this critical task should not be impeded in 
 
Chap. 11] THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 563 
 
 the least, provided it is clearly understood on the other hand 
 that the failure of your first efforts to solve such critical ob- 
 jections can rob you of the certainty of your principium, as 
 little as success can strengthen it. Assurance of faith and 
 demonstration are two entirely heterogeneous things. And 
 he who, in whatever department, still seeks to demonstrate 
 his principium, simply shows that he does not know what is 
 to be understood by a principium. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE METHOD OF THEOLOGY 
 § 87. What is demanded hy the Nature of its Princijpium 
 
 The legend is still current that the Reformers intended to 
 represent the Holy Scripture as a sort of a code, in which 
 certain articles were set down in ready form, some as things 
 to be believed, and some as rules for practice (credenda and 
 agenda). According to this representation the Holy Script- 
 ure consists of four parts : (1) a notarially prepared official 
 report of certain facts ; (2) an exposition of certain doctrines 
 drawn up by way of articles ; (3) an instituted law in the 
 form of rules ; and (4) an official program of things to come. 
 Over against this legend stands the fact that the content and 
 the character of the Holy Scripture correspond in no particu- 
 lar to this representation, and that psychologically it will not 
 do to attribute such a view of the Holy Scripture to any theo- 
 logian worthy the name. This legend, however, is not the 
 product of pure invention. The way in which Scholastics 
 used to demonstrate from the Holy Scripture consisted almost 
 exclusively of citations of this or that Bible text. Neither 
 did the Reformers abandon this method entirely ; they made 
 free use of it ; but no one of them employed this method ex- 
 clusively. They compared Scripture with Scripture. They 
 looked for an analogy of faith. They were thus led to enter 
 more deeply into the organic life of the Scripture. And he 
 who gives Voetius' treatise quousque sese extendat S. Scripturae 
 auctoritas ? (Select. Disp., Tom. I, p. 29) even a hasty perusal 
 only, perceives at once that the view-point held by the theo- 
 logians of that day was very just. The narrator of this legend 
 is so far correct, however, that in the eighteenth and begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century, under the influences of pietism 
 and methodism, this unscientific method became ever more 
 
 564 
 
Chap. Ill] § 87. WHAT ITS PRINCIPIUM DEMANDS 565 
 
 popular, and that this grotesque representation of the Holy 
 Scripture found acceptance with the less thoughtful among 
 simple believers. Scripture-proof seemed to them to be pre- 
 sented only by the quotation of some Bible verse that literally 
 and fully expressed the given assertion. This is a severe 
 demand, which, on the other hand, excuses one from all further 
 investigation ; and, provided you but quote Scripture, does 
 not inquire whether your citation is borrowed from the Old 
 Testament or the New, whether it was spoken by Job or by 
 his friends, or whether it occurs absolutely, or in application 
 to a given case. This makes the Bible your code, a concord- 
 ance your register, and with the help of that register you 
 quote from that code as occasion requires. 
 
 It needs scarcely be said that this method is utterly 
 objectionable. If this were the true method, the Holy 
 Scripture would have to be an entirely differently compiled 
 book from what it is. As to its facts, it should present an 
 accurate, precise, singular story made up in notarial form. 
 It would have to give the program of things to come with 
 the indication of persons, place, time and succession of the 
 several acts in the drama still to be performed. With respect 
 to truth, it ought to present this in the form of a precisely 
 formulated and systematically constructed dogmatic. And as 
 for the rules of practice, you ought to find in the Holy Script- 
 ure a regular codification of a series of general and concretely 
 applied directions, indicating what you should do and leave 
 undone. This is no exaggeration. The question of the Holy 
 Scripture involves nothing short of the question of a Divine 
 authority, which imposes faith in facts and teachings, and 
 subjection to rules and commandments. Hence your demon- 
 stration must be unimpeachable. And the method that is 
 applicable only to an authenticated official report, a carefully 
 formulated confession and an accurately recorded law, must 
 be objected to as long as it is not shown that the Scripture, 
 from which the quotation is made, exhibits the character 
 asserted. If such, however, is not the case, and if on the 
 contrary it is certain that the whole disposition, nature and 
 character of the Holy Scripture resemble in no particular 
 
566 § 87. WHAT IS DEMANDED BY [Dit. Ill 
 
 such an official report and codification, it needs no further 
 comment that this method is altogether useless and has no 
 claim therefore on our consideration. 
 
 Nevertheless it would be a mistake to explain the popu- 
 larity which this objectionable method captured for itself, on 
 the simple ground of a lack of understanding. Call to mind 
 the use made of the Old Testament Scripture by Christ and 
 His apostles, and it not infrequently has the appearance that 
 they freely followed this objectionable method. If it can 
 readily be shown that Christ and His apostles also argue from 
 the Scripture in an entirely different way (see Matt. xix. 8 
 and Heb. vii.), the fact nevertheless cannot be denied that 
 literal citations from the Old Testament, as " the Scripture " or 
 " it is written," repeatedly occur in the Gospels and in the 
 apostolic discourses and epistles. Hence a distinction here is 
 necessary. If we note in what form the Holy Scripture pre- 
 sents itself to us, it certainly has nothing in common with an 
 official report or a code ; but it contains, nevertheless, extended 
 series of definite and positive utterances respecting faith and 
 practice, which utterances leave nothing to be desired either 
 in clearness or in accuracy of formulation. Such utterances 
 stand not by themselves, but occur mostly in organic connec- 
 tion with events and conversations. The flower in bloom that 
 exhales its fragrance is attached to a stem, and as a rule that 
 stem is still joined to the plant. But even so, that utterance 
 is there, and by its positiveness demands a hearing. Hence 
 with reference to such utterances the task of the human mind 
 has been reduced to a minimum. In controversy and exhor- 
 tation these utterances render most ready service. And this 
 explains the fact that the appeal to this category of utterances 
 has occurred most often, still occurs, and ever will continue 
 to occur. Even in the hour of dying it is this sort of utter- 
 ances that refreshes and comforts most quickly and sooth- 
 ingly, and with the lowly especially will ever carry the most 
 telling effect. But though we grant this, and though this 
 easily explains the fact that the methodistic idea so quickly 
 gained the day, it should not be admitted for a moment that 
 this use of the Scripture is the general and exclusive method. 
 
Chap. Ill] THE NATtrKE. OF ITS PKINCIPIUM 567 
 
 The task imposed on iis is mBch more, difficult and intricate ; 
 and so far from consisting of a mechanical quotation with the 
 help of the concordance, the production of what the Scripture 
 contains demands gigantic labor. Beyond doubt the ectype 
 of the archetypal self-knowledge of God is contained in the 
 Scripture according to human capacity with respect, to both 
 fallen and regenerate man (pro mensura humana, respectu 
 hominis lapsi, and pro eaptu hominis renati) ; but for the most 
 part in the sense in which it can be said by the mine-owner, 
 that gold is at hand, when with folded arms he looks across 
 the fields, beneath which his gold-mines bide. The special 
 revelation does not encourage idleness, neither does it intend 
 to offer you the knowledge of God as bread baked and cut, 
 but it is so constructed and it is presented in such a form, 
 that the utmost effort is required to reach the desired re- 
 sults. With reference also to this, you eat no bread except 
 in the sweat of your brow. We do not imply that this whole 
 task must be performed by every believer personally. The 
 very best of us would faint beneath its load. But we recall 
 what has been said before, viz., that the subject of science is 
 not the individual, but the consciousness of humanity ; and 
 that therefore in the same way the subject of the science of 
 theology is not the individual believer, but the consciousness 
 of our regenerated race. Hence it is a task which is in 
 process century upon century, and from its very nature is 
 still far from being completed. And in the absolute sense 
 it can as little be completed as any other scientific task. In 
 the Holy Scripture God the Lord offers us ectypal theology 
 in an organically connected section of human life, permeated 
 by many Divine agencies, out of which a number of blindingly 
 brilliant utterances strike out as sparks from fire. But the 
 treasures thus presented are without further effort not yet 
 reflected in and reproduced hf the consciousness of regener- 
 ated man. To realize this purpose our thinking consciousness 
 must descend into this gold mine, and dig out from its treas- 
 ure, and then assimilate that treasure thus obtained; and not 
 leave it as something apart from the other content of our con- 
 sciousness, but systematize it with all the rest into one whole. 
 
568 § 87. WHAT IS DEMANDED BY [Dit. Ill 
 
 Christian thinking, i.e. scientific theology, has been at work 
 on this task for eighteen centuries; among all nations; under 
 all sorts of constellations. This had to be so, simply because 
 no single nation represents the absolute consciousness of hu- 
 manity, but every nation, and every period of time, according 
 to their nature and opportunity, has the power and the ca- 
 pacity to do this in a peculiar way ; and because the natural 
 content of the consciousness, with which this knowledge of 
 God must be placed in connection, continually changes. 
 
 But amid all these changes the threefold task is ever 
 prosecuted: (1) to determine, (2) to assimilate and (3) to 
 reproduce the contents of the Holy Scripture. This task of 
 determination covers, indeed, a broad field, and is, moreover, 
 exceedingly intricate. The pertinent utterances of Scripture 
 are, of course, invaluable aids ; but more than aids they are 
 not. The content of the Scripture lies before you in the 
 form of an historic process, which covers centuries, and, there- 
 fore, ever presents itself in different forms. The Scripture 
 reveals ectypal theology mostly in facts, which must be 
 understood ; in symbols and types, which must be interpreted. 
 All sorts of persons make their appearance in strange com- 
 mingling, one of whom is, and another is not, a partaker of 
 Divine grace. The rule for practice presents itself in nu- 
 merous concrete applications, from which the general rule 
 can only be derived by dint of logical thinking. Thus what 
 stands written is not merely to be understood as it was meant 
 by the writer, but its significance must be estimated in 
 separation from its accidental connection. The several rev- 
 elations must be taken in their true unity after the analogy 
 of faith. And, finally, from behind the meaning of the 
 writers there must be brought out the things, which often 
 they themselves did not perceive, but which, nevertheless, 
 they were called upon to announce to the world, as the mys- 
 tery of the thoughts of God inworked in their thoughts. 
 Hence, the free citation of pertinent utterances is lawful; 
 but the person should be considered who spoke them, the 
 antithesis which they opposed, the cause that invited them, 
 as well as the persons to whom they were directed. If this 
 
Chap. Ill] THE NATURE OF ITS PRINCU^IUM 569 
 
 had been observed, the statement, for instance, "Man shall 
 not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of God," would never have been misused, 
 to represent the spiritual needs as more important than the 
 material needs. The thoughtless citation of this has been 
 very misleading; and this is the more serious, since such 
 classic utterances are indeed authoritative, and when wrongly 
 interpreted confuse and mislead. 
 
 In the second place, follows the task of assimilating the 
 ectypal theology offered us in the Scripture. We do not 
 speak now of the action of the spiritual factors required 
 for this, but limit ourselves exclusively to the task of taking 
 up into our human consciousness the content found. This 
 content to be assimilated comes to us in language both sym- 
 bolical and mystical, which reveals and again conceals. Hence, 
 the purpose must be to analyze this content, to transpose the 
 parts discovered into conceptions, and to reconstruct these 
 conceptions thus found into a synthesis adapted to our think- 
 ing. This is the more exceedingly difficult because an analy- 
 sis made too hastily so readily destroys the mystical element, 
 and thus leads to rationalism, while, on the other hand, the 
 synthesis must be able to enter into our thinking. To this 
 the fact is added that in this work no one is able to separate 
 liimself from his personal limitation and from his limited per- 
 sonality. This assimilation is, therefore, possible for individu- 
 als only in so far as the limits of their spiritual and mental 
 action extends, and still it should ever be our effort to assimi- 
 late in such a way as to promote this assimilation-process in 
 others. Otherwise there might, indeed, be a spiritual up- 
 building of self, but no scientific study. If there is to be 
 scientific study, one must be able, by giving an account, to 
 objectify the assimilation-process one has himself experi- 
 enced. This task demands intense application of thought, 
 because it is not enough that we take up in ourselves the 
 loose elements of the revelation, but we must take those ele- 
 ments as constitutive parts of one organic whole, and thus in 
 our thoughts, also, order them in one system. This would 
 require great energy of thought in a consciousness otherwise 
 
570 § 87. WHAT ITS PRINCIPIUM DEMANDS [Div. m 
 
 empty ; but it does this the more, since our consciousness is 
 already occupied. Now it becomes our duty to expel from 
 our consciousness what is criticised by revelation as untrue, 
 and to weave together what remains with the content of reve- 
 lation, so that the unity of our world- and life-view shall not 
 be lost. 
 
 And then follows the third part of the task, by which we 
 are called to reproduce what is thus acquired. The duty of 
 witness-bearing and confession calls us to this third action, 
 but also, without abandoning this practical end, the claim of 
 science itself. Apart, also, from the maintenance of God's 
 honor in the face of the denier of His truth, God counts it His 
 glory that in the human consciousness which He had dis- 
 posed to His truth, and which we had applied to the service of 
 error and falsehood, His truth is again reflected. The Script- 
 ure offers us the grain of wheat, but we may not rest until 
 the golden ears are seen in the fields, by which to prove 
 the power potentially hidden in the seed. Hence, it is not 
 enough that the knowledge of God, which, as a flower in the 
 bud, is hidden and covered in the Scripture, is set forth by us 
 in its excellency ; but that bud must be unfolded, the flower 
 must make exhibition of its beauty, and scent the air with its 
 fragrance. This can be done spiritually by piety of mind, 
 practically by deeds of faith, sesthetically in hymns, pareneti- 
 cally in exhortation, but must also be done by scientific ex- 
 position and description. 
 
 No theologian, therefore, can go to work in an empirical 
 or in a speculative manner. He who empirically takes reli- 
 gious phenomena as his starting-point is no theologian, but 
 an ethnological or philosophical investigator of religions. 
 Neither is a speculative thinker a theologian. We do not 
 question the relative right of the speculative method. Con- 
 ceptions also generate, and rich harvests may be gathered 
 from the fields of logical thought, but he who goes to work in 
 this manner is no theologian. Theology is a positive science, 
 which finds the object of its investigation, i.e. ectypal knowl- 
 edge of God, in the Holy Scripture, and therefore must draw 
 the insight into its object from the Scripture. The reason 
 
Chap. Ill] § 88. THE PRINCIPIUM IN ACTION 571 
 
 why abstract intellectualism is insufficient for this will appear 
 later ; but in so far as now we limit ourselves exclusively to 
 this intellectual task, it follows from the nature of the object 
 and from the principium of theology that it must determine, 
 assimilate and reproduce, but with this its task is ended. 
 For the sake of completeness, we may add tliat this includes 
 the investigation of the instrument of revelation, i.e. the 
 Holy Scripture; which task is the more extensive, as that 
 Scripture has not come to us in autographs, nor in our 
 own language, but in foreign languages and in apographa, 
 which are in many respects corrupt, so that it requires an 
 entirely independent effort of the mind, by the study of criti- 
 cism and language, so to approach the Scripture as to render 
 an investigation of its content possible. Meanwhile this de- 
 tracts nothing from the character of principium which is pos- 
 sessed by the Holy Scripture as the effective cause of all true 
 theology. In view of the full demonstration of the former 
 chapter, this requires no further emphasis. 
 
 § 88. The Principium of Theology in Action 
 
 Without further explanation the impression would be 
 conveyed, that the method of theological investigation, as 
 described in the preceding section, makes theology to termi- 
 nate in dogmatics. The more so, since earlier dogmaticians 
 frequently named their dogmatics " Theologia Christiana." 
 Even Calvin's Institutes is based on such a supposition. It is 
 readily seen, however, that in this way theology as a science 
 would be curtailed. To mention one particular only, we 
 ask, what would become of Church history ? In this second 
 section, therefore, we observe that he who investigates a 
 given object, obtains full knowledge of it only by the study 
 of its states both of rest and action. This appBes also to the 
 ectypal knowledge of God, which, in behalf of the Church, 
 is deposited in the Holy Scripture. The Word of God also 
 has its action. It is " quick and powerful and sharper than 
 any two-edged sword," "a hammer that breaketh the rock 
 in pieces." It works also as a living seed that is sown, and 
 which, according to the nature of the soil, germinates and 
 
572 § 88. THE PRINCIPIUM IN ACTION [Div. in 
 
 brings forth fruit. Hence the task of the theologian is by no 
 means ended when he has formulated, assimilated and repro- 
 duced the content of the Word in its state of rest; it is his 
 duty, also, to trace the working of this principium, when the 
 fountain is flowing. After it was finished, the Holy Scripture 
 was not hidden in some sacred grotto, to wait for the theolo- 
 gian to read and to make scientific exhibition of its content ; 
 no, it was carried into the world, by reading and recitation, 
 by teaching and by preaching, in apologetic and in polemic 
 writings. And once brought into the world, it has exerted 
 an influence upon the consciousness-form of the circle which 
 it entered. Both its authority, and the consequent activity 
 which it created, are no mean factors in the rise of an eccle- 
 siastical confession and in the institution of an ecclesiastical 
 communion. The Holy Scripture and the Church, therefore, 
 are no foreign phenomena to each other, but the former should 
 be looked upon as the mother of the latter. Not that the 
 Word by itself was able to found a Church or a church life. 
 The Holy Scripture does not possess such an inherent mys- 
 tical power, and it is self-evident that the transcendental ac- 
 tion of the regeneration of the elect had to go hand in hand 
 with the noetic action of the Word, in order to give rise to 
 the Church and to maintain it. This second element, also, 
 will be explained later. But however much it may be bound 
 to this spiritual antecedent, in itself the church-forming and 
 church-maintaining action of the Word cannot be denied, and, 
 cum grano salis, the domain of the Church can be described 
 as the domain within which the Holy Scripture prevails and 
 operates. 
 
 From this it follows that he who tries to understand the 
 Holy Scripture, and to reproduce its content in a scientific 
 way, may not pass its action by, nor the product of this 
 action. Theological science, therefore, must also institute 
 an investigation into the Church, into its character, jurisdic- 
 tion, history, etc. He who neglects this has not investigated 
 his subject fully. It cannot be said, therefore, that church 
 history, church law, etc., are added to the real theological 
 studies as so many loose supplements. On the contrary, in 
 
Chap. Ill] § 88. THE PRINCIPIUM IN ACTION 573 
 
 the theological whole they form organic, and therefore indis- 
 pensable, members. If it is not in itself objectionable to 
 compare the Holy Scripture to a gold mine, this compari- 
 son nevertheless fails as soon as an attempt is made to view 
 the method of theology as a whole. Then, indeed, there is 
 not a question of a quiescent, passive gold mine which awaits 
 the coming of a miner, but rather of a power propelled by the 
 Holy Spirit, and propelling the spirits of men, which has drawn 
 its furrows deep in the past, and which, from the living 
 phenomenon of the Church, still appeals to us as a principium 
 full of action. We do not step thus a haudbreadth aside 
 from the conception of theology as we found it. Theology 
 remains to us theology in the strictest sense of the word, 
 i.e. that science whose object is ectypal theology, given in 
 the Holy Scripture, which is the principium of theology; 
 but we refuse to eliminate the action of this Word from our 
 reckoning. Not only the statics, but also the dynamics must 
 be given a hearing. Hence, as a product of the energy of the 
 Word, the Church may not be cut off, but it must iind a 
 place of its own in theological science as a whole. So far as 
 this produces an effect upon the organic system of theologic 
 science, this point will be treated in the last chapter but one 
 of this volume ; here it is mentioned only in so far as it 
 produces an effect upon the method of theology. In this form 
 it comes nearest to what is generally called the relation of 
 theology to the Church, even though it creates some sur- 
 prise that this question has almost always been separated 
 from the question about the method. If a fixed relation 
 between theology and the Church is to be treated in another 
 than an outward sense, this relation must also appear in the 
 method. 
 
 An outward relation between the Church and the practice 
 of theology is surely conceivable, in so far as the Church as an 
 institution has herself taken it frequently in hand through 
 the organ of her appointed theologians. She can bind such 
 theologians to her confession; she can forbid them to pub- 
 lish anything in conflict with it; and by discipline she can 
 prevent them from every effort directed against it. But 
 
574 § 88. THE PRINCIPIUM IN ACTION {Div. Ill 
 
 this outward relation is entirely accidental. Civil govern- 
 ment can act along the same lines, and has often done it. 
 Individuals, also, in free institutions can do the same thing. 
 On the other hand, the Church may found a theological 
 school of an entirely different kind, to which it allows entire 
 freedom of faith and doctrine. And therefore we did not 
 take our start in these outward and by consequence acci- 
 dental relations, but in the essential and necessary relation 
 which exists between the Holy Scripture and the Church as 
 its product, in order that from this we might borrow the rule 
 for the relation between the Church and theology which is 
 to appear in its method. 
 
 There is, to be sure, a theological illusion abroad, which has 
 its relative right, which conveys the impression that, with the 
 Holy Scripture in hand, one can independently construct his 
 theology from this principium. This position was defended 
 only recently by a Protestant theologian at Vienna, Professor 
 Dr. Bohl (^Dogmatik, Amst. 1887, p. xiii, v) ; and it must be 
 conceded to him that in the days of the Reformation, also, it 
 was generally imagined that a leap backward had been taken 
 across fourteen centuries, for the sake of repeating what had 
 once been done by the first Christians ; viz. to investigate 
 the Bible, while yet no confession or dogma had been 
 framed. But from the nature of the case this illusion is 
 not for a moment tenable. He who harbors it claims for 
 himself the unattainable honor of doing the work of bygone 
 generations. And besides being unhistoric to this extent, 
 he forgets also that no single person, but thinking, regen- 
 erated humanity, is the subject of theology. Isolated in- 
 vestigation can never furnish what can only be the result 
 of the cooperation and mental effort of all. Actually, there- 
 fore, this illusion is a denial of the historic and the or- 
 ganic character of the study of theology, and for this reason 
 it is inwardly untrue. No theologian, following the direc- 
 tion of his own compass, would ever have found by him- 
 self what he now confesses and defends on the ground of 
 the Holy Scripture. By far the largest part of his results 
 is adopted by him from theological tradition, and even 
 
Chap. Ill] §88. THE PRINCIProM IN ACTION 575 
 
 the proofs, which he cites from the Scripture, at least as a 
 rule, have not been discovered by himself, but have been 
 suggested to him by his predecessors. Thus, it is noteworthy 
 that Calvin, who, undeniably, wrote at times as though 
 affected by this same illusion, appeals constantly to Augus- 
 tine and Thomas Aquinas, which shows that this illusion did 
 not govern his method. The true element in this represen- 
 tation, meanwhile, should not be overlooked. And this is 
 grasped at once if one places at the end of the way what 
 Professor Dr. Bohl has held as truth at its beginning. He 
 makes it to appear as if by making a tabula rasa the theolo- 
 gian reverts at once to the Holy Scripture and nothing but 
 the Scripture. The actual course pursued, however, is this. 
 The beginning is made under th« influence of all sorts of 
 other factors, while the task is not ended until, at the end of 
 the way, all these factors are made to disappear, so that finally 
 our well-balanced conviction rests upon nothing hut the Holy 
 Scripture. Then the scaffold is taken away, and we stand 
 on the pinnacle of the temple. This is the final ground that 
 must be reached if the theological motive is to attain to 
 its point of rest. And it is from the exalted feeling which 
 then inspires the theologian that the illusion objected to 
 above is born. 
 
 Without hesitation, therefore, the factor of the Ohwch must 
 be included in theological investigation. From the life of the 
 Church it appears, what activity the Holy Scripture occa- 
 sions, which activity in turn sheds light upon its content. 
 This would not have been the case to so great an extent if 
 there had been only one interpretation of the Holy Script- 
 ure prevalent in the Church ; for this would have tended to 
 likeness of formulation. But such was not the case. Almost 
 all possible interpretations have been tried ; all these inter- 
 pretations have sought to maintain themselves and to reach 
 fixed forms of expression, and the fruit and effect of these 
 several interpretations are manifest in history and in present 
 conditions. Hence the domain of the Holy Scripture is no 
 longer unexplored territory, on the contrary it is a variegated 
 highland, crossed in all directions, all the mountain passes and 
 
576 §88. THE PBINCIPIUM m ACTION [Div. Ill 
 
 paths of which are known, while the goal of each is freely 
 told by experienced guides. As it would be the height of 
 folly, on one's first arrival in Switzerland, to make it appear 
 that he is the first to investigate the Berner Oberland, since 
 common sense compels him on the contrary to begin his 
 journey by making inquiry among the guides of the country, 
 the same is true here. In its rich and many-sided life, ex- 
 tending across so many ages, the Church tells you at once 
 what fallible interpretations you need no longer try, and 
 what interpretation on the other hand offers you the best 
 chances for success. On this ground the claim must be put, 
 that the investigator of the Holy Scripture shall take account 
 of what history and the life of the Church teaches concerning 
 the general points of view, from which to start his investiga- 
 tion, and which paths it is useless to further reconnoitre. 
 
 But the influence of this factor does not limit itself to this. 
 The investigator does not stand outside of the Church, but is 
 himself a member of it. Hence into his own consciousness 
 there is interwoven the historic consciousness of his Church. 
 In this historic consciousness of his Church he finds not merely 
 the tradition of theologians and the data by which to form an 
 estimate of the results of their studies, but also the confes- 
 sional utterances of the Church. And this implies more. 
 These utterances of his Church do not consist of the inter- 
 pretation of one or another theologian, but of the ripest fruit 
 of a spiritual and dogmatic strife, battled through by a whole 
 circle of confessors in violent combat, which enlightened their 
 spiritual sense, sharpened their judgment, and stimulated 
 their perception of the truth; which fruit, moreover, has 
 been handed down to him by the Church through its divinely 
 appointed organs. It will not do, therefore, to place these 
 dogmatical utterances on the same plane with the opinions 
 of individual theologians. In a much deeper sense than 
 they, they provide a guarantee for freedom from error, 
 and he who belongs to such a Church has himself been 
 moulded in part by them. This gives rise to the demand, 
 that every theologian shall, in his investigations, reckon 
 with all those things that are taught him by the history 
 
CuAP. Ill] § 88. THE PRINCIPIUM IN ACTION 577 
 
 of the churches concerning well and badly chosen paths in 
 this territory to be investigated; and, also, in the second 
 place, that he shall take the dogmas of his Church as his 
 guide, and that he shall not diverge from them until he is 
 compelled to do this by the Word of God. Hence, one should 
 not begin by doubting everything, and by experimenting to 
 see whether on the ground of his own investigation he 
 arrives at the same point where the confession of his Church 
 stands; but, on the contrary, he should start out from the 
 assumption that his Church is right, while at the same time 
 he should investigate it, and only oppose it when he finds 
 himself compelled to do so by the Word of God. If such 
 prove the case, of course, it must be done; and if it con- 
 cerns any point of importance, an immediate break with his 
 Church is the necessary result, unless the Church herself 
 should modify her confession agreeably to his view. History, 
 however, teaches that ordinary differences in details of opinion 
 among theologians have implied no departure from essentials, 
 and that the conflict between God's Word and error in the con- 
 fession has been carried to the end in those great movements 
 only, which have brought about a change in the entire think- 
 ing consciousness. Great carefulness is always safe. The 
 proclamation of new discoveries is not always a proof of de- 
 votion to the truth, it is sometimes a tribute to self-esteem. 
 Nevertheless, the point of support for theology may never be 
 looked for in the Church. It only finds that point of sup- 
 port when it shows that what the Church has offered it as 
 acquired treasures, were really taken from the Scripture and 
 after the rule of the Scripture. 
 
 This decides at the same time the question, whether the 
 Church should prosecute the study of theology, or whether 
 theology grows on a root of its own. The question cannot 
 detain us here, whether in times of need we are not warranted 
 in establishing church-seminaries, and, in the absence of uni- 
 versity training, to provide for a need, whose supply admits 
 of no delay. There is no question here of the education of 
 untrained persons for the ministry of the Word, but of theol- 
 ogy as a science. And, from the nature of the case, there 
 
578 § 89. RELATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY [Div. HI 
 
 can be no question of theology outside the pale of the Church, 
 because outside of this pale there is neither palingenesis nor 
 a spiiitual enlightening, both of which are indispensable to 
 theology. But from this it does not follow, that, as an insti- 
 tuted corporation, the Church itself should study theology. 
 This institution has a limited official task, and covers, by no 
 means, the whole of our Christian life. Outside of this institu- 
 tion endless factors of our human life are at work within the 
 pale of the Church taken as an organism, upon each of which 
 the Spirit of Christ must exert His influence. One of these 
 factors is science, and so far from proceeding from the insti- 
 tuted Church, science includes the Church in its object, and 
 must be subservient to her in the accomplishment of her 
 task. The subject of Christian science is also the subject of 
 Christian theology ; or, how could theology otherwise take 
 a place in the organism of science ? The instituted Church 
 can never be the subject of the Christian science, and conse- 
 quently it cannot be this of the science of theology. Hence, 
 the dilemma: Your theology has the instituted Church for 
 its subject, in which case it is no science ; or if it is a science, 
 the Church as an institution cannot be its subject. 
 
 § 89. Relation to the Spiritual Reality 
 
 In connection with this there is still another, no less impor- 
 tant, factor which both affects theology and is indispensable 
 to it. The Church owes its rise not to the Word alone, but 
 in a deeper sense to the supernatural spiritual workings, 
 which go out among men, and whose central point is palin- 
 genesis. In a supernatural sense this creates a spiritual 
 reality, which, in so far as the sphere of the consciousness 
 is concerned, cannot dispense with the Holy Scripture, but 
 which potentially does not proceed from the Scripture, but 
 from the Holy Ghost, or if you please concentrically from 
 Christ. This spiritual reality does not consist merely in the 
 deed and in the thing wrought by palingenesis, but from 
 this central point it radiates also subjectively in those who 
 are sanctified and enlightened, and objectively finds its 
 basis in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Body of 
 
Chap. Ill] § 89. RELATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY 579 
 
 Christ. The preaching of the Word joins itself to this spir- 
 itual reality, becomes conscious of its inspiration, imparts 
 to it a conscious form, and the Church, as it actually appears, 
 is not merely the product of the Word of God, but at the 
 same time of this spiritual reality. Not as an institution, but 
 as an organism is she a house of the living God. The purer 
 a revelation the instituted Church is of her hidden, organic, 
 spiritual life, the greater is the authority in the spiritual sense 
 exercised by the Church upon the consciousness of the theo- 
 logian. But that which on the other hand also is of great 
 importance to the method of theology, is the fact that this 
 spiritual reality alone provides that a£Snity to the Divine life 
 which is indispensable to the knowledge of God. 
 
 The "knowledge of God" is here taken as naturally com- 
 municated knowledge, but not in the exclusively intellectual 
 sense. In our self-knowledge and in our knowledge of our 
 fellow-men there is also a component part, which is not 
 obtained by observation and reasoning built on this, but 
 which is of itself revealed in us. Without this working of the 
 sense-of-self and of sympathy, abstract intellectual knowledge 
 of ourselves or of others would be unable to grasp the reality 
 of its object. And in like manner, on the ground of our 
 creation after the Divine Image, a holy affinity and a spiritual 
 sympathy with the life of God must be manifest in our spirit, 
 if the revelations of the Holy Scripture are to be real to us 
 and to refer to an object grasped by us as a real object. Both 
 together are the constituent parts of our knowledge of God. 
 Spiritual affinity to the life of God enables us to grasp the 
 "things of God" as real in our deepest perception. The 
 revelation of the Holy Scripture interprets that reality to our 
 consciousness. There is no conscious knowledge without a 
 mystic knowledge, and there is no mystic knowledge without 
 the light of the Scripture that shines in our consciousness. 
 Alas, that these two should be so rudely separated. For this 
 gives on the one hand an intellectualism, which can do noth- 
 ing but construe theoretical systems from the Scripture, and 
 on the other hand a mystical attempt to attain unto a vision 
 of God outside and above the Scripture. Violence is done 
 
580 § 89. RELATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY [Div. Ill 
 
 to the method of theology by this intellectualism as well as 
 by this one-sided mysticism. That method must adapt itself 
 to the fact of the actual cooperation of both factors. This 
 is possible only, when this spiritual reality is postulated in 
 the theologian, and demands the consequent union of his 
 spirit and the spiritual reality which exists concretely outside 
 of him, and which allows him to borrow from the Scripture 
 only the conscious form for this reality. The first was called 
 of old not incorrectly Theology of our inclinations (theologia 
 habitualis), or Theology of use (theologia utens) ; we should 
 rather call it the mystical knowledge of God in antithesis 
 with intellectual; but by whatever name it goes, from the 
 nature of the case it assumes regeneration, the photismos and 
 the communion of saints, since by these alone one is brought 
 into this spiritual reality and becomes sufficiently spiritual to 
 grasp in his innermost soul the reality of those things re- 
 vealed to us in the Scripture. He who is deaf must first 
 be healed from his deafness in order to be placed in true 
 touch with the world of sounds. When this contact has 
 been restored, the study of music can again be begun by him. 
 This is the case with reference to the study of theology. 
 Taken as the knowledge of God it is only conceivable, when 
 the spiritual ear is opened in him who prosecutes the study, 
 and to whom the reality of the unseen discovers itself. Palin- 
 genesis, therefore, is a requirement which may not be aban- 
 doned. Without palingenesis one stands antipathetically 
 opposed to the object of theology. Hence there is no love to 
 quicken communion. But we may not limit ourselves to this. 
 Regeneration by itself is no enlightening. By regeneration 
 the wheel of life in the centrum of our being (the wheel of 
 nature or of birth, James iii. 6) is merely replaced upon its 
 pivot; but this by itself has not changed the world of our 
 conscious life. This occurs only when the Holy Spirit, hav- 
 ing taken up His abode in us, transfers His working from this 
 centrum to our facultates, to the faculty of the understanding 
 by enlightening and to the faculty of the will by sanctification. 
 If, in a more solemn sense than the ordinary believer, the theo- 
 logian is called to enter into the revealed knowledge of God 
 
Chap. Ill] § 89. RELATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY 581 
 
 with his understanding, it is evident that so long as he lacks 
 this enlightening he can make no progress. To regeneration 
 and enlightening, is added in the third place the communion 
 of saints. The theologian is no isolated worker, but in the 
 world of thought he is in his way the organ of restored hu- 
 manity. The subject of theology presents itself to us in the 
 renewed consciousness of restored humanity, and every indi- 
 vidual theologian allows this subject to work its effect pro 
 parte virili. The farther he isolates himself from restored 
 humanity the more this action must weaken, while on the 
 other hand its gain in energy keeps pace with his progress in 
 vital communion with this restored humanity. It is and re- 
 mains an "apprehending with all the saints" (Eph. iii. 18), 
 and the apostles do not hesitate to say, that by this fellowship 
 with them alone does one come to the fellowship of the Father 
 and of the Son (1 John i. 3). 
 
 By this we do not claim, that in the field of theological 
 science, intelligent persons, who still lack this palingenesis, 
 photismos and fellowship, cannot furnish results that are 
 productive of lasting good. The labor to be done in the field 
 of theology is by no means all of one kind. This can be dis- 
 tinguished into central and peripheral study. To search 
 out, decipher and compare documents and monuments, for 
 instance, to collect and arrange historical data, the writing of 
 monographs on the Cathedral of Cologne, on some order of 
 monks, or of Wessel Gansfort, etc., is altogether work which 
 lies in the periphery, and which in itself has little to do with 
 the research into the knowledge of God. It is all equiva- 
 lent to the services which were rendered by Hiram of Tyre 
 for the temple on Sion, but which had next to nothing in 
 common with the sacred ministry behind the veil. These 
 studies are certainly indispensable, even as the work of Hiram 
 was indispensable in order that the High Priest might per- 
 form his sacred office, but this did not require in the Tyrian 
 architect what was required in the Minister of the Sanctuary. 
 Spiritual aflfinity' to this centrum is certainly not a matter of 
 indifference in these peripherical studies. What Aholiab 
 and Bezaleel did for the tabernacle, was much more inspired 
 
582 § 89. RELATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY [Dit. JU 
 
 work than what Hiram wrought on Sion's mount. And if, 
 instead of Hiram, a master builder of Israel, rejoicing in 
 Jehovah, could have built the Temple of Solomon, the work 
 undoubtedly would have been inspired by a higher impulse 
 of art. Our observation merely tends to do full justice to 
 the intelligence which, without being interwoven with the 
 life of the Holy Spirit, has been expended upon these peri- 
 pherical studies in the field of theology. 
 
 So far as connection with the spiritual reality is merely 
 put as a requisite in the theologian, it does not touch the 
 method of theology. But it is not difficult to show how 
 there flows an immediate result from this requisite for the 
 method of theology. For fellowship with this spiritual real- 
 ity is not a constant conception, but it changes and is suscep- 
 tible to becoming both faint and strong. This fellowship 
 with the Father and with the Son will at one time react 
 strongly, and again weakly in one and the same person, and 
 in the long run a lasting increase will follow. If the person 
 himself were passive in this, and went through these changes 
 merely as nature goes through the changes of heat and cold, 
 it would not affect the method of theology. But this is not 
 the case. He who has been regenerated is a fellow-worker 
 with God, and according as he neglects or practises holy liv- 
 ing, his fellowship with the Unseen diminishes or increases. 
 And from this follows the demand of theological method, that 
 the theologian shall be on the alert to feed and to strengthen 
 this fellowship. He who fails in this dulls the spiritual sense 
 by which he must observe what goes on in the sacred domain ; 
 while on the contrary he who wants to perfect himself in 
 the accuracy of his observations within this sacred domain, 
 is bound to apply himself to mystical devotion as well as to 
 pietistic practice of holiness. As the pianist must make his 
 fingers supple in order by a greater velocity to accommodate 
 them to the vibrations of the world of sounds, so the theo- 
 logian must tune his inner being and hold it to that pitch 
 by prayer, meditation, self-denial and daily practice in order 
 to accommodate himself to the sound of heavenly things. 
 Not in the sense that prayer and meditation could ever take 
 
Ch^p. Ill] § 90. THE HOLY SPIRIT AS TEACHER 583 
 
 -the place of alacrity and intelligence or of the "body of 
 doctrine " (copia doctrinae). By his supple fingers the pian- 
 ist cannot produce a single tone, if he has not the instrument 
 Itself at his disposal. But however strenuously we emphasize 
 this intellectual development, unless a spiritual development 
 be Its guide, it degenerates of necessity into intellectualism, 
 and becomes cold, barren and unfruitful. Only when the 
 theologian applies himself in harmonious relation to the de- 
 velopment of both, does he offer himself to the Holy Spirit as 
 a prepared instrument, and is able to reveal even more fully 
 the strength of this instrument. 
 
 § 90. The Soly Spirit as Teacher (Spiritus Sanctus Doctor) 
 In this connection only can it be explained what has been 
 implied in the worship of the Holy Spirit by the Church of 
 Christ as the Teacher of the Church (Doctor ecclesiae). This 
 confession must now be considered, because it implies that 
 the action of the human mind, in order to attain to the 
 true "knowledge of God," and thus of all theology, stands 
 subject to his guidance. To understand this well, we must 
 first distinguish between the several sorts of activities that 
 go out from the Holy Ghost. From Him all animation pro- 
 ceeds, as well as the whole creation, and wherever life glows, 
 its flame is ignited by the Holy Ghost. That flame is want- 
 ing in the chaotic mass, and then the Holy Spirit moves as 
 yet separate above the chaos. But when the chaos becomes 
 cosmos, the fiery flame of the Spirit glows and scintillates 
 throughout the entire creation. In all conscious life this work- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit reveals itself more intensively and 
 more definitely in the psychical life of man. Not because the 
 Holy Spirit is here a different one, but because this plane of life 
 stands higher, possesses the form of conscious life, and is conse- 
 quently able to cause the energy of the Holy Spirit to appear 
 in a much higher form. In this sense all light in us, in our 
 emotional life as well as in the domain of science and art, is 
 light ignited by the Holy Ghost. But this does not touch 
 the highest sphere of His activity. This is reached only, 
 when from his side the creature places himself in conscious 
 
584 § 90. THE HOLY SPIRIT AS TEACHER [Div. Ill 
 
 communion with this energy of the Holy Spirit, whereby the 
 Holy Spirit becomes the " Gemeingeist " in the organism of 
 humanity. And this is wanting in the life without palin- 
 genesis. There the " Gemeingeist " is sought in a national 
 spirit, in a spirit of the times, in a prevailing tendency of 
 spirits, and this effort sets itself in opposition to the Holy 
 Spirit. But it is different with that tree of humanity 
 upon which the " Edelreis " has been grafted by God. For 
 humanity thus restored is identical with the lody of Christ, 
 and in this hody of Christ no other " Gemeingeist " but the 
 Holy Spirit is conceivable. This lies expressed in the Pente- 
 cost miracle, by which this indwelling of the Holy Spirit was 
 accomplished. Beautiful confession is made of this by the 
 Heidelberg Catechism, when it speaks of the Holy Spirit as 
 " He who dwells in Christ as the Head and in us as His mem- 
 bers." Hence there can be but one thought entertained con- 
 cerning the subject of restored humanity: viz., that it is led 
 and guided by the Holy Spirit, and this is the profounder 
 sense of what Jesus spake, that the Holy Spirit shall guide 
 into all the truth (John xvi. 13) ; which utterance by itself 
 simply implies that the Church of Christ should have a guide 
 on her way, and that this guide would lead her ever more 
 deeply into the knowledge of the truth. It is this Holy Spirit, 
 who alone is able to "search all the deep things of God" 
 (1 Cor. ii. 10). It is this same Holy Spirit who reveals 
 these mysteries unto us. And finally, it is this Holy Spirit 
 who, by His communion, makes us spiritual, gives us the mind 
 of Christ, and thereby enables us to judge spiritually (1 Cor. 
 ii. 10-16). 
 
 From the nature of the case it is this fact that dominates 
 theology. Theology is studied age after age, among all 
 classes of people and in all kinds of lands, in various circles 
 and under the influence of numerous factors, ecclesiastical 
 and non-ecclesiastical. In itself, therefore, this sundry task 
 would bear a broken and atomistic character. All unity 
 and all growth would be wanting. If it is nevertheless a 
 fact that this growth is not wanting, and that in the midst of 
 changes and variations unity and progress are apparent, then 
 
Chap. Ill] § 90. THE HOLY SPIRIT AS TEACHER 585 
 
 a higher subject, standing outside and above the subjects 
 of individual theologians and dominating them, must have 
 caused these many rills to flow in one bed, and in that bed 
 must have determined the direction of the stream. With the 
 other sciences this higher subject is given of itself in the 
 immanent logica, in the Logos of the object, which corre- 
 sponds to the Logos in the subject and aids the logical under- 
 standing of the object after a fixed law. That higher power 
 which guarantees unity and growth in these sciences is cer- 
 tainly given in Creation. But such is not the case with 
 theology. This directs itself to a life, which is the fruit of re- 
 creation ; of re-creation in being as well as in consciousness ; 
 and therefore only the Holy Spirit, who is the author of this 
 double re-creation, can here give the impulse, guidance and 
 direction to the spirits, and introduce unity in what goes out 
 from the individuals. And this claims a still stronger 
 emphasis, because the development of the re-created con- 
 sciousness is conditioned by the Holy Scripture, of which the 
 Holy Spirit is the "primary author" (auctor primarius). If 
 it is a fact that the secondary authors (auctores secundarii) 
 intended to convey much less of a meaning in their writings 
 than the Holy Spirit, under whose impulse they went to work, 
 then from the nature of the case the Holy Spirit alone is able 
 to reveal to the Church His rich and full intention regarding 
 the Holy Scripture. Hence there is unity in the theological 
 effort only because it is the selfsame Holy Spirit who gave us 
 the principium of theology and superintends the effect and 
 the application of this principium. The exegesis of the Holy 
 Scripture is correct and complete only when the Holy Spirit 
 interprets that Scripture in the Church of God. And the re- 
 flection of the content of the Scripture in our consciousness, 
 and the reproduction of it hy our consciousness, is true and 
 pure and entire only when the Holy Spirit gives command 
 and direction to this activity of the re-created consciousness. 
 The way in which this is done by the Church, in connection 
 with the office, will be shown in the following section. Even 
 without the influence of the instituted Church, it follows that 
 the individual theologian should always be conscious of this 
 
586 § 90. THE HOLY SPIRIT AS TEACHER [Div. Ill 
 
 working of the Holy Spirit. This is something both different 
 from and greater than his mystical fellowship with the spiritual 
 reality which was explained in the former section. Without 
 more, this mystical fellowship simply referred to the tenor 
 of his inner life. But it is entirely different when the theo- 
 logian understands and feels that he is an organ of service, 
 on the ground of which he may confidently expect lasting 
 fruit of his labors so long as he puts himself in the service 
 of the Holy Ghost. This is entirely analogous to the differ- 
 ence between the plodder on his own responsibility and the 
 man of science who labors in the service of the truth. What 
 in every other department of study is service of the truth, 
 is here service of the Holy Ghost. Without this sense of 
 service all study becomes subjectivistic, unhistorical, and ar- 
 rogant, while, on the contrary, the placing of oneself at the 
 service of the truth, i.e. in this instance of the Holy Ghost, 
 banishes all pride, curbs the desire to be interesting by ex- 
 hibiting new discoveries, feeds the desire of theological fel- 
 lowship, and thereby sharpens that historic sense which 
 impels the theologian to join himself to that great work of the 
 Holy Spirit effected in past ages, which at most he may help 
 advance a few paces. 
 
 This, however, should not be interpreted in the sense that 
 the service of the Holy Spirit is antagonistic to the service of 
 the truth. The domain of palingenesis is no newly created 
 ground, but the outcome of re-creation. Hence the natural 
 life is subsumed in it, the natural consciousness also, i.e. those 
 powers, attributes, and laws of being, to which the human 
 consciousness is subject by its nature, in virtue of the creation. 
 As was seen above, the light of the Holy Spirit operates also 
 in this natural consciousness, and of itself this lower light is 
 adopted and included in the higher. If this were not so, 
 theology would be merely a mystical beholding (Oewpia') ; 
 but for the reason alone that it is so, it appears as an intel- 
 lectual and rational discipline (disciplina noetica and diano- 
 etica). On this depends also the old question, which from 
 the days of Arius has repeated itself in the Church, even 
 this : whether theology is authorized to draw out by logical 
 
Chap. Ill] §91. THE CHURCH AND THE OFFICE 587 
 
 sequence what is not written avToXe^ei in the Holy Scripture. 
 Almost every tendency, whose interest it was to attach itself 
 to the letter of the Scripture, and to oppose inferences from 
 Scripture, has stated its objections against logical deduction 
 in its polemical writings. Even by Franciscus Veronius from 
 the side of Rome a similar objection was raised against 
 the theology of the Reformers (see Voetius, Bisp. Theol. I. 
 pp. 5-12). In theory, however, this position has been de- 
 fended only by some Anabaptists, and later by the Metho- 
 dists, although they themselves did not strictly adhere to it. 
 This whole conception meanwhile starts out from a mechani- 
 cal Scripture-view, and is not worthy of refutation. It is of 
 importance only in so far as it may be asked, whether in His 
 revelation the Holy Spirit was bound to logic. In principle 
 this is denied by all dualistic tendencies. They view the 
 spiritual life of palingenesis and the intellectual life of sin- 
 ful nature as two spheres which do not touch each other. 
 The refutation of this false assertion must be sought in this : 
 (1) in that palingenesis is represented as a re-creation, which 
 implies the subsumption of the natural life ; (2) in that the 
 Holy Spirit is the author of the logical in the natural life as 
 well as of the spiritual in the regenerated life; and (3) in 
 that the Holy Spirit Himself, as the " Gemeingeist," leads 
 and directs not merely the mystic-spiritual, but also the 
 logical-dianoetical action of the Church, and therefore also of 
 theology. 
 
 § 91. The Church and the Office 
 As the result of the two preceding sections no other infer- 
 ence is possible, than that theological science can only exist 
 in the Church of Christ. Outside of her pale palingenesis 
 is wanting, faith is wanting, and the enlightening, and the 
 fellowship of saints, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit as 
 " Gemeingeist." By this, however, it is by no means meant, 
 that the organ for theological science is given in the insti- 
 tuted Church. The conception of the instituted Church is 
 much narrower than the Church of Christ when taken as the 
 body of Christ, for this includes in itself all the powers and 
 
588 § 91. THE CHURCH AND THE OFEICE [Div. Ill 
 
 workings that arise from re-creation. There is a Christian 
 disposition and a Christian fellowship, there is a Christian 
 knowledge and a Christian art, etc., which indeed spring 
 from the field of the Church and can flourish on this field 
 alone, but which by no means therefore proceed from the 
 instituted Church. The instituted Church finds her province 
 bounded by her offices, and these offices are limited to the 
 ministry of the Word, the Sacraments, Benevolence, and 
 Church government. These are the only offices that have 
 been appointed as special functions in her life. All other 
 expressions of Christian life do not work by the organ of 
 the special offices, but by the organs of the re-created natural 
 life ; the Christian family by the believing father and mother. 
 Christian art by the believing artist, and Christian schools 
 by the believing magister. From which it follows that in this 
 domain of palingenesis science also does not come to revela- 
 tion by organs specially appointed for this purpose, but by 
 the regenerated natural organs. By making an exception of 
 theology here, it is assigned a place outside the organism of 
 Christian knowledge, which prevents it from having one and 
 the same subject in common with the other, Christianly under- 
 stood, sciences. If then for want of a better school, or in 
 behalf of her own safety, the instituted Church may found 
 a seminary for the education of her ministry, such a semi- 
 nary is never a scientific institution in its absolute sense. 
 Neither are we authorized, in view of such a seminary, to 
 withdraw ourselves from the obligation of prosecuting the 
 science of theology for its own sake. If preachers are to be 
 not merely Ministers of the Word, but theologians as well, 
 the university training is indispensable. 
 
 But from this it does not follow that the instituted Church 
 as such should not be of profound significance to the science 
 of theology. The case indeed is this : sufficient knowledge 
 of God ad hoc flows from the Holy Scripture in a three- 
 fold way : personal, ecclesiastical and scientific. If now we 
 consider scientific theology first, then it is clear that its 
 beginnings are very slow, that its growth covers the lapse 
 of ages, and that it is not only still very incomplete, but 
 
Chap. Ill] § 91. THE CHURCH AND THE OFFICE 689 
 
 it will never be finished, because as a science it can never 
 be at a standstill, but will always advance without ever being 
 able to reach completion. In the earlier ages especially it 
 was very imperfect. If then for the sake of procuring the 
 necessary knowledge of God, the Church, which we referred 
 to in the second place, should have had to wait for the result 
 of this study, generation after generation would have passed 
 away before the Church could have begun her task. And 
 this was not to be allowed. The Church had to be in 
 immediate readiness. She could not be held back by any 
 embarrassment. Neither has this taken place. From the 
 very beginning, before there could be so much as a question 
 of science, the Church has borrowed the content of her 
 preaching from the Scripture and thereby has made use of a 
 knowledge of God, which was sufficient ad hoc, i.e. for the 
 life of the Church. What was needed in the churchly life 
 gradually increased also, but in connection with this the 
 Church unfolded the content of her preaching ever more 
 richly, at the same time profiting by the fruit of scientific 
 theology that gradually arose. Thus churchly confessions 
 originated, which were increasingly rich and full, but these 
 churchly confessions have never announced themselves as the 
 results of science. And it is different again in the third place 
 with the personal knowledge of God of each individual. The 
 individual person, whose life is measured by the day, was still 
 less able than the Church, to wait till science had ended her 
 combats and finished her task. In a sense even more definite 
 than the Church each individual must personally be in instant 
 readiness, and have convictions, which for him, ad hoc, can 
 alone be obtained by personal faith and personal experience. 
 Every other conception is unmerciful, since it is unable to 
 give the elect, at every given moment, according to his several 
 condition, that knowledge of God which he needs. Distinc- 
 tion meanwhile is readily made between this personal, churchly 
 and scientific theology (or knowledge of God). The first 
 tends to supply .each child of God his comfort in life and in 
 death. The second, to enable the Church to preach and to 
 maintain her confession in the face of the world. And the 
 
590 § 91. THE CHURCH AND THE OFFICE [Civ. Ill 
 
 third is charged with the introduction of the knowledge of 
 God into the human consciousness. The first has for its circle 
 the life's-sphere of the individual, the second the circle of the 
 instituted Ohureh, and the third the circle of the church taken 
 as an organism. In connection with this the form of the 
 knowledge of God is distinguished also in these three ways. 
 Personal faith does not formulate, but, as the fathers since 
 Augustine said, " appropriates and enjoys " (utitur et fruitur). 
 The churchly confession formulates in dogmata. Scientific 
 theology sifts and tries, analyzes and draws inferences, con- 
 structs systems and places in connection with what lies out- 
 side. And, finally, the first is fruit of personal enlightenment 
 and experience ; the second, of the official activity of the 
 Church, also in her struggles with heresy ; and the third is 
 the independent fruit of study. 
 
 If, now, we bring this in connection with the guidance of 
 the Holy Spirit, then this guidance in the case of the personal 
 knowledge of God consists in the providential and spiritual 
 leading, by which the heart of the individual is influenced and 
 his world of thought is formed ; in the case of the ecclesiasti- 
 cal knowledge of God it is the guidance of the Holy Spirit 
 bestowed upon the Churches through the office ; and in the 
 case of the scientific knowledge it consists in the clarifying of 
 the consciousness. This, however, must not be understood in 
 the sense that these three factors are isolated, and work each 
 by itself. No man is a theologian in a scientific sense unless 
 he is also a partaker of personal enlightenment and spiritual 
 experience. For, unless this is the case, his starting-point is 
 wanting, and he has no contact with the principium of the- 
 ology. Neither can the theologian stand outside the church 
 relation, and thus outside of personal union with the churchly 
 confession, for then he finds himself outside the historic pro- 
 cess, and, in fact, the organic contact is broken with the life- 
 circle, within which his studies must flourish, so far as is pos- 
 sible to him. The personal faith, which simply touches the 
 principium, and which as being entirely individual is an ines- 
 timable magnitude, needs receive no further mention here. 
 For the theologian, it is the starting-point ; but it is nothing 
 
Chap. Ill] § 91. THE CHURCH AND THE OFFICE 691 
 
 more. It is very different, on the other hand, with the 
 churchly confession. An objective condition lies in this. It 
 is a product of the life of the Church, as in an ever richer form 
 it has revealed itself officially, i.e. in ecclesiastical assemblies, 
 under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit. Two things are 
 contained in this confession. First, the self-consciousness of 
 the Church, as it has developed itself historically, which, con- 
 sequently, is the result of a spiritual experience and a spir- 
 itual struggle that fills in the gap between the present and 
 the first appearance of the Christian Church. And in the 
 second place, the result of the special leading of the Holy 
 Spirit, vouchsafed in the course of ages to the Church, and 
 to the knowledge of God that has developed itself within her 
 pale. For this reason the theologian should not undervalue 
 the confession of his Church, as if in it a mere opinion pre- 
 sented itself to him over against which, with equal if not 
 with better right, he might place Ms opinion. The life of the 
 Church, and the forming and reforming of her self-conscious- 
 ness, is an action which is uninterruptedly continued. Scien- 
 tific study unquestionably does and must exert an influence 
 upon this, but for this reason this action should not sacrifice 
 its independent character and motive of its own. A company 
 charged with the public water-works may change the direction 
 of some part of a river-bed by cutting off some needless bend 
 or obstructive turn, but this does not render the company the 
 original creator of the river who causes its waters to flow. In 
 the same way, the scientific theologian may exert a correc- 
 tive power here and there upon the confessional life of the 
 Church, but this does not constitute him the man who sets 
 this life in motion. That life pursues its own course, the 
 stream of that life creates a bed for itself. To the theolo- 
 gian, therefore, the confession of his Church does not merely 
 possess the presumption of truth ; it appears objectively be- 
 fore him clothed with authority : with that authority which 
 the many wield over the individual, with the authority 
 of the ages in the face of ephemeral excitements; with the 
 authority of the office in distinction from personal life ; and 
 with the authority which is due to the churchly life by 
 
592 § 91. THE CHURCH AND THE OFFICE [Div. Ill 
 
 virtue of the guidance of the Holy Ghost. It is not lawful, 
 therefore, for him simply to slight this confessional life of 
 the Church in order, while drifting on his own oars, to con- 
 struct in his own way a new system of knowledge of God. 
 He who undertakes to do this is bound in the end to see 
 his labor stricken with unfruitfulness, or he destroys the 
 churchly life, whose welfare his study ought to further. 
 
 From this, however, it does not follow that his studies 
 are to have no other tendency than to confirm the con- 
 fession of his Church, as if this were clothed with infallible 
 authority. This was the fault committed by Scholasticism. 
 The guidance of the Holy Spirit truly intends to be immedi- 
 ately effective in its final result ; but it compels itself least of 
 all to be this in every part of its action. A guide is given you 
 of whom you know that in the end he will bring you where 
 you want to be, but he does not necessarily lead you along a 
 straight line and at once to that end. You approach this end 
 only by stages ; and for the sake of having your own thought 
 and activity develop themselves, this guide allows you to 
 take circuitous routes, and to try roads that run out, from 
 which you will return of your own accord ; while amid all 
 these apparently contradictory movements he keeps the end 
 in view, and brings it to pass, that finally you go to it of 
 yourself. And in this very connection scientific theology is 
 of a practical significance to the Church. It carries, indeed, 
 the end in itself, of causing the glory of God's truth to 
 shine also in the world of our consciousness. But it is 
 equally called to examine critically the confessional life of 
 the Church, by ever and anon testing the confession of the 
 Church by the principium of theology, i.e. the Word of God. 
 For which reason the theologian can never be a man of 
 abstract study. Of two things he must do one. As a man 
 of study he must remain in harmonious contact with the 
 Church, whose confession he confirms by his study. Or he 
 must enter an ever dangerous suit against the Church, whose 
 confession he antagonizes in one point or another, on the 
 ground of the Word of God. If now this touches an infer- 
 ential question, which lies in the most distant circumference 
 
Chap. Ill] § 92. LIBERTY OP SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 593 
 
 of dogma, the character of this struggle is less serious. But 
 if the difference concerns the centrum of the confession, i.e. 
 the real knowledge of God, the Church must either consent 
 to his view and modify her confession, or he must break with 
 the Church, whose confession he has found to be false. In 
 this it is assumed, of course, that both he and his Church 
 stand upon the basis of God's Word. Otherwise either the 
 Church or the theologian who criticises her is wanting, so 
 that there may be a good deal of quarrelling, as the outcome of 
 dishonesty, but there can be no question of a spiritual strug- 
 gle. But that spiritual struggle is the very thing in question. 
 From both sides it must be carried on for the sake of the truth 
 of God. And even as the martyr, the theologian must have 
 courage to hazard his whole position in this struggle. Either 
 he must be convinced, or the Church must be convinced hy 
 him. If one of these two things does not take place, there 
 is no escape from a final breach. Hence, even when appre- 
 hended centrally, theological science owes the Church a 
 bounden duty in service of the Holy Spirit. Not the duty of 
 supplying her with the assurance of the faith ; this the theo- 
 logian must derive from the life of the Church. And a 
 theology which makes it appear that it has to furnish the 
 assurance of faith, cuts away the knowledge of God from its 
 moorings, and builds by the authority of reason. But, in the 
 service of the Holy Spirit, theology is called ever and anon to 
 test the historic, confessional life of the Church by its source, 
 and to this end to examine it after the norm of the Holy Script- 
 ure. By itself confessional life tends to petrify and to fall 
 asleep, and it is theology that keeps the Church awake ; that 
 lends its aid in times of conflict with oft-recurring heresies ; 
 that rouses her self-consciousness anew to a giving of account, 
 and in this way averts the danger of petrifaction. 
 
 § 92. The Liberty of Scientific Theology 
 
 To be able, however, to accomplish this task, scientific 
 
 theology must be entirely free in her movement. This, of 
 
 course, does not imply license. Every study is bound by the 
 
 nature of its object, and subjected to the laws that govern 
 
594 § 92. LIBERTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY [Div. lU 
 
 the activity of our consciousness. But this is so far from a 
 limitation of its liberty, that its very liberty consists in being 
 bound to these laws. The railvray train is free, so long as 
 the rails hold its wheels in their embrace. But it becomes 
 unfree, works itself in the ground, and cannot go on as soon 
 as the wheels jump the track. Hence there is no question of 
 desiring to free the theologian as such at the bar of his own 
 conscience from his obligation to his subject, his principium, 
 or the historic authority of the Church ; what we should object 
 to is, that the study should be prevented from pursuing its 
 own way. That a Church should forbid a minister of the 
 Word the further use of her pulpit when he antagonizes her 
 confession, or that a board of trustees should dismiss a pro- 
 fessor, who, according to their view, does not serve the end 
 for which he was appointed, has nothing whatever to do with 
 this liberty of studies. A ship-owner, who dismisses a captain 
 because he sails the ship to a different point of destination 
 from what the ship-owner designated, in no wise violates 
 thereby the personal rights of the captain. When a Church 
 appoints a minister of the Word, she and she alone is to de- 
 termine what she desires of him, and when he is no longer 
 able to perform this, she can no longer retain him in her ser- 
 vice. And in the same way, when the curators of a university 
 appoint some one to teach Lutheran dogmatics, and this theo- 
 logian meanwhile becomes Romish, it is not merely their right 
 but their duty to displace him. Yea, stronger still, a theolo- 
 gian who, in such a case, does not withdraw, is dishonest, and 
 as such cannot be upheld. But these cases have nothing to 
 do with the liberty of studies, and at no time does the churchly 
 liberty of the theologian consist of anything but his right to 
 appeal to the Word of God, on the ground of which he may 
 enter into a spiritual conflict with his Church, and if he fails 
 in this, to withdraw. Thus when the liberty of theology is 
 spoken of, we do not mean theology as attached to any office, 
 but theology as an independent phenomenon. The question 
 simply is, whether, after it has separated itself from this office, 
 and thus makes its appearance as theology only, it is or is not 
 free. 
 
Chap. Ill] §92. LIBERTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 595 
 
 And the answer is, that every effort to circumscribe the- 
 ology by any obstacle whatever is antagonistic to her nature, 
 and disables her for her calling. The law of thought will 
 not allow you to call the thing black, which you see to be 
 white. As a thing presents itself to you, so does it cast its 
 image in your consciousness. To say that you see a thing in 
 this way, but that you must represent it to yourself in the 
 other way, is to violate the freedom of thought. We grant 
 that a man of study is frequently blinded by superficiality, 
 by want of thoroughness and sobriety, and sometimes even 
 by conceit and arrogance, so that he has a false view of his 
 object. Formally, however, this does not alter the case; 
 even when his view is false, he is bound to describe a thing 
 as he sees it. We are concerned here with the same problem 
 as with the erring conscience. When Saul before his conver- 
 sion worked havoc among the churches of God, his conscience 
 erred, in so far as he deemed this to be his duty to God. If, 
 however, he had remained quiescent and allowed the thing 
 free course which he thought it his duty to oppose, at that 
 moment he would have violated his conscience and have 
 formally sinned. Whoever, therefore, may please to be a the- 
 ologian, and whatever conclusions he may reach by his inves- 
 tigations, and may publish as results of his study, you must 
 quietly allow. Even when the Church or a curatorium de- 
 cides that his views disqualify him for the office he may hold, 
 neither his theory nor his liberty of speech or writing may be 
 denied him. Of course he must be willing to risk his office 
 and his position; but what is this, compared to what was 
 risked by the martyrs for their conviction ? If he is a man of 
 principle, and means what he says, he will not hesitate to make 
 this sacrifice. And how great an influence one may exert 
 upon theology, even without office, has sufficiently been shown 
 by Spinoza. All the theologian can ask is, liberty to investi- 
 gate, speak and write agreeably to the claims of his convic- 
 tion. If only he is not impeded in this, he is free. And that 
 is the liberty in which he may not be hindered in the least. 
 
 We grant that this may give rise to the case, that he who 
 began as theologian will cease to be a theologian, in order 
 
596 §92. LIBERTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 that he may speak as a philosopher. He who chooses another 
 object than that of theology and consequently goes out from 
 another principium, and investigates agreeably to another 
 method, may still be a man of learning, but he is no longer a 
 theologian. But even this must be left to the free operation 
 of minds. The persistent heretic must be banished from the 
 Church ; a professor, whose presence is a menace to the high- 
 est interests of a school, must be dismissed; but from the 
 field of theology no one can disappear, unless he leaves it of 
 his own free will. He may do this consciously by the open 
 declaration : I am no longer a theologian ; or, again, the results 
 of his investigations may bring it about, that at length nobody 
 numbers him any more among theologians. But so long as it 
 pleases him to pose as a theologian, no one can prevent him ; 
 even when he has undermined, as far as he was able, succes- 
 sively, the object, principle and method of theology. How- 
 ever just, therefore, the people's protest is, when from the 
 pulpit a theologian attacks the confession of the Church which 
 he serves, or when from the platform a professor antagonizes 
 the standards of the school for whose principles he ought 
 to make propaganda, that protest becomes unwarranted and 
 may not be tolerated when it directs itself against the liberty 
 of the man of science. Expression may be given to the indig- 
 nation which smarts under an assault on sacred things ; but 
 in his personal liberty the man of science must be respected. 
 And when he shows that for the sake of his scientific convic- 
 tion there is no sacrifice too great for him, so that he bravely 
 defies opposition from every quarter, praise must not be with- 
 held from him for such heroic strength of character. This 
 praise must be withheld from the man who, for the sake of 
 saving his position, sacrifices his Church or his school ; but it 
 is due to those titanic spirits who show, indeed, that they do 
 not contend for their position, but simply for the liberty of 
 science and the liberty of their deepest conviction. 
 
 This absolute liberty is, moreover, indispensable, if theology 
 is to discharge her duty to the confessional life of the Church. 
 Not that the Church should yield summarily to every criti- 
 cism of her confession. The Church may not modify her 
 
Chap. Ill] § 92. LIBERTY OF SCIENTIPIC THEOLOGY 597 
 
 confession, unless the conviction takes hold of her that some 
 part of her confession cannot stand before the bar of the 
 Word of God. But on the other hand, also, her confession 
 must be alive ; in its truth and clearness it must rest upon 
 the Church's consciousness of life itself, and thereby be so 
 firmly rooted, that it cannot stand in fear of criticism. Real 
 gold will court trial ; and theology is not able to try, test 
 and criticise, if she is withheld the right to do this freely 
 and radically. The history of Scholasticism shows, that when 
 the expression of free thought is choked, and criticism of the 
 confession becomes a question of life and death, theology 
 fails of her task in many respects. And on the other hand, 
 the Church has nothing to fear from this liberty of studies, 
 provided she but do her duty within her own pale. Of course, 
 she must not permit her confession to be attacked or ignored 
 in her pulpits. The Church undertakes the propaganda of 
 her life and consciousness, and he who does not share her life, 
 or does not think from her world of thought, cannot be her 
 organ. She must also apply Christian discipline, in order to 
 keep the purity of confession intact among her members. 
 But provided she is not behind in this, the criticism of theo- 
 logical science can bring her blessings only. For this pro- 
 vides the constant stimulus to turn back from the confession 
 to the Word of God, and so prevents the Church from living 
 on the water in the pitcher, and allowing itself to be cut off 
 from the Fountain whence that water was drawn. A sharp, 
 critical development of theology will ever entail a keener 
 wakefulness of historical-positive theology, to make the 
 Church understand anew the treasure she holds in her creed. 
 In this way also the confessional development of the Church 
 will not be at a standstill, but be ever making advance. And 
 if for a while negative criticism carries the greatest weight, 
 it will not last long, since the theologians who stand outside 
 the life of the Church are bound to lose, sooner or later, their 
 interest in theological studies. 
 
 If revelation were given in a dialectically prepared form, so 
 that it consisted of a confession given by God Himself, of a 
 catechism and of a law worked out in detailed particulars ; if 
 
598 §92. LIBERTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 such a dialectically prepared form were given us in our own 
 language, and if the copy of this lay before us in the original, 
 infallible manuscript : the majesty of God would not invite, 
 but forbid, such criticism and such a liberty of studies. But 
 such was not the appointment of God. Revelation was given 
 in a historic and symbolic form to be worked into a dialectic 
 form by us ; it was given in a language that is foreign to us ; 
 and the manuscripts which are at our disposal are very 
 different from each other and not free from faults. We are 
 offered no bread cut and sliced, but seed-grain, from which, 
 by our labor, wheat grows, in turn to be ground into meal 
 and made into bread. Hence the human factor is not doomed 
 to inactivity, but stimulated to highest action, which action 
 must always go through all sorts of uncertainty and commo- 
 tion. By feeling only we find the way. In doing this our con- 
 sciousness tries to grasp, assimilate and reproduce its object 
 with the aid of both actions of which our consciousness is 
 capable : viz. immediate faith and discursive thought. At 
 one time the results of this twofold action coincide, and at 
 another time they antagonize each other, and from this 
 tumult that activity is born by which we make personal, 
 ecclesiastical and scientific advances. There is here no 
 papal infallibility to furnish a iinal decision, and least of all 
 should this be taken as the continuation of infallible inspira- 
 tion, since it differs entirely in form, character and tendency 
 from the inspiration of the Scripture. Moreover, such a 
 papal infallibility can have no other result than is actually 
 seen in the Church of Rome ; viz. that faith in the rich treas- 
 ure of revelation is superseded by a faith in the Church, and 
 that the healthy reaction of free theology upon the confes- 
 sional life of the Church is entirely excluded. Such a papal 
 infallibility aims at an outward, mathematical certainty which 
 is irreconcilably opposed to the whole manner of existence of 
 the revelation of God. To a certain extent it may even be 
 said that in an empirical sense there is nothing certain here. 
 There is conflict of opinion concerning the reading of the 
 manuscripts, concerning the interpretation of every book 
 and pericope, concerning every abstraction and deduction, 
 
Chap. Ill] § 92. LIBERTY OF SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY 599 
 
 and concerning every formulation and every application of 
 the thought obtained. He who desires notarial accuracy is 
 disappointed at every step in this sanctuary. But when 
 the outcome shows that, notwithstanding all these difficul- 
 ties, thousands and tens of thousands have obtained full 
 assurance and certainty, to our Protestant consciousness it 
 implies the guarantee that the Holy Spirit has not merely 
 given us a Book and then withdrawn Himself from our human 
 scene of action, but that that same Holy Spirit continues to 
 be our leader, and in that very freedom of the action of our 
 spirit causes His dominion to triumph. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE OKGANISM OF THEOLOGY 
 
 § 93. Part of an Organism 
 By the organism of theology we mean what is commonly 
 called " the division of the theological departments." Since, 
 however, theology as an organic whole is itself an organic 
 member of the all-embracing organism of science, for the sake 
 of clearness, a short resume is here necessary of what was 
 treated in our first chapter. Notwithstanding our position 
 that science shows itself in a twofold form, viz. science as 
 prosecuted in the circle outside of palingenesis, and science 
 as studied in the circle ruled over by palingenesis, this an- 
 tithesis is nevertheless merely empirical. According to its 
 idea there is but one science, and they who do not reckon 
 with palingenesis naturally refuse to see anything but the 
 result of imagination and obscurantism in what is science to 
 us. And we, in turn, refuse to acknowledge as science the 
 science which is studied outside of palingenesis. As said 
 before, both these sciences have a very broad field in common, 
 which includes all those objects which are not affected by the 
 differentiation of palingenesis, in so far as the investigation 
 of these objects employs no other functions of our mind 
 than those which have remained uninjured by the darken- 
 ing brought upon us by sin. This embraces, in the first 
 place, everything that is commonly called sciences by the 
 English, and sciences exactes by the French ; at least so far 
 as the exponents of these sciences hold themselves to their 
 task, and do not make cosmological inferences or construct 
 philosophical hypotheses. But in the second place, the sub- 
 ordinate labor of the spiritual sciences also belongs to this, 
 so far as it tends exclusively to collect and determine exter- 
 nal, observable data. Hence a very large part of philological 
 
 600 
 
Chap. IV] § 93. PART OF AN ORGANISM 601 
 
 study, in the narrower sense, and of historical detail goes on 
 outside of the afore-mentioned differentiation. The fact that 
 a person compares a few codices constitutes him hy no means 
 a philologist, nor because he studies a certain part of positive 
 law is he made a jurist, and much less does he become a theo- 
 logian because he inquires into the history of a monastery. 
 But in doing this, such scholars may readily furnish contri- 
 butions which are of lasting value to their several depart- 
 ments. So far as the sciences exactes rest simply on counting, 
 weighing and measuring, they do not stand very high ; neither 
 does this subordinate detail-study of the spiritual sciences 
 bear an ideal scientific character ; but they have this in their 
 favor, that universal validity attaches to their results, and 
 for this reason, though unjustly, they are largely credited 
 as being the only strictly scientific studies. But this is only 
 self-deception. These studies derive their peculiar character 
 simply from the fact that they do not touch the higher func- 
 tions of the subject, and are affected by the subject only in 
 so far as, standing outside the influence of sin, it is one and 
 the same in all investigators. Science in the higher sense be- 
 gins only where these higher functions operate, and then, of 
 course, these two streams must separate, because the work- 
 ing of these higher functions, with and without palingenesis, 
 differs. From this it follows, at the same time, that universal 
 validity cannot be attained except in so far as, potentially 
 at least, these higher functions work identically. The stu- 
 dents of science in whom these functions are unenlightened 
 can advance no farther than the recognition of their results 
 in their own circle. And on the other hand, the students 
 of science to whom the enlightening has come can never 
 promise themselves anything more than the recognition of 
 their results in the circle of those who have been enlight- 
 ened. From the nature of the case this is intended simply 
 in the potential sense. Neither one of these sciences ex- 
 pects an immediate recognition of their results and from all ; 
 they simply assume that every one who reaches a logical 
 and complete development within one of these two circles 
 will find the results to be thus and not otherwise. Hence the 
 
602 §93. PART OF AN ORGANISM [Div. in 
 
 position is this, that that science which arises from natural 
 data only, subjective as well as objective, asserts, and is bound 
 to assert itself, to be the science which originates of necessity 
 from the reflection of the cosmos in the subjective conscious- 
 ness of humanity. And, on the other hand, that science which 
 reckons with the fact of re-creation, objective as well as sub- 
 jective, asserts that real science is born only from the human 
 consciousness that has been restored again to its normal self, 
 and therefore cannot recognize as such the fruit of the work- 
 ing of the still abnormal human consciousness. The rule 
 that he who is not born again of water and spirit cannot see 
 the kingdom of God, applies not merely to the domain of 
 theology. Without enlightening, the jurist is not able to 
 open his eyes to see the Justice of God, neither can the 
 philologist observe the course of God in history and in the 
 conscious life of the nations. 
 
 But whatever view-point one occupies, science, as it de- 
 velops itself in each of these two circles, is in either case 
 organically one, because the object forms an organic whole, 
 and the subject in the consciousness of humanity is itself 
 organic, and lives organically in connection with the object. 
 Of course theology falls of itself out of that science which 
 has no other machinery than human data; and since by sin 
 and curse, both objectively and subjectively, a disturbance has 
 been created in the organism, its organic character is bound 
 to exhibit defects, and frequently lead to a non liquet, or 
 even to radical agnosticism. But neither the one nor the 
 other renders science, thus interpreted, either mechanical or 
 atomistic. The characteristic of the organism remains rec- 
 ognizable and dominant. And from the nature of the case 
 this applies in a much higher sense to that science which is 
 under the power of re-creation, since it includes theology 
 and possesses the missing links. From this organic character 
 of science follows, at the same time, its unity. From our 
 standpoint we do not assert that the subject of theology is 
 those who have been enlightened, and that the subject of all 
 other science is those of the natural mind (•v/ri';^t/<:d?), but we 
 claim that the only subject of all science is the consciousness 
 
Chap. IV] § 94. THEOLOGY AN INDEPENDENT ORGAN 603 
 
 of regenerated or re-created humanity ; and that so large a 
 part of scientific study can be furnished equally well by 
 those who stand outside of this, is simply because this build- 
 ing also admits a vast amount of hod-carrier service which is 
 entirely different from the higher architecture. 
 
 § 94. In the Organism of Science Theology is an Indepen- 
 dent Organ 
 
 When Schleiermacher described theology as an agglomerate 
 of a few departments of knowledge, which found their unity 
 in the " guidance and direction of the Church," he actually ab- 
 rogated theology and her organic existence in the organism of 
 the sciences. An agglomerate is never organic, it is the oppo- 
 site of organic, and is never made organic by any unity in the 
 purpose of your studies. The organic character of a science 
 carries also in itself a teleological element, but the end alone 
 can never make an organism of that which differs in object 
 and principle. The later effort, therefore, was entirely ra- 
 tional, to regain the unity of object by making religion the 
 object of investigation. We do not deny that the science of 
 religion finds an equally organic place in the organism of 
 science, as for instance the science of the aesthetic, moral, or 
 intellectual life of man. It is our conviction that this science 
 got into the wrong track, when by the aid of religious evolu- 
 tion it repealed the antithesis between true a,nA. false religion. 
 But even so, this science is formally an organic part of the 
 organism of science. We simply deny that in this organism 
 the science of religion can ever constitute an independent 
 organ. By leading motives the organism of science is divided 
 into a few great complexes, which form as it were special 
 provinces in the republic of the sciences. Each of these com- 
 plexes divides itself into smaller complexes, and these smaller 
 complexes subdivide into smaller groups ; but for this very 
 reason the distinction between the coordinate and the sub- 
 ordinate must not be lost from sight. In our body the. 
 nervous system forms a complex of its own; hence every- 
 thing that is radically governed by the nerves must be. 
 subsumed by science under this head. The Veluwe along 
 
604 § 94. THEOLOGY AN INDEPENDENT OEGAN [Div. Ill 
 
 the Zuyder Zee is indeed a particular region of land, but 
 it should not for this reason be coordinated with the Dutch 
 provinces. Nothing arbitrary therefore can be tolerated 
 in the distribution of the organism of science. There must 
 be a principium of division, and only those parts of the or- 
 ganism are independent which by virtue of this principium 
 are governed immediately by this general, and not by a lower, 
 principium of division. Pathology cannot be an independent 
 science, because it is not formed immediately by the prin- 
 cipium of division of science, but is governed by the general 
 conception of the medical science. And this is the case here. 
 As a psychological-historical phenomenon, religion is but one 
 of many psychological phenomena. It is granted that it is 
 the most important, but it is always one of many. It is no 
 genus, but a species under a genus. Hence the science of 
 religion can never claim for itself an independent place. It 
 belongs to the philological faculty, and in this faculty it 
 occurs as a subordinated science, partly under psychology, 
 partly under ethnology, and partly under philosophy. 
 
 But it becomes a different matter when, passing by the 
 " Science of Religion," we speak of Theology in the sense 
 indicated above. Then we deal with a science which has a 
 single common object (objectum univocum), arises from a sin- 
 gle common principle (principium univocum), and develops 
 itself after a method of its own. This cannot be subordi- 
 nated, either under the natural, juridical, philological, or 
 medical sciences, hence it must be coordinated. In scientific 
 research human consciousness pursues the five principally 
 differentiated parts of its total object. It directs itself to 
 man, to nature about man, and to God as man's creator, pre- 
 server, and end ; while with man, as far as he himself is 
 concerned, logical distinction must be made between his 
 psychic, somatic and his social existence. These are the 
 five primordial lines which spring immediately from the 
 principium of division, i.e. from the human consciousness 
 in relation to its total object ; and this agrees entirely with 
 the division of the faculties, which is the outcome of the 
 increated law of life itself and of its practical needs. And 
 
Chap. IV] § 95. BOUNDARY OF THEOLOGY IN SCIENCE 605 
 
 since theology directs itself to the "knowledge of God," 
 it cannot be subordinated, but must be coordinated, and 
 because of its independent olject, its independent princip- 
 ium, and its independent method, it claims our homage as 
 an independent organ in the organism of science. 
 
 § 95. The Boundary of Theology in the Organism of Science 
 Theology is not isolated in the organism of science. It is 
 united with it in an organic way. From this it follows that 
 communication between it and the other four great scientific 
 complexes is not prevented from any one side. Communi- 
 cation, avenues of approach, and points of union extend to 
 all sides. This, however, does not imply that there are no 
 boundaries between theology and the other four coordinates; 
 but as in every other non-mechanical domain, these boun- 
 daries here must be measured from the centrum, and not in 
 the periphery. When a centre and the length of a ray are 
 given, the boundary is fixed for the entire surrounding, even 
 though this is not entirely marked out and thus is not dis- 
 cernible outwardly. 
 
 This centre here is the revealed ectypal self-knowledge of 
 God. Since, however, it is the revealed and ectypal self- 
 knowledge of God, it is not limited to abstract knowledge of 
 God, taken as an isolated object of thought. The fact that it 
 is ectypal expresses, indeed, a relation of this self-knowledge 
 to man, and that it is revealed assumes logically a dealing 
 with the data, condition and means in which and by which 
 this revelation takes place. The knowledge which God has 
 of Himself includes also the knowledge of His counsel, work 
 and will, and the relation in which He has placed man to 
 Himself, outside of as well as under sin. Since this ectypal 
 knowledge of God is revealed, not in the abstract sense to 
 satisfy our desire for knowledge, but very concretely, as one 
 of the means by which this all-excelling work of re-creation 
 is accomplished, a process is effected by this ectypal knowl- 
 edge of God, namely the Christian Church, by which, even 
 as a tree by its fruit, this knowledge of God is more par- 
 ticularly known. And so far as in this way the light of 
 
606 § 95. THE BOUNDARY OF THEOLOGY [Div. IH 
 
 this ectypal knowledge of God shines out, and its working is 
 observable, the boundaries of theology extend, or what was 
 called its " compass," including, of course, what we must do 
 in order, in our time also, to let the working of the knowledge 
 of God have free course. As soon, however, as the influence 
 which has been exerted by this knowledge of God outside 
 the sphere created by itself is considered, theology provides 
 contributions (Lehnsatze) for other sciences, but operates it- 
 self no longer. Then it concerns the application of its results 
 to other objects, and no longer the product of what is to be 
 applied. As the theologian applies results furnished by logic, 
 but is thereby no creator of logic himself, so the jurist, philol- 
 ogist, medicus and naturalist must deal with the results of 
 theology without themselves being thereby theologians. 
 
 So far, on the other hand, as the jurist, the medicus, etc., 
 finds data in revelation which bear not on the way of the 
 knowledge of God, but immediately on his department, he 
 must determine for himself what influence one and another 
 shall exert upon his own investigation. Now we speak of 
 course of the jurist, the philologist, etc., as he should be, 
 i.e. as standing within the pale of palingenesis, and as a 
 Christian bending his knee before the majesty of the Lord 
 and of His Revelation ; not being limited by Revelation, but 
 enriched and enlarged by it, seeing what otherwise he would 
 not see, knowing what otherwise would be hidden from 
 him. We do not advocate, therefore, a certain subserviency 
 of the other sciences to theology as the queen of sciences. 
 There can never be a question of such a relation of mis- 
 tress and servant, in a scientific sense, among the sciences. 
 He who investigates may render no obedience to any but 
 the irresistible impulse of his own conviction. Even where 
 material (Lehnsatze) is borrowed by other sciences from 
 theology, it occurs by no other authority than that by 
 which theology in turn borrows material from other sci- 
 ences, i.e. under the conviction that by similar investiga- 
 tions one would reach like results. The conflicts which arise 
 from this are therefore no conflicts between theology and 
 the other sciences, but conflicts which the jurist, the physi- 
 
Chap. IV] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 607 
 
 cist, medicus, and philologist faces, each in his own domain, 
 in the same way in which the theologian faces these in his. 
 All these conflicts arise from the fact that re-creation has be- 
 gun, indeed, potentially, but can be completed with the parou- 
 sia alone. If re-creation were completed now, every conflict 
 of this nature would be inconceivable. Since now it is not 
 finished, either in ourselves or in the cosmos, of necessity 
 we have to deal with natural and supernatural data. Both 
 these reflect themselves in our consciousness, and this gives 
 rise to the conflict in our consciousness; which conflict is 
 ended only in so far as we succeed in tracing the real con- 
 nection between these two series of data. And this is by no 
 means accomplished by ignoring any data that present them- 
 selves to us, from both series, or from either of the two. 
 This might give us an ostrich wisdom but jno human science. 
 In no particular should the naturalist, for instance, be im- 
 peded. With the aid of all possible means at his command, 
 he must prosecute his observations, and formulate what he 
 has observed. If, on the other hand, he undertakes to con- 
 struct a system from his discoveries, or commits himself 
 to hypotheses by which to interpret his observations, the 
 leaving out of account of the factor of Revelation is equiva- 
 lent to the work of one who, in the biography of his hero, 
 ignores his correspondence or autobiography. Whatever ap- 
 plies, therefore, to the origin and end of things cannot be 
 determined by the laws he has discovered, since every law, 
 when carried logically to its extreme in this matter of origin 
 and end, leads ad absurdum, and involves us in antinomies 
 that cannot be solved. If a law is to apply to a kingdom, 
 it is assumed that this kingdom has being. Neither is he 
 able, with his discovered law, to react against the possibility 
 of re-creation. Since he knows, while he himself is affected 
 by palingenesis, that (in order to realize the re-creation) a 
 higher law in God is bound to modify the operation of the 
 law which dominates the natural life. If he does not ac- 
 knowledge this, he denies in principle the very possibility 
 of re-creation, is without the photisraos, and is unable to draw 
 any conclusion. If, on the other hand, standing himself at 
 
608 § 95. THE BOUNDAKY Or THEOLOGY [Dir. Ill 
 
 the view-point of palingenesis, he prosecutes his studies, 
 nothing binds him but his own conviction, and he must 
 tiy to overcome, if possible, the conflicts that are sure to 
 present themselves. In this, however, he will not always 
 succeed, because the want of the necessary data renders this 
 impossible. And neither can the claim be made that the solu- 
 tion found by him shall be at once accepted by every one 
 else. Even in the scientific circles of Law, History and Phi- 
 losoph}', which do not reckon with palingenesis, differences 
 of tendency and insight prevail, from which definite schools 
 form themselves, which arise only presently to go down 
 again. All this is but owing to the limitation of our power 
 to know, to the paucity of data at our command, and to the 
 usual impossibility of verification. The slow progress made 
 in this direction is chiefly to be attributed to the fact that 
 theologians have studied the above-mentioned conflicts almost 
 exclusively, and that the Christians who have devoted them- 
 selves to these studies have for the most part been dualisti- 
 cally constituted, being heathen with the head and Christian 
 at heart. And real advances will be made only when men 
 who are themselves heart and soul alive to the efficacy of 
 regeneration, at the same time devote all their powers of 
 thought to these natural and historical studies, and so face 
 these very conflicts. 
 
 The theologian also is familiar with these conflicts in 
 his domain, occasioned by the incongruity which so often 
 appears between natural and revealed theology. The theo- 
 logian also is concerned with re-creation, and in the very 
 idea of re-creation lies the antithesis between that which is 
 to undergo the re-creative act and that which is established 
 as outcome of that act. Hence there is always a duality : 
 (1) the old data, which are present in what shall be regen- 
 erated, and (2) the new data, which shall constitute the 
 regeneration. The Scripture, therefore, does not hesitate 
 to speak of the "old man" and of the "new man" (Col. 
 iii. 10), by which to indicate what present data must be 
 removed (aveKhvcraadaiy, and what data, brought in from 
 without, must appear (^ivSvcraa-dai}. By that which must 
 
Chap. IV] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 609 
 
 be removed, we are by no means to understand the structure 
 of our human personality; this, indeed, must remain, since 
 otherwise there would be a new creation and no regenera- 
 tion. What is meant is simply that which in that structure 
 has been deformed by sin and has become a sinful habit. Con- 
 sequently, revealed theology distinguishes in man between 
 what is his human structure, in order that it may attach it- 
 self to this, and all sinful deformity, in order to exclude it. 
 And since natural theology does not belong to what consti- 
 tutes the "old man," but on the contrary to the psychical 
 structure of our human essence, revealed theology does by no 
 means exclude this natural theology, but rather postulates it, 
 assumes it, and joins itself to it. For this reason it was so 
 absurd in the last century to place this natural theology as a 
 second principium of Divine knowledge by the side of the 
 Holy Scripture, and so really to furnish two theologies : first, 
 a brief and vague knowledge of God from natural theology, 
 and after that a broad and sharply outlined knowledge of God 
 from Revelation. For sinful man, as he is able in his psychical 
 structure from himself, in connection with his observation of 
 the cosmos, to obtain this natural theology (Rom. i. 19, 20), is 
 the person in all dogma toward whom Revelation directs it- 
 self, to whom it is disposed, and whom it takes thus and not 
 otherwise. Hence our older theologians were much nearer 
 the truth when they applied the clear distinctions between 
 man in his original creation, fallen, and restored, to almost 
 every dogma, provided it is carefully kept in view that they 
 did not delineate fallen man to whom the revelation was 
 made after life, but took their copy from the image offered 
 of him by the Scripture. Neither did they do this in order 
 to lose themselves in abstraction, which has nothing in com- 
 mon with life, but to obtain certainty that they did not 
 fall into error in their view of fallen man. If they had 
 gone to work empirically, and had sought from life itself to 
 estimate what sort of a person fallen man might be, all cer- 
 tainty of starting-point would have been wanting ; which is 
 seen sufficiently clearly from the several sorts of theories 
 that have been framed concerning it. On the contrary, they 
 
610 §95. THE BOUNDARY OF THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 allowed the Word of God itself to furnish them this image, 
 and now they knew that they had solid ground under their 
 feet. Sinful man was devoid of an adequate self-knowledge, 
 and by the light of the Word of God alone does he recognize 
 his true appearance. Not as if henceforth he was to take no 
 further account of his essential existence, but because in this 
 way only did he come to know what his essential existence is. 
 Natural Theology, therefore, is not added to the Scripture as 
 a second something, but is taken up in the Scripture itself, 
 and by the light of the Scripture alone appears in connection 
 with the reality of our life. Hence natural theology cannot 
 be explained in dogmatics, except under the category of man 
 in his original righteousness and man in his fall. Every 
 other mode of treatment leads either to rationalism, by pla- 
 cing reason alongside of the Scripture as a second principium, 
 or to mysticism, by assigning the same place to the life of the 
 emotions, in order presently, by logical sequence, to push the 
 Scriptural principium to one side and to destroy it. But if this 
 ends the conflict for the theologian, both formally and with re- 
 spect to principle, the fact is not taken away that the antithe- 
 sis is bound to reappear between fallen man, who is to be re- 
 created, and restored man, who is to be looked upon as the fruit 
 of this re-creation. This would not be so if this re-creation 
 were completed in one moment. But it is unavoidable, since 
 it requires sometimes a very long process by which to bring 
 out potential re-creation to actual completion. Hence in the 
 doctrines of the Covenant, of Baptism, of the Church, of 
 Sanctification and in Ethics this conflict reappears again and 
 again, and to this day theology struggles to overcome the 
 conflict, theoretically in her formulation of the things to be 
 believed (credenda), and practically in her teaching of the 
 things to be done (agenda). 
 
 This conflict, therefore, exists not merely between theol- 
 ogy and natural science, etc., but extends across the entire 
 domain of human knowledge and presents itself to the Chris- 
 tian thinker in every department. The reason is plain. Since 
 sin denaturalized the entire cosmic life in and about man, 
 re-creation comes in to restore the entire cosmos, as far as it 
 
Chap. IV] IN THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE 611 
 
 Stands related to man. It is one of the demands of truth, 
 therefore, that both factors of this conflict shall be exhibited 
 as they are. By placing a board covered with flowers across 
 an abyss, the abyss is not filled in. There is no need, how- 
 ever, that the conflict shall be overestimated. If, for instance, 
 the naturalist observes that the deposit of the Nile increases 
 annually so many millimetres, and that it is so many metres 
 high, his conclusion is indisputable, that, if this deposit has 
 been constant, the height of 12.47 metres now reached would 
 have required a much longer period of time than is known 
 to our era. But he is not able to prove that the deposit has 
 been constant. The required observation lies outside the 
 empiric domain to which he must limit his judgment. This 
 is not cited for the sake of proving the fact that our earth has 
 not existed longer than six thousand years. With reference 
 to this fact Scriptural teaching is by no means exegetically 
 sure. But for the sake of showing in a concrete instance 
 what we understand by an unlawful extension of the conflict. 
 Meanwhile, the relation between Theology and Philosophy 
 deserves separate mention, since the boundary which sepa- 
 rates these two sciences is frequently crossed from both sides. 
 This requires a closer analysis of the idea of philosophy. 
 Philosophy embraces two things : on the one hand, the inves- 
 tigation into maiPbS ■psychical existence^ and, on the other hand, 
 the effort to put together concentrically the entire content 
 of the scientific consciousness in organic connection, and to 
 explain it. Man's psychic existence leads, in turn, to a 
 separate investigation (1) into his psyche (j^vx'n} as such 
 (psychology), and (2) into the ethical, sesthetical and logical 
 qualities of this psyche (ethics, aesthetics and logic). And 
 finally, Logic, in a broader sense, includes the investigation 
 into the consciousness as such, into the laws which govern 
 our thought, and into the ways which lead to knowledge 
 (^Principienlehre, Logica und Erkenntnisstheorie'). The sec- 
 ond task of Philosophy is of an entirely different kind ; it is 
 not directed to the conscious and thinking man, but it is the 
 effort of the thinking man himself to reflect the cosmos, 
 which presents itself to him as existing organically, as an 
 
612 §95. THE BOUNDARY OF THEOLOGY [Div. HI 
 
 organic whole in the mirror of his consciousness. Actually, 
 therefore, two sciences are embraced in Philosophy which 
 evermore separate. Efforts have even been made to give an 
 independent position to the study of thinking man, under the 
 name of "Logic" (taken in a broader sense than now). This 
 plan will probably produce the farther effect of having Psy- 
 chology appear on a ground of its own, with its quality-doc- 
 trine in ethics and aesthetics. This will make Logic consist of 
 the science of thinking man, or, if you please, it mil make the 
 Logos in man to be the object of investigation, and Philoso- 
 phy, in the narrower sense, will be the science which collects 
 the results of all the other sciences concentrically under a 
 higher unity. Thus we may have Logio as the science of 
 thinking (cogitare), and Philosophy as the science of being 
 (esse). Meanwhile, no objection can be raised against class- 
 ing, as yet, this entire complex of sciences under the common 
 name of the philosophical sciences, provided in the discussion 
 of the relations between theology and these sciences, the indi- 
 cated distinction is kept in view, and we no longer speak of 
 the philosophy. As for Logio, the saying that it is an aux- 
 iliary to the theologian reduces it by no means to the rank of a 
 handmaid of theology. It renders this service equally to all 
 the other sciences. As far as Logic is concerned, this entire 
 representation of the handmaid (ancilla) was simply a matter 
 of custom. It is, indeed, a patent fact, that in every science 
 man is the thinking agent, and if he shall undertake intel- 
 lectual pursuits in an accurate and prepared way, and in the 
 full consciousness of self, the knowledge and practice of the 
 faculty of thought are indispensable to him. A theologian 
 who undervalues Logic, as being little necessary to him, 
 simply disarms himself. This was by no means the practice 
 of our older theologians. They always emphasized most 
 strongly the study of formal logic, together with its related 
 arts (jexvai'). By saying this, we do not imply that in this 
 field, also, no conflicts may present themselves. These are 
 excluded so long as one confines himself to logic in the 
 narrower sense, but are bound to come up as soon as "die 
 Principien der Erkenntniss," together with the method by 
 
Chap. IV] IN TUB ORGANISM OF SCIENCE G13 
 
 which to attain to knowledge, or included under Logic. This 
 appears all too painfully, indeed, from the serious effort of 
 naturalism to apply its method to the spiritual sciences. No 
 doubt, this conflict is least of all a conflict between theol- 
 ogy and philosophy, but one born from the differing dispo- 
 sitions of the thinker. If his ideal life is high, he cannot 
 reach the same conclusions as another person, whose mind 
 and tendency confine themselves entirely to the things seen 
 (ppara). In the same way, if by regeneration thinking man 
 stands in vital communion with the kingdom of God, he must 
 see differently, and consequently judge differently, from the 
 one who stands outside of it. The same applies to psychology 
 and ethics. A Christian philosopher knows his own soul 
 (.^^Xv} ^Jifi views the ethical life differently from the phi- 
 losopher who stands outside of regeneration. The antithesis, 
 therefore, does not consist in the fact that theology offers a 
 Christian ethics and philosophy a neutral one. The Christian 
 philosopher cannot do otherwise than live Christian ethics, 
 and what theology gives is not a Christian, but a theological 
 ethics, which will be more fully explained in the discussion of 
 the separate departments. 
 
 The real conflict, however, between theology and philoso- 
 phy begins, when philosophy is taken in the narrower sense, 
 as the science that investigates the principles of beinc/, and 
 in virtue of these principles seeks to furnish, from all the 
 results of the other sciences, a concentric-organic life- and 
 world-view. Then we should be on our guard, lest theology 
 degenerate into philosophy, and philosophy capture for itself 
 the place of theology. This has already happened; which 
 fact explains itself from the circumstance, that philosophers 
 for the most part have not reckoned with regeneration, and 
 that theologians frequently have deemed themselves able to 
 get along without philosophy. From the first it followed, 
 that besides a psychology, an ethics, an aesthetics and a logic, 
 philosophers also tried to furnish a doctrine of Crod, and from 
 the imperfectly interpreted data of the inborn and the ac- 
 quired knowledge of God, sought to construct a theology, 
 independently of the revealed knowledge of God. Thus they 
 
614 § 95. BOUNDARY OF THEOLOGY IN SCIENCE [Div. in 
 
 set themselves in hostile array against theology, and in self- 
 defence were bent to oppose real theology, suppress it, and in 
 the end banish it from the arena. On the other hand, this 
 made theologians tend to view philosophy in the narrower 
 sense as a hostile phenomenon, and, since they had no real 
 Christian philosophy of their own, to make war against all 
 philosophy. Since, however, it is impossible to live even in 
 the Christian world without certain cosmological conceptions, 
 they attempted to supply this want in their dogmatics, and 
 thus it happened that they furnished not a simple theology 
 but a theology with a philosophical seasoning. To bring this 
 perverted relation to an end, it is necessary, on the one hand, 
 to recognize that philosophy has an entirely different task 
 to accomplish than theology, and, on the other hand, to dis- 
 tinguish sharply between Christian and non-Christian phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 Philosophy has an entirely different task. Theology has 
 no other calling than to take up the ectypal knowledge of 
 God, as it is known from its source the Holy Scripture, into 
 the consciousness of re-created humanity and to reproduce 
 it. Philosophy (now always taken in the narrower sense), on 
 the other hand, is called to construct the human knowledge, 
 which has been brought to light by all the other sciences, into 
 one architectonic whole, and to show how this building arises 
 from one basis. From this it follows, that the need of philos- 
 ophy is a necessity (avdyKt)') which arises out of the impulse 
 of the human consciousness for unity, and is therefore of equal 
 importance to those who stand outside, as to those who are in 
 the regeneration. To say that a Christian is less in need of 
 philosophy is only the exhibition of spiritual sloth and lack 
 of understanding. The more the enlightening restores har- 
 mony in our consciousness, the stronger must be the awak- 
 ening of the impulse after an unitous (einheitlich) organic 
 knowledge. While, on the other hand, the richer the data at 
 our service, the better the hope of success in this. Philoso- 
 phy which reckons only with natural data will always vibrate 
 between a pantheistic, deistic and materialistic interpretation, 
 and will never do more than form schools, while Christian 
 
Chap. IV] § 96. SELF-DETERMINATION OF THEOLOGY 615 
 
 philosophy, whose theistic point of departure is fixed, is able 
 to lead to unity of interpretation within the circle of regen- 
 eration. But for this very reason theology will be able to go 
 hand in hand with a Christian philosophy. It is the task 
 of philosophy to arrange concentrically the results of all the 
 other sciences, and if non-Christian philosophy ignores the 
 results of theology, as though it were no science, theology 
 is in duty bound to enter her protest against this. If, on 
 the other hand, the philosopher himself is regenerate, and 
 is historically and ecclesiastically in union with the life of 
 palingenesis, then of course in his studies he includes the 
 results of theology, together with the results of all the 
 other sciences ; and it is his care, architectonically to raise 
 such a cosmological building that of themselves the results 
 of theology also find their place in it. 
 
 § 96. Self-determination of the Organism of Theology 
 
 Theological Encyclopedia includes generally the question 
 of the relation of theology to the University. As the matter 
 actually stands in Europe, however, this question concerns 
 the relation of theology to the Government. If the universi- 
 ties were free corporations, as formerly they were intended 
 to be, and as they are sometimes now (in Belgium, in the 
 Netherlands, America, England and in Switzerland), and as 
 they ought to be everywhere, this question would entirely 
 fall away; for then this relation would merely be an item 
 of history. But this question is important because to this 
 day in most countries the most influential universities are 
 state institutions, founded, supported and governed by state 
 authorities. Thus the Government determines not merely 
 the number, rank and quality of the faculties; but directs 
 also the organism of theology, as being on a par with the 
 other sciences, by its conditions for every chair, and by its 
 choice of departments, which it unites as a group under one 
 and the same chair. Even in former times this was not 
 right, since it can never be derived from the attributes of 
 the Government, that it shall determine the organism of 
 theology. But this raised no preponderating difficulty, inas- 
 
616 §96. SELF-DETERMINATION OP THEOLOGY [Div. Ill 
 
 much as in those times the Government made free-will abdica- 
 tion of every discretionary right, and simply followed custom. 
 Such, however, is not the case now. In Holland indeed it 
 has reached such a point that the Law for Higher Education 
 (of April 28, 1876, Stbl. n. 102), Art. 42, prescribes a tenfold 
 division of the theological departments, which is entirely an- 
 tagonistic to the nature and character of theology ; even to 
 such an extent that dogmatics, which is the heart of all the- 
 ology, is simply cut out from the body of theology. ^ It can 
 scarcely be denied that this is a violent attack upon the 
 organism of theology. In view of facts such as these, we 
 maintain the right of theology to determine its own organ- 
 ism. No Government can do this, since this is not its prov- 
 ince; neither does it possess the data for it. Neither is it 
 authorized to do this, since playing the rSle of dilettante 
 and abusing its power it creates confusion in theology. It 
 is evident that the division of departments and of chairs of 
 itself exerts an influence upon the entire course of studies, 
 upon the association of studies even in the case of the ablest 
 theologians, and darkens insight into the true essence of The- 
 ology. Such an interference on the part of the Government 
 is an attack upon the liberty of science, while in Theology, 
 moreover, it amounts to the choice of a confessional party ; 
 in casu of the modern interpretation of Theology as "the 
 science of religion " instead of " the science of the revealed 
 knowledge of God," which it has always been, in keeping 
 with its origin and principle. 
 
 A measure of influence can more properly be accorded 
 to the Church, in so far as the Church may dictate what 
 studies are indispensable to the expression of her life, both 
 with reference to the education of her ministers and to the 
 defence of her faith ; in fact, this influence is exerted by the 
 Church in the conditions assigned by her for ecclesiastical 
 examinations. No university can permanently neglect in its 
 
 1 These departments are : (a) encyclopedia, (&) history of the doctrine 
 of God, (c) history of religions, (d) history of Israel's religion, (e) history 
 of Christendom, (/) Israelitish and old Christian literature, (g) Old and 
 New Testament exegesis, (ft) history of Christian dogma, (j) philosophy 
 of religion, (/<;) ethics. 
 
Chap. IV] §97. ARTICULATION OP PROPJEDEUTICS 617 
 
 theological faculty the departments needed for these exami- 
 nations. But so far as Theology stands in vital connection 
 with the Church this tie is a natural one; heyond this it 
 ceases to exist. Hence even ecclesiastical influence should 
 extend no further. The Church states her need, but the 
 question in what way, in what order, and in what connec- 
 tion this need must be met is encyclopedic and pedagogic. 
 That which exists mechanically can be taken apart and recon- 
 structed differently at will, but this is not possible with organic 
 life. That which lives organically obeys, in its organic devel- 
 opment, an inner law of life. It is as it is because it sprang 
 from its germ thus and not otherwise, and because it can 
 assume no proportions except those which it possesses by 
 nature. By violently attacking the life of an organism, you 
 can occasion anaesthesia or hypersesthesia, atrophy or hyper- 
 trophy, of one of the organs, but this does not modify the 
 nature of the organism. That remains the same as before. 
 Concerning the organism of theology, therefore, we cannot 
 but think that all interference on the part of the Government 
 should be most firmly resisted ; that the Church both may and 
 must exert an influence by the appointment of those studies 
 which she deems necessary for the maintenance of her life, 
 provided she does not presume to determine in what way her 
 requirement shall be met; and that therefore the construc- 
 tion of the body of theology can be determined by itself alone 
 as it unfolds its organic existence. This does not deny that 
 this organic articulation (Gliederung) is formulated by our 
 thinking. But if this task is properly performed, it consists 
 of the simple statement of what kind of organic life we have 
 discovered in the organism of theology. 
 
 § 97. Organic Articulation of Propcedeutics 
 The discussion of propaedeutics, as such, is really in place 
 in a ratio studiorum, and not in Encyclopedia proper. And 
 yet Encyclopedia cannot afford to pass the propsedeutic stud- 
 ies by in silence. For these studies are not accidental, neither 
 are they chosen arbitrarily, but are indicated of themselves 
 in the organic ties that bind theology to the other parts of the 
 
618 §97. ORGANIC ARTICULATION [Div. Ill 
 
 organism of science. Being itself a department of ideal 
 science, theology naturally demands such a general devel- 
 opment as is indispensable to all ideal sciences. In the 
 conflict -waged as to the precedence of humanistic and natu- 
 ralistic studies in preparatory schools, the humanistic must 
 be preferred for theological propsedeutics. But it is a mistake 
 to make it appear that the humanistic training, indicated as 
 such historically, is sufficient for the theologian. In the main, 
 if not exclusively, humanistic propsedeutics directed them- 
 selves to the beautiful form, and were but little impressed 
 with the importance of philosophy and history. Ancient 
 philosophy was taught, and Greek and Roman history, to- 
 gether with their proper antiquities, but rather as a means 
 for the understanding of the classics than as a proper factor 
 for the forming of the mind. And this is not tolerated by 
 the position of theology in the organism of science. To be 
 sure, theology does not allow neglect of beauty of form. 
 The finer form alone lends to the mind that sensitive discern- 
 ment which is indispensable to all ideal science, and which 
 in its reproduction is not to be discarded. But with this 
 formal scholarship theology is not satisfied. The too exces- 
 sive admiration of the world of old Hellas is rather an im- 
 pediment in the way to the deeper study of her principles. 
 To her the old classic world is simply a link in that great 
 process of development that extends to the present time. 
 Hence she demands a propaedeutic which embraces the entire 
 course of philosophy and history down to our times, and 
 -which from first to last is subject to the criticism of Clu'is- 
 tian principles. For which reason this propaedeutic cannot 
 be ended in the preparatory school, but must reach its com- 
 pletion in academic propsedeutics. Even in itself the limi- 
 tation of propaedeutics to the gymnasia cannot be approved, 
 since for every truly scientific study a scientific introduction 
 into the scientific treatment of it is indispensable ; and this 
 the gymnasium can never give. Theology, moreover, must 
 be able to make use of a critical knowledge of human thought 
 and act (philosophy and history) as its background, such as 
 cannot be taught in the preparatory school. This implies at 
 
Chap. IV] OF PEOPiEDEUTICS 619 
 
 the same time that propsedeutics cannot stand on any other 
 foundation than the study of theology itself. Propsedeutica 
 in the pagan sense, standing outside of palingenesis, denies 
 the organic connection between theology and other studies, 
 and does not prepare for, but leads one away from, theology. 
 Hence the character of preparatory as well as of academic 
 propsedeutics ought to be distinctively Christian; which de- 
 mand is not met by the addition of religious instruction (a 
 Religionsstunde) to pagan propsedeutics. It demands that 
 the entire preparation itself, both formal and material, shall 
 keep close reckoning with the principles of a Christian life- 
 and world-view. He who is himself a partaker of palingene- 
 sis, and who consequently pays homage to the Cross of 
 Golgotha as the centre of the development of human his- 
 tory, has an entirely different outlook upon the propaedeutic 
 departments from him who as a humanist boasts of a credat 
 ludaeus Appella. And the demand for a proper propsedeu- 
 tics of theology is only met when the organic relation between 
 the propsedeutical studies and the study of theology in the 
 narrower sense is given full scope to assert itself. Indeed, if 
 closely considered, the name of propaedeutics is not very hap- 
 pily chosen. The theologian does not pass on to theological 
 studies, in order henceforth to ignore all other sciences, but, 
 proportionately to the rate of his progress, he finds himself con- 
 stantly bound to trace the organic connection between his 
 own and still other studies. Such as, for instance, in the 
 historic and ethnologic studies of the religious differences 
 of non-Christian nations. His own studies are not isolated at 
 a single point, and it only weakens the position of theology 
 to prosecute her studies as though she stood alone. More- 
 over, later study must be continued with a definite end in 
 view, in those departments which at first seemed as pro- 
 psedeutics only. Every student of Church History is aware 
 of this with reference to the knowledge of history ; the same 
 applies to Philosophy, even Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, 
 and ^Esthetics. 
 
 Of course this applies to the scientific theologian only, and 
 not to every Minister of the "Word. Other demands apply 
 
620 § 97. ORGANIC ARTICULATION [Dit. Ill 
 
 to his education, which are made not by the position of 
 theology in the organism of the sciences, but by the con- 
 ditions with which his office brings him in touch, and which 
 therefore cannot be mentioned here. Only think of what 
 is advocated from many sides about the knowledge of medi- 
 cine, of agriculture, of common law, of social conditions, of 
 the school question, etc., as being of service to the local 
 pastor. Questions with which, from the nature of the case. 
 Encyclopedia cannot be concerned, since they have nothing 
 to do with the nature of theology and its organic relations. 
 But the more formal propaedeutics deserve, certainly, a brief 
 mention, especially the study of the languages, a matter which 
 is not ended with the study of the two fundamental lan- 
 guages of the Scripture, the Hebrew and the Greek. For then 
 even Latin might safely be omitted. It should rather be 
 insisted upon that the languages be first studied from the 
 general linguistic point of view, and then the question is in 
 order, what are the special languages the knowledge of which 
 is indispensable to the study of theology. Without a clear, 
 general linguistic conception of language, one cannot truly 
 enter into the knowledge of any one language. The phe- 
 nomenon of language as such is organically connected with 
 theology in its principium, and therefore all sound theology 
 presupposes an historic and critical insight into linguistics, 
 graphistics and the philosophy of grammar. Not, of course, 
 as though we should begin with this. It is indeed the claim 
 of pedagogics to supply the copia doctrinae during those yeara 
 in which the memory is most plastic ; but in this review, 
 which does not consider the course of studies, but the or- 
 ganic position of theology in the organism of science, the 
 knowledge of language in general comes first. With respect 
 to individual languages in particular, the mother-tongue fol- 
 lows organically first upon linguistics, because in this alone 
 our immediate consciousness feels the pulse-beat of the life of 
 language; and the other modern languages have little con- 
 nection with theology, except in so far as they give us access 
 to the products of theologic toil in other lands. Strictly 
 taken, translation might do away with this necessity ; since, 
 
Chap. IV] OF PROPEDEUTICS 621 
 
 however, the indiscriminate translation of all detail-study is 
 impossible, theological study is simply inconceivable without 
 the knowledge of modern languages. 
 
 The question arises next, whether Latin must be main- 
 tained under this title only in theologic propsedeutics. There 
 is certainly no difference of opinion about the necessity to 
 the theologian of the knowledge of Latin. For more than 
 twelve centuries the Christian Church documented her life 
 of thought in almost no language but the Latin. He who 
 is no ready reader of Latin finds himself cut off from the 
 historical life of the Church. It is a different matter, how- 
 ever, whether theology as such is interested in the study 
 of Latin as a means to general training; something which 
 is continually being contested, but which, it appears to us, 
 cannot be abandoned. For this we state two reasons. First, 
 because Latin as a language is classic in its clearness, con- 
 ciseness and beauty, by which it puts a stamp upon our 
 thinking, such as no other language can do, not even Greek 
 excepted, however much richer it may be. In "common 
 grace" the Latin language occupies a place of its own, 
 and he who neglects her claim impoverishes the forming 
 of the mind. And in the second place, the development 
 of Western thought has acquired a characteristic of its own, 
 first under the influence of ecclesiastical, and after that of 
 humanistic Latin, which is plainly apparent in the forma- 
 tion of many words and in syntax. Entirely apart from the 
 question whether this characteristic should be preserved or 
 abandoned, it follows from this, that a real grasp upon the 
 world of our Western thought is simply impossible without 
 the knowledge of Latin. Upon this ground we desire to see 
 the study of Latin upheld, while we urge, at the same time, 
 that this study shall not be limited to classical Latin. Latin 
 is also the language of the Western Fathers, the Scholastics, 
 Reformers, and later theologians; but their Latin bears 
 another character, uses other words, follows a different con- 
 struction, and speaks in new terms. He who understands 
 Cicero cannot for that reason understand Augustine. Virgil's 
 Aeneid is no help to understand Thomas's Summa. Horace 
 
622 §97. ORGANIC ARTICULATION [Div. Ill 
 
 is of little help in the reading of Calvin or Voetius. Hence 
 the organic connection demands that the study of Latin shall 
 not limit itself to the golden age of the classics, but that it 
 shall follow the historical process in the language which, 
 though nationally dead, is still alive in use. The importance 
 of this does not appear to those to whom theology is a mere 
 Science of Religion; but he who would study theology in 
 the real sense of the word, and thus continue the task 
 begun by our older theologians, must begin by understand- 
 ing them. 
 
 A like observation applies in part to Greek, which is 
 organically related to theology in three ways : First, as the 
 language of old Hellas ; secondly, as the language of the 
 LXX, of Flavins Josephus, etc., and New Testament; and 
 thirdly, as the language of the Eastern Fathers, taken 
 in their widest sense. As a starting-point, therefore, the 
 knowledge of classic Greek is a necessity; then comes the 
 knowledge of later Greek (^Koivrf), and more especially of 
 the Syrian and Alexandrian, which come nearest to the lan- 
 guage of the New Testament. Then follows the language 
 of the New Testament itself, and finally that peculiar 
 development attained by Greek in the Byzantine Chris- 
 tian world. They who pass on from Demosthenes to the 
 New Testament, as is the case with many in our times, with- 
 out ever having a glimpse of one of the Eastern Fathers in 
 the original, fall short in historic knowledge of Greek. Since 
 the gymnasium is intended for young men of other faculties 
 as well, and is, therefore, not able to give a sufficiently broad 
 introduction into this historical knowledge of the Greek 
 language, academic propsedeutios ought to be directed to this 
 with an eye to theology, more than it has thus far been. 
 
 Hebrew and Chaldee occupy a somewhat different position. 
 As a language, the Arabic is linguistically rightly esteemed 
 much more highly than Hebrew ; both because of its riches 
 of forms and of the mighty world of thought to which it 
 affords an entrance. Hebrew lies altogether outside the 
 circle of higher culture. If it is of great importance to every 
 literator to be familiar with at least one language of the 
 
Chap. IV] OF PEOPiEDEUTICS 623 
 
 Semitic trunk, and though Hebrew offers special advantages 
 for this, by the simplicity of its forms as well as on account 
 of its significance to the most potent monument of our 
 higher civilization, it will, nevertheless, probably be the rule, 
 that theologians almost exclusively will apply themselves to 
 Hebrew, not as a linguistic phenomenon, but as an auxiliary 
 to the right understanding of the Old Testament. At the 
 gymnasium it is generally a secondary matter, falling out- 
 side the lines of a general training ; and at the academy few 
 are willing to train the memory to any great extent. Yet 
 it is an imperative necessity that an improvement shall be 
 made in this direction. In our pulpits the fundamental texts 
 of the Old Testament are spoken of by men who are not 
 able to translate the simplest passage at sight, much less to 
 retranslate into Hebrew. And in this condition of things the 
 study of Hebrew is but a waste of time. 
 
 In this connection, however, this question cannot be treated 
 more fully. Only under the heads of general training and 
 of special studies can Encyclopedia indicate to what other 
 studies and languages theology stands organically related. 
 And it is clearly seen that especially in the study of lan- 
 guages, entirely different claims are made, both by the 
 schedule of the general scientific training and by custom, 
 from what theology must demand of these languages within 
 her pale. The very propaedeutics for Theology demand 
 such natural talents and persevering application to study, 
 that the false notion must be abandoned that all those who 
 are educated for the practical ministry of the Word, can 
 be theologians in the real sense of the word. With the 
 majority, the needed requirements for this are altogether 
 lacking. The effort to have so high an aim realized by all 
 would not develop, but stultify, many persons. Hence the 
 old difference between pastors and doctors must be main- 
 tained. Pastors should be sufficiently advanced to be able 
 to take their stand intelligently at the scientific view-point, 
 and to follow scientific development ; but apart from the 
 study of theology as a side issue or as a favorite recrea- 
 tion, the profounder study of theology as a science will 
 
624 §98. ORGANIC ARTICULATION [Div. HI 
 
 ever of necessity be the task of the few, who have extraor- 
 dinary powers of mind at their disposal, as well as the neces- 
 sary time and means. 
 
 § 98. Organic Articulation to Spiritual Reality 
 Science is no abstraction. It is the reflection of life in 
 our consciousness, and therefore it sustains the same or- 
 ganic relation to reality as the shadow to the body by which 
 it is cast. A single word, therefore, is needed to show the 
 organic articulation of theology to spiritual reality. Thus 
 far this has been suggested in a subjective sense, by the asser- 
 tion that the mysticism of the Spirit is indispensable to the 
 theologian. But from the nature of the case it is evident 
 that for this subjective necessity there must be an objective 
 ground. If the treatment of the subjective demands required 
 at the hand of the theologian belongs to Hodegetics rather 
 than to Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia nevertheless is bound to 
 indicate the relation of this science to its own reality, from 
 which the necessity of these demands is born. If in real life 
 there were no antithesis between the domain of palingenesis 
 and what lies outside, there would be no special Revelation, 
 and in simple consequence there would be no question of 
 theology other than in the style of Cicero. In like manner, 
 if there were no operative grace, which effects enlightenment, 
 articulation of the science to this spiritual reality would be 
 altogether wanting. " The natural man receiveth not the 
 things of the spirit of God." Now, however, the influence 
 of this reality operates upon theology in a threefold way: 
 First, materially, by the provision of matter which it brings 
 to theology; secondly, by the influence of the Church, so 
 far as that Church propels its confession as a living witness ; 
 and thirdly, in the theologian personally, inasmuch as his 
 own spiritual experience must enable him to perceive and 
 understand what treasures are here at stake. Coordinated 
 under one head, one might say that the Holy Spirit guaran- 
 tees this organic articulation through the agencies of the 
 Holy Scripture, the Church, and the personal enlighten- 
 ment of the theologian. Hence piety of motive is not 
 
Chap. IV] TO SPIRITUAL REALITY 625 
 
 enough. Piety is often present with the Buddhist also and 
 the Parsee. But the piety referred to here must bear a 
 stamp of its own, and cannot be identical with that pious 
 impulse M'hich operates also in fallen man, either poetically, 
 heroically, or sentimentally. But it is very definitely that 
 piety worked by God, which is possible only when a new life 
 has been implanted in the sinner, and in which new life has 
 dawned a higher light. In the second place, this piety 
 should not remain isolated, but must manifest itself in the 
 communion of saints ; not merely arbitrarily, but organically, 
 hence in union with the Church, which affords a bed to the 
 stream of the ages. And finally, in the third place, in its 
 rise from the root of regeneration and in its union with the 
 Church, this piety should not remain a mere mystical senti- 
 ment, but, for the sake of affecting theology, it must inter- 
 pret leing into thought, in order presently from thought to 
 return to being by the ethical deed. 
 
 Where this articulation, in the sense mentioned, is organi- 
 cally present, so far as it concerns the articulation to reality, 
 the position of theology in the organism of science is what it 
 should be. Without this connection the theologian becomes as 
 one who looks out upon nature through eyes half blind, as one 
 almost deaf who studies acoustics, or as one devoid of all finer 
 taste who devotes himself to sesthetics; the simple result of 
 which is that neither nature, acoustics, nor aesthetics receive 
 their dues. History indeed teaches that where this articula- 
 tion to spiritual reality is wanting, rationalism at once lifts up 
 its head to attack theology in its very heart ; or, where this 
 articulation is imperfect, sentiment is bound to prevail, and 
 theology disappears in mysticism or pietism. For this reason 
 the theologians of the best period of the Reformation ever 
 insisted strenuously and convincingly upon the linking to- 
 gether of theology to the Word, to the Church, and to per- 
 sonal enlightenment; for in these three factors together is 
 found the guidance of the Holy Spirit, without which no 
 theology can flourish. The proper relation of these three 
 factors has been considered at sufficient length above. Here 
 it is merely observed that our theologians of the Reformation 
 
626 § 98. ARTICULATION TO SPIRITUAL REALITY [Div. HI 
 
 period were embarrassed by the removal of theology from the 
 seminary to the university. It was apparent in Paris, Lou- 
 vain, and elsewhere, that the university life brought with it 
 far more diversion and temptation than the secluded life at 
 the seminaries. Now the Reformation in principle abandoned 
 the seminary, and from principle gave theology its place in the 
 university, and it became necessary to insist more strenuously 
 upon piety and asceticism of life in the future theologians. 
 The piety at the seminary was too much like a hot-house 
 atmosphere, and results showed how little these hot-house 
 plants amounted to the moment they became exposed to the 
 less favorable atmosphere of common life. In view of this 
 also they gave their preference to the freer university life. 
 A piety, which there maintained itself and kept its virtue, 
 was much better acclimatized to life in the world. At times 
 they expressed the desire that the academy life should be suc- 
 ceeded by at least one year of seclusion from the world in a 
 more quiet seminary. But this was merely a corrective and a 
 palliative, and their chief strength lay in exhortation, in moral 
 pressure, in the power of the Word, to exhibit ever more 
 clearly the folly and the contradiction of the study of theol- 
 ogy without the corresponding fear of the Lord, trembling at 
 His word, and communion with God in Christ. This implied 
 at the same time that these demands of Scriptural, ecclesiasti- 
 cal and personal piety were not exacted from the student only, 
 but from every theologian after graduation from academy life. 
 Because it involved the articulation of theology to the spirit- 
 ual reality, this claim could not be abandoned at a single point 
 of the whole way. Godliness alone is able to foster, feed and 
 maintain that holy sympathj^ for the object of theology which 
 is indispensable for success. 
 
 There is a difference here also between the studies which 
 touch the centrum of theology and those which lie on its 
 periphery. A point of detail in Church history touches the 
 spiritual reality at almost no single point, so that such a 
 study by itself is not able to stamp a man as a theologian. 
 But when theology is taken as an organic whole, and all its 
 subdivisions are viewed from this central interpretation, the 
 
Chap. IV] § 99. ORGANISM OF THEOLOGY IN ITS PARTS 627 
 
 demand made by our fathers may not for a moment be aban- 
 doned. "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the 
 Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." 
 
 § 99. The Organism of Theology in its Parts 
 If theology lies organically wrought into the organism of 
 science, it must also have an organic existence of its own ; 
 which is simply according to the law that the organizing 
 principle governs the entire organism in its parts. This 
 brings us to the so-called division of the theological depart- 
 ments ; an expression which is rightly subject to criticism, since 
 one does not divide an organism, but finds its organic parts 
 there and only needs to exhibit them. Hence there can be 
 no question of drawing up a catalogue of departments, and of 
 dividing these departments into certain classes, arbitrarily or 
 after a rule derived from practice. Whatever is a corpus, 
 and exists as a crmfjia, brings its own division with it. In the 
 second place, it must be carefully ascertained that one has 
 the real corpus in hand. If, with Schleiermacher, theology is 
 made to consist of a conglomerate of learned departments 
 which find their unity in " the guidance and direction of the 
 Church," the organism is lost, and there can be no more 
 question of an organic division. In fact, Schleiermacher has 
 really no division. In his opinion, theology as a whole has 
 become an historic phenomenon, which he classifies in the 
 historic group ; that which precedes it is no theology, but 
 philosophy, and that which follows, as practical parts, and 
 which Schleiermacher takes to be the chief end and aim, is too 
 poor and meagre to save the name of theology. Neither can 
 there be any question of theology with those who, though 
 they still call themselves theologians, actually furnish noth- 
 ing but a science of religions, and from their point of view 
 are bound to follow more or less the division of Noack, who 
 placed phenomenology as first in order, then ideology, and 
 finally the pragmatology of religion. But Encyclopedia of 
 Theology can have nothing in common either with Schleier- 
 macher's conglomerate or with the science of religion. Its 
 object of investigation is the body of Theology (corpus the- 
 
628 §99. THE OEGANISM OF [Div. Ill 
 
 ologiae), taken as an organic subdivision of the organism of 
 science ; and this alone we are to consider. 
 
 Taken in this sense, there is no essential difference of opin- 
 ion concerning the division of the theological departments. 
 It is held, almost universally, that a first group centres itself 
 about the Holy Scripture, a second group has Church his- 
 tory for its centre, a third group has Christian doctrine 
 for its object, and Homiletics, together with what belongs 
 to it, forms the fourth group. This fourth group may be 
 called one thing by some, another by others ; some may differ 
 concerning the order to be observed ; the classification of cer- 
 tain departments belonging to each of these four groups may 
 vary ; but this does not cancel the fact that a certain com- 
 mon opinion' indicates ever more definitely these fo%r groups, 
 as proceeding of themselves from the organic disposition of 
 theology. The only divergence from this of any importance 
 that presents itself is, that a division into three groups 
 still appeals to a few, which end is reached by uniting with 
 Francke the so-called practical theology with systematic, or 
 like Bertholdt the historic with the dogmatic, or like Kienlen 
 the exegetical with the historical departments. But this 
 difference need not detain us, since it merely involves a ques- 
 tion of coordination or subordination. They who follow the 
 division of three always accept a division of one of the three 
 into two parts, so that actually they also acknowledge the 
 existence of four groups. In itself it cannot well be denied 
 that in the Holy Scripture, the Church, Christian doctrine, 
 and in the functions of office, four separate objects are given, 
 which compel a division into four principal groups. And the 
 reduction of these four into three groups is serious only 
 when, with Gottschick and others, the Bibliological group is 
 denied a place of its own from principle. For then the 
 principium of theology is assailed in its independence, and 
 theology itself undermined. 
 
 But by itself the assumption that there are four organic 
 groups in the body of Divinity (corpus theologiae) is not 
 enough. To be scientifically established, these four groups 
 must of necessity proceed from a common principium of divi- 
 
Chap. IV] THEOLOGY IN ITS PARTS 629 
 
 sion. Thus far, however, this principium of division has not 
 been allowed sufficiently to assert itself. This is to be attrib- 
 uted to the fact that each of these four groups has been viewed 
 almost exclusively /rom the view-point of the subject, and no 
 notice has been taken of how they lie in the object and how they 
 are taken from the object itself. Hence the custom has become 
 almost universal to distinguish these four groups as exegetical, 
 historical, systematic and practical. But this custom is not 
 logical. Distinction can be made between the exegetical, 
 historical and systematic labors of the human mind, but 
 it will not do to add to these three the practical departments 
 as coordinate. The name of practical departments is not 
 derived from the labor of the human mind, but from the 
 purpose or object of these departments. For the sake of 
 consistency, therefore, we should speak of the exegetical, 
 historical, systematic and technical departments. Even with 
 this method of distinguishing the groups, Encyclopedia can- 
 not be satisfied. For this also locates the principium of divi- 
 sion in the subject. It is the human mind that lends itself 
 to the fourfold function of exegesis, of the study of history, 
 of constructing certain data systematically, and of technically 
 deriving from these certain theories. But just because the 
 human mind is the subject of all science, there is no proper 
 division of theology obtained thus at all, but simply a passport 
 which, mutatis mutandis, is applicable to every science ; and it 
 is well known how a similar scheme has been applied to almost 
 all the other faculties. But what is applicable to all sciences 
 can never disclose to us the proper organic character of 
 theology; and he who derives his principium of division 
 exclusively from the subject, has no information to give con- 
 cerning the organic existence of the organism of theology. 
 Better progress would have been made if the example of 
 Hyperius had been followed, which points to the Word, the 
 Church and dogmatics as being the constituent elements. 
 These, at least, are elements taken from the object and not 
 from the subject, and therefore dissect the organism of the- 
 ology itself. 
 
 Even this, however, does not indicate the principium of divi- 
 
630 § 99. THE OKGANISM OF [Div. Ill 
 
 sion which operates from the object. In the subjective division 
 the principium operates out of the human mind, which lends 
 itself to the four above-named functions. If, on the other 
 hand, the organic division is to arise from the analysis of the 
 object itself, then the principium of division must be derived 
 from the object. This objective principium of division must 
 be found in the principium of theology itself. In the devel- 
 opment of its germ the plant of itself brings the organic 
 spread of branches and stem. If the Holy Scripture is this 
 principium of theology, it is plain that those departments 
 should first be taken in hand which deal with the Holy Script- 
 ure as such; then as a second group those departments 
 which trace the working of the Word of Crod in the life of 
 the Church ; then in a third group the departments should be 
 combined which reflect the content of the Scripture in our 
 consciousness ; and finally a fourth group should arise from 
 those departments which answer the question, how the work- 
 ing of the Word of God, subject to His ordinances, must be 
 maintained. Thus the division into four groups is the same, 
 but now it is taken from the object, after a principium of 
 division which lies in the object itself. The Word of God, 
 first as such, then in its ivorking, after that according to its 
 content, and finally in its propaganda. This is most accurately 
 repeated when one speaks, first, of a Bihliological, then of an 
 Ecclesiological, after that of a Bogmatological, and finally of a 
 Diaconiological group. In the Bible you have the Word in 
 itself; in the Church {JEcclesia}, you see the Word in oper- 
 ation, objectified in the reality; in Bogma the content of 
 this Word reflects itself in the sanctified human conscious- 
 ness; and in the Biaconia, i.e. the office, the service of the 
 ministry is indicated, which must be fulfilled for the sake of 
 that Word. 
 
 It is not by accident that these groups thus indicated cor- 
 respond to the common division of Exegetical, Historical, 
 Systematic and Practical Theology ; but is accounted for by 
 the fact that each of these four organic members of the body 
 of Divinity emphasizes a peculiar function of the human 
 mind. In the investigation of the Bible as such exegesis 
 
Chap. IV] THEOLOGY IN ITS PARTS 631 
 
 Stands first and always will. In the investigation into the 
 Qhurch the historiological activity of the mind is most fully 
 exercised. With Dogma, a systematizing function of the 
 human mind is a first requisite. And with the Diaoonia you 
 enter upon the practical domain, and an insight is required 
 into technique. If meanwhile it is the organic plan of the 
 object which successively calls into action these several func- 
 tions of the human mind, the real dividing virtue does not 
 go out from your subject, but from the object; hence the 
 division must be taken so as to correspond to the elements of 
 the object. The subjective division corresponds to this, but 
 must not be put in its place. Moreover, the correspondence 
 is only partial. All labor bestowed upon the Bible as such 
 is by no means exegetical. The historic-critical study of 
 the several books as such is not exegetical. Neither is 
 archaeology exegetical, etc. While, on the other hand, it 
 must be remarked that all exegetical labor is by no means 
 confined to the first group. The exegetical function of 
 our mind is equally engaged in the investigation of Sym- 
 bolics, of the Fathers, and in consultation with the sources 
 of Church history. From this subjective point of view it 
 was entirely logical on the part of Professor Doedes of 
 Utrecht when he classified Symbolics under tliis first group. 
 With the more precise analysis of the subdivisions of each 
 group, as given in another volume, it will appear that the 
 objective division leads in more than one particular to a 
 modified division of the special departments. These, how- 
 ever, will not detain us now, since this would occasion a 
 needless repetition. Here we simply inquire after the four 
 principal branches as they appear upon the tree of theology, 
 and we think that we have indicated them in the Biblio- 
 logical, Ecclesiological, Dogmatological and Diaconiological 
 groups ; just by these names and in this order. - 
 
 The symmetry of these designations is justified by the 
 fact that it is the human logos each time which seeks an en- 
 trance into each of the four elements of the object. With 
 each of the four groups it is ever the action of our logos 
 which makes the knowledge of the object to appear from the 
 
632 §99. THE ORGANISM OF [Dit. Ill 
 
 object. Then coordination of Bible, Church, Dogma and 
 Diaconia — the last taken in the sense of office — is war- 
 ranted by the fact that each of these four bears a supernatural 
 character: the Bible, because it is the fruit of inspiration; 
 the Church, because it is the fruit of regeneration; Dogma, 
 because it presents to us the result of the guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit in the consciousness of the Church; and the 
 Diaconia, because the offices are appointed by Christ, and 
 as organs of the churchly organism each office derives its 
 authority exclusively from Christ, the King of the Church. 
 Another name than that of Diaconia for office would be 
 preferable, because " Diaconia " makes one think almost 
 exclusively of the Diaconate. But we have no choice. 
 Diaconia is the official name for office in the Christian 
 Church, clearly defined for us in the New Testament. For 
 office the Greeks used the expressions to epyov, rj iirifieXeia, 
 V ^PXVf V ^eiTovpyia, and for the office of judge to Siku- 
 arrjpiov. But no one of these expressions could here be used. 
 '^PXn could not be used, because the churchly office differs 
 in principle from the magistratic office as a ministerial ser- 
 vice ; and it would not do, since the expression archeological 
 departments would have occasioned a still greater misunder- 
 standing. AeiTovpyia of itself would have been no undesir- 
 able term, but the name of Liturgy is differently employed, 
 and would have caused more difficulty than " Diaconia." Be- 
 cause of their indefiniteness the other terms could not be con- 
 sidered at all. And thus it seemed by far the safest way to 
 maintain the constant use of Scripture and to adopt again 
 the New Testament expression for the churchly office, viz. 
 Diaconia, notwithstanding the confusion a superficial view 
 of it may occasion. It must indeed be conceded that in 
 1 Tim. iii. 8, 12 and elsewhere, along with eViWoTro?, the word 
 ha.Kovo'; appears as also indicative of a definite office ; but when 
 the question is raised as to what word the New Testament 
 uses to indicate office without distinction of function, there 
 is no doubt but that BtuKovia is the expressly indicated term. 
 In Phil. ii. 17, 30 the word Xeirovpyca occurs, but not in an 
 official sense. In verse 17 Paul speaks of the sacrifice and 
 
Chap. IV] THEOLOGY IN ITS PARTS 633 
 
 service of your faith (Ovaria Kal XetTOvpyia t^9 Trto-rea)? vfj.a)v), 
 ■which he was to accomplish by his martyrdom, a saying in 
 which it appears, from the additional word " sacrifice," that 
 he by no means refers to his apostolic office. And in the 
 30th verse he mentions a service (XeiTovpyia), which he was 
 not to administer in his office to the Philippians, but which, 
 on the contrary, they were to administer to him. But wher- 
 ever on the other hand the administration of a definite office 
 is mentioned in a technical sense, the word "diaconia" is 
 used and not Xeirovpyta. In 1 Tim. i. 12 Paul declares that 
 he is put into the ministry, i.e. into the diaconia, viz. into 
 his apostolic office. In 1 Cor. xii. 5 it is expressly stated 
 that there are diversities of ministrations (hi,aip4cr€i<; Biuko- 
 vi&v). In Eph. iv. 2 we are told that Christ "gave some, 
 apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and 
 some, pastors and teachers " ; and all these together are 
 called unto the work of ministering (ew epyov BiaKovia<;}. 
 In this sense Paul speaks of himself constantly as a diaconos 
 of Jesus Christ. Hence we must dismiss the objection that 
 the name of diaconate is now indicative of but one of the 
 offices. The use of it by the New Testament is conclusive. 
 Neither was there an escape from the dilemma by the use of 
 the terms " oeconomical " or "technical" departments. For 
 one reason the symmetry would then be lost from the names 
 of the four coordinates. And, moreover, the word technical 
 would have brought us back again to the subjective divi- 
 sion, and the word aeconomic would refer to the Church 
 organization. Office alone stands coordinate with Bible, 
 Church and Dogma as a supernatural element, and this 
 word offi,ce cannot be applied to any other but to the Dia- 
 coniological departments. 
 
 Nothing need be said in justification of the name of Bihlio- 
 logieal departments, and the question of what is or is not to 
 be classed under this rubric must be reserved for later dis- 
 cussion. But we must briefly vindicate the name of Ecclesi- 
 ological departments in the sense indicated above. At first 
 sight it appears that the twofold assertion is contradictory, 
 thlit the Church in this connection is a supernatural fruit of 
 
634 §99. THE ORGANISM OF [Div. Ill 
 
 regeneration, and that in another sense she is the product of 
 the operation of the Word. This contradiction, however, is 
 in appearance only. Even here thought may not be divorced 
 from being. Without the constant activity of the Holy Spirit 
 the Scripture itself is inoperative, and only when this activ- 
 ity of the Holy Spirit causes the Scripture to be illumined 
 does this fruitful virtue go out from it. Suppose, therefore, 
 that the Holy Scripture were to be carried into the world, 
 without the regenerating and illumining activity of the Holy 
 Spirit to precede, accompany, and to follow it, no church 
 would ever be seen among the nations. But on the other 
 hand also, if the action of the Holy Spirit had remained a 
 pure mystery, and had not been unveiled to the consciousness 
 by the Word, there would have been a hidden life-power in 
 the souls of many people, but that power would never have 
 become operative, would not have led one believer to join 
 himself to another, and thus would never have revealed the 
 Church as an observable phenomenon. In its hidden quality 
 the Church therefore is the product of the regenerating action 
 of the Holy Spirit, but theology cannot observe that action ; 
 this remains hidden in mysticism ; and theology begins to 
 reckon with it only when it makes itself outwardly manifest in 
 word and practice. In this the Word of Grod is the leading 
 power, and the touchstone as well, by which it becomes known 
 whether we have to do with an action of the Holy Ghost, 
 or with a fanatic fantasy or imagination. Hence both are 
 true: in its spiritual essence the Church is a product of the 
 action of the IToly Ghost, and the Church, as an object ob- 
 servable by theology, exhibits the operation of the Word. 
 
 The name of Dogmatological departments can only be fully 
 explained in connection with the treatment of the group. 
 Here, however, let it be said that it does not mean a group 
 of departments, in which, independently of the history of doc- 
 trine, the investigator is to build up for himself a system of 
 truth from the Holy Scripture. Actually this is never done. 
 Every dogmatist who is a real theologian, voluntarily takes 
 the history of doctrine into account. Care, then, should be 
 taken not to appear to do what in reality one does not do. 
 
Chap. IV] THEOLOGY IN ITS PARTS 635 
 
 Independent formulation of faith is nothing but the criticism 
 of an individual mind, which cuts itself loose from the com- 
 munion of saints, takes its stand proudly over against the 
 power of history, and cherishes faith in its own leading by 
 the Holy Ghost but not in the guidance of the Holy Ghost in 
 the Church of Christ. As a protest against this the name of 
 Dogmatological group demands that Dogma, as a result of 
 history, shall be taken as one's starting-point, and that in its 
 central interpretation and in each of its subdivisions this 
 Dogma shall be examined critically and ever again be tested 
 by the Holy Scripture, in order that in this way at the same 
 time its further development may be promoted. 
 
 And finally, with reference to the order of succession, 
 opinion can scarcely vary as to which group ought to be- 
 gin and which group close the series. Of themselves the 
 Bibliological departments take the precedence, because the 
 Holy Scripture is the very principium of theology. And in 
 the same way it is but natural for the official departments to 
 come last, since they assume the completion of the Dogmato- 
 logical departments. But a difference of opinion may arise 
 as to the question, whether the Ecclesiological departments 
 ought to follow or to precede the Dogmatological. Planck, 
 Staudlin, and Harless put Systematic Theology first, and 
 Historic Theology after it; but without doubt Hagenbach 
 owes the great success of his encyclopedic manual largely to 
 his accuracy of judgment in assigning the first' place to the 
 historical departments. Raebiger likewise took the same 
 course, and to us also it is no question for doubt but that 
 logical order demands the Bibliological group to be followed 
 immediately, not by the Dogmatological, but by the Ecclesio- 
 logical group. Our division admits of no other. Dogma has 
 no existence at first, but it originates only by degrees, and it 
 is unthinkable without the Church that formulates it. If thus 
 we would avoid the mistake of formulating our dogmatics 
 unhistorically directly from the Scripture, but rather seek 
 to derive it from the Scripture at the hand of the Church,, 
 then the Church as a middle-link between Bible and Dogma, 
 is absolutely indispensable. To which, of course, it must be 
 
636 § 99. ORGANISM OF THEOLOGY IN ITS PARTS [Div. Ill 
 
 added, that there is an "interaction" between each of the 
 four groups. What man is able to bring any Bibliological 
 department to a satisfactory close without taking the Church 
 into account? How would you be able to understand more 
 than a part of Church history, without keeping account with 
 Dogma and the Office ? And how would Dogma be intelli- 
 gible without the official function, which in councils and 
 synods made their construction a possibility? This, however, 
 applies to any division of any science whatever. In the pro- 
 cess of history the fibres of all groups twine themselves about 
 and around each other. To this, however, the organic division 
 cannot adapt itself. The only question to be solved is this : 
 how, in the idea of the organism, the several elements are to 
 be originally distinguished. And so taken, the idea of the 
 organism of theology points out to us four principal branches 
 which divide themselves from her trunk : First, that group 
 which engages itself with the Bible as such; secondly, the 
 group in which the Church appears as the revelation of the 
 operation of the Word ; in the third place, the group which 
 ranges itself about Dogma as the reflection of the Word in 
 the consciousness of regenerated humanity; and finally, a 
 fourth group, which has the office for its centre, as the means 
 ordained of God to cause His Word continuously to assert 
 itself. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HISTOKY OP THEOLOGY 
 
 § 100. Introduction 
 The historic review of Theology, which closes this volume, 
 cannot undertake to furnish a detailed narrative of the pro- 
 cess run hy theology in all its ramifications during these 
 eighteen centuries. This process forms, not the subject of 
 an encyclopedic, but of a proper historical investigation, which 
 directs itself to a single department, or to a single period, or 
 finally, to theology as a whole (as with Von Zezschwitz, in 
 his Entivickelungsgang der Theologie ah Wissenschaft, Lpz., 
 1867). In Encyclopedia, on the other hand, only the result 
 of these investigations can be taken up and put into connec- 
 tion with the encyclopedic course of thought. For the writer, 
 especially, there is less occasion to enter upon details, for 
 the reason that the history of Theological Encyclopedia, 
 which runs so largely parallel with that of Theology, has 
 elsewhere been treated by him more broadly than has hereto- 
 fore been done, and too much detail in this chapter would 
 only lead to needless repetition. The question whether this 
 review should not have been placed before the chapter on 
 the conception of theology is here answered in the nega- 
 tive. It is entirely true that the forming of the conception 
 of theology presumes the knowledge of theology as a his- 
 toric phenomenon, but the historic knowledge in that sense 
 may be presumed as universally known, and Encyclopedia 
 can accomplish its task of pointing out the right way in this 
 historic process, only when it is ready with its conception. 
 According to the logical course of thought, the history of 
 theology would really have to appear twice. First, a his- 
 tory of the facts should be furnished which should include 
 as fact everything that announced itself as a theological 
 
 637 
 
638 § 100. INTRODUCTION [Div. Ill 
 
 phenomenon, without discrimination or choice, not organi- 
 cally, but atomistically. Then, with these facts in sight, the 
 conception, principle, method and organic nature of theology 
 should have to be determined. And reinforced with this 
 insight, at the end another historic review should have to be 
 furnished, but this time under the criticism of the idea of 
 theology. This double treatment, however, of first recording 
 indiscriminately the "facts," and after that, of indicating with 
 discrimination and selection the course of the process in these 
 facts, could not be justified practically. No single science is 
 capable of encyclopedic treatment, until it has obtained suf- 
 ficient influence to make its appearance a matter of general 
 knowledge, at least with its own students. This also applies to 
 theology, " the leading facts of the manifestation " of which 
 are to be found in every Church history, so that he who is to 
 treat of them encyclopedically may accept them as being gen- 
 erally known. Encyclopedia discovers no new science, but 
 investigates a science, the phenomena of which are every- 
 where seen. However much, therefore, such a review of 
 phenomena may form an indispensable link in the course 
 of logical thought, which must precede the forming of the 
 conception, Encyclopedia need not furnish that link, since it 
 is of itself present. The second review, on the other hand, 
 may not be omitted, for that is to show how, in connection 
 with the encyclopedic results obtained, the process is to be 
 understood in the phenomena. In this second review, the 
 outline of this process will differ according to the nature of 
 the results obtained by encyclopedic investigation. 
 
 This critical review embraces six sections, each one of 
 which covers a proper period. First, comes the period of 
 naivety ; then the period of internal conflict ; then the period 
 of triumph claimed too prematurely ; then the period of multi- 
 formity ; after this, the period of apparent defeat ; and finally, 
 the period of resurrection. Let it be kept in mind, that this 
 review does not concern itself with the history of theology 
 as the knowledge of God, but with the science which has this 
 knowledge of God for its object. Hence, this history begins 
 where special Revelation is completed. If the word " Theol- 
 
Chap. V] §101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY 639 
 
 ogy " is taken in the sense of science, then there is no theol- 
 ogy of Isaiah, Micah, Peter, or Paul, but it arises only when 
 special Revelation has reached its goal, and the task begins of 
 introducing the content of this Revelation into the enlight- 
 ened consciousness of regenerated humanity, and from this 
 human consciousness to reproduce it. That this was the 
 task imposed upon it, was not understood for a time by 
 regenerated man. Had it depended upon primitive Chris- 
 tianity, intensely satisfied with her great salvation, she 
 would have withdrawn herself in mystical enjoyment of the 
 same, in obedience to the same impulse which, especially in 
 those methodistic circles which originated with the Meveil, 
 looks down upon theological effort with a certain spiritual 
 self-conceit. But the Holy Spirit compelled her to under- 
 take this task by the reaction, which in all sorts of ways, 
 from the consciousness of the unregenerate, set itself to 
 dissect and to destroy the content of Revelation, and the 
 Revelation itself. And only when in this way the need had 
 rendered this scientific effort a necessity, a taste was created 
 for this work, after the rule of the discendo discere discimus 
 (by learning we learn to learn), and the inclination was fos- 
 tered which explains the later growth of theology. This, 
 at the same time, exhibits the folly of the desire to explain 
 theology from the instituted Church. As far as the insti- 
 tuted Church herself was concerned, she has almost never 
 known the scientific impulse, but has ever preferred to devote 
 herself to the still enjoyment of her great salvation. Theol- 
 ogy, as a science, was, as a rule, more of an hindrance to her 
 than a help ; and theology owes its origin, its maintenance, 
 and its guarantee for the future, not to the initiative of the 
 Church, but to the initiative of the Holy Spirit, who was also 
 its guide. 
 
 § 101. The Period of Naivety 
 
 As soon as the Church had freed itself from the swaddling 
 clothes of Israel's national life, the Christian religion went 
 out into the world as a militant power. " Think not that I 
 am come," said Christ, "to bring peace on earth, but the 
 
640 § 101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY [Div. Ill 
 
 sword. For I am come to set man at variance with man." 
 Also, " I am come to send fire on the earth ; and what will 
 I, if it be already kindled ? " Which sayings but delineate 
 the character of Christian heroism in contrast to a timid 
 irenics, which fills in every gap, and covers up every differ- 
 ence. Conflict might have been in part postponed, if the 
 ■world of that age had still been confined to the stage of 
 infantile unconsciousness, or if a tabula rasa could have been 
 made of all development attained. But this could not be, 
 since the Christian religion was commissioned to appear in a 
 world which boasted of a very ripe development, and spoke 
 at times of the golden age of emperors, and which, notwith- 
 standing its spiritual dearth, prided itself on great things. 
 This placed the Christian religion as an opposing force over 
 against the historical results of a broad, and, in part, a deep- 
 searching development, which was sufficient unto itself, and 
 which would not readily part with the sceptre of power over 
 the spirits of men. Sooner or later the Christian religion was 
 bound to conflict with the existing state of things at every 
 point, and was forced at once to do this : (1) with the pseudo- 
 religions, which were still dominant; (2) with the world of 
 thought, which it first depopulated, and then undertook to 
 populate with its own content; and (3) with the actual world, 
 both national and social, the whole machinery of which it re- 
 solved to place upon another pivot. This threefold antithesis 
 shows itself at once with the appearance of the apostles, who 
 would have been utterly impotent but for their spiritual 
 heroism. Which heroism also, for the most part, they sealed 
 with their blood. From the very beginning the conflict 
 assumed the character of a life and death struggle ; on the 
 one side being arrayed the ripest products which unregen- 
 erate human nature had thus far commanded, and the richest 
 development the human consciousness had attained to without 
 higher revelation and enlightening ; and opposed to this, upon 
 the other side, the " foolishness of the cross," which proclaimed 
 the necessity of palingenesis, prophesied an entirely different 
 condition which was to ripen from this, and at the same time 
 announced a " wisdom " that was to array itself antithetically 
 
Chap. V] § 101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY 641 
 
 against the " wisdom of the world." The outbreak could not 
 tarry. What existed and bore rule was rooted too firmly to 
 allow itself to be superseded without a struggle; and the 
 Christian religion, which was the aggressive force, was too 
 heroic in its idealism to be silenced by satire or shame, by 
 the sword or fagot. The conflict indeed has come; for 
 eighteen centuries this strife has never come to a truce ex- 
 cept in form ; even now the antithesis of principles in this 
 struggle is frankly confessed from both sides, and this con- 
 test shall be decided only when the Judge of the living and 
 the dead shall weigh the final result of the development of 
 our human race in the Divine balance. 
 
 It was natural that at first the Christian religion should 
 stand most invincible in its attack on religion. In its 
 strength of early youth, aglow with the fires of its first love, 
 it presented a striking contrast to pseudo-religion, aged and 
 worn out, maintained for the most part in forms only, and 
 held in honor among the illiterate more than in the centres 
 of culture and power. Within the religious domain Pagan- 
 ism has almost nowhere been able to maintain itself, and 
 without exaggeration it may be said that almost from the 
 very first the chances for the Christian religion as such were 
 those of a veni, vidi, vici. Within the ethical-social and 
 national domain, however, the struggle was far more serious, 
 and it took no less than three centuries of bloody fighting 
 before in Constantine the first definite triumph could be 
 recorded. But much more serious still was the first attack 
 in that strife within the intellectual bounds. Here at its first 
 appearance Christianity stood with but a " sling and a stone 
 from the brook " over against the heavily armed Goliath, and 
 thanks to the providential leadings of the Lord, this Goliath 
 also was made at length to eat sand. Christ Himself had 
 drawn this antithesis in the intellectual world, when He said : 
 " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou 
 hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast 
 revealed them unto babes." And since theology belongs to 
 this domain, and to no other, it is entirely natural, that at 
 its first appearance theology bears the character of naivety. 
 
642 § 101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY [Div. ni 
 
 Not as though there had not been given in the Revelation of 
 the New Testament itself the clear and entirely conscious 
 tendency of this antithesis also in the full sense of principles 
 involved; but it was reserved for later ages to bring out 
 in all its deductions what was potentially revealed in the 
 Scripture. Even now this task is by no means ended, and 
 our own age has been the first to grasp the antithesis in the 
 higher intellectual world between science within and science 
 outside the sphere of palingenesis. 
 
 Hence in this period of naivety there was no question 
 whatever of a theology as an organic science, in the sense 
 in which our age especially understands it. What the apos- 
 tolic fathers offer is little more than exhortation, pious and 
 serious, but as to principles very imperfectly thought out. 
 From Quadratus to Hegesippus the apologists enter an acci- 
 dental and fragmentary plea to parry assailants from the side 
 of philosophy or invectives from the lips of public opinion, 
 rather than place over against their world of thought a clearly 
 conscious world of thought of their own. The education at 
 most of prospective ministers of the Word, as well as of the 
 youth of higher rank, was the leading motive at the schools 
 of Asia Minor, Alexandria and North Africa. And in the 
 pseudepigraphical literature tradition and the effort of diverg- 
 ing tendencies are both active to create for themselves an 
 authority to which to appeal. If then, without doubt the 
 attack was made from the side of the Christians in the reli- 
 gious domain, this was not the case in the intellectual domain. 
 Here the pagans themselves took the initiative, either by 
 combating the Christian faith directly, such as was done by 
 Celsus, Porphyry and Hierocles, or, which was far worse, 
 by introducing the Christian religion as a new phenomenon 
 into their own pantheistic wo rid- view. First with the 
 Gnostics, and shortly after with the Manicheans, the Church 
 of Christ suffered the severest strain, and it is certainly not 
 because of her intellectual superiority that she came out 
 triumphantly from this mortal combat. The strife indeed 
 compelled severe processes of thought, and the deepest prin- 
 ciples of life were freely laid bare, but the real character 
 
Chap. V] § 101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY 643 
 
 of this antithesis was still so little understood that, with 
 Clement and Origan, the victory was bought at the price 
 of weakness of principle ; and the influence of " the knowl- 
 edge falsely so called," which raises its head in heretical 
 teachings, entered the very pale of the Church already in 
 this first period. If, therefore, the decision in this strife had 
 been reached by a hand-to-hand combat of intellectual powers, 
 there is no doubt but that Paganism would have carried the 
 day. Evidently, therefore, the Church owes the different 
 result to the fact that it soon began to manifest itself as an 
 organizing power, which ethically judged the pagan world, 
 and finally enlisted the political power in its ranks. Hence 
 the severest trial was suffered at the hands of the Manicheans, 
 which is so impressive a phenomenon for the reason that in 
 this an antipodal Church arrayed itself as a religiously organ- 
 ized power in opposition to the Church of Christ, and the 
 false gnosis of Manicheanism assailed the Church with her 
 own weapons. And this Manichean trouble assumed such 
 wide proportions that for a time it seemed as though the 
 Church were on the verge of being swallowed up alive. The 
 flood of this church-like organized gnosis had forced its way 
 from the heart of Asia to the most westerly parts of North 
 Africa. Even Augustine felt the after-pains of it. 
 
 If it is asked whether in this first period there was no 
 manifestation of an impulse to apply oneself in a positive 
 sense to that intellectual pursuit in which theology finds its 
 appointed task, then be it said that this positive element 
 soon presented itself; for ministers needed to be educated, 
 preaching necessitated exegesis and fixing of ethical stand- 
 ards, the organization of its own power gave rise to the 
 problem of Church government, and, after some time had 
 passed, the need of a review of history became urgent 
 of itself. But for no single moment did these positive 
 studies rise above the primitive water-mark ; or where this 
 was the case, as at Alexandria, they made too vain a show 
 of feathers borrowed from pagan speculation, so that almost 
 instinctively the Church perceived at once that this rich de- 
 velopment promised more danger than gain. If it takes small 
 
644 § 101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY [Div. Ill 
 
 pains to observe in this first period of naivety the first buds 
 of almost all the departments of theology, it cannot be said 
 that at that time theology had already matured as a self- 
 conscious power in its organic unity. For this the needed data 
 were wanting ; the element of genius was too largely absent 
 from the persons; and where this genius was unmistaka- 
 bly present in men like Origen and in a few teachers in the 
 North African school, it soon showed itself top-heavy, and 
 by its one-sidedness became heretical. The growth was too 
 early and too exuberant, but there was no depth of soil, 
 and because the development in the root was unequal, this 
 element of genius soon outgrew its own strength. There 
 was conflict between a twofold life- and world-view, which 
 undoubtedly governed the general state of things, but the first 
 issue in this struggle with Paganism is owing to other fac- 
 tor's than intellectual superiority. And in this first period, 
 which was entirely na'ive, theology neither attained unto a 
 clearly conscious insight of its own position, nor to a clearly 
 perceived antithesis in opposition to " the knowledge falsely 
 so called." Hence, when, after Constan tine's appearance. 
 Paganism withdrew, there was almost no one to perceive 
 that the real question of difference on intellectual grounds 
 was still unsolved, much less was it surmised that fifteen 
 centuries later the old assailant would again war against the 
 Church of Christ, and, armed to the teeth, would repulse her 
 from more than half the domain which, through the courae 
 of the centuries, had appeared invincibly her own. Naively 
 they lived in the thought that Goliath lay vanquished once 
 and for all time, and that the Lord would return before the 
 antithesis had also been exhibited in the world of intellect, 
 both as a conflict of principles in the lowest depths of our 
 existence, and differentiated above in all the branches. 
 
 But however na'ive this first development of theology may 
 have been, even then it showed potentially all the richness of 
 its colors. In two respects: first, although theology is no 
 abstract speculation, but as a positive science has its origin 
 from life itself, in this first period it furnished a so-many- 
 sided intellectual activity, that to-day there is almost no 
 
Chap. V] § 101. THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY 645 
 
 single department of theology which does not trace its 
 beginnings to this first period. And, secondly, in that in 
 this first period the several tendencies which henceforth 
 were to dominate the study of theology delineate themselves 
 almost completely. Even then dualism asserted itself, and 
 tried to make the Christian religion shine by itself as a 
 novum quid apart from the preceding development of our 
 human life, and therefore made its appearance as a ten- 
 dency which was partly mystical-religious, and partly pietis- 
 tical-nomistic. In opposition to the one-sidedness of this 
 dualism, which was for the most part apocalyptic, the 
 monistic-syncretistic tendency gained a hearing in this first 
 period, which, while it maintained the unity between the 
 light of nature (lumen naturae) and the light of grace 
 (lumen gratiae), ran the risk of abandoning the specific 
 difference between the two. Similarly also, in this first period, 
 there was seen upon the one side an attempt to find the point of 
 support in the spiritual authority of the Holy Scripture, and, 
 on the other side, to obtain a foothold in the consolidation 
 of ecclesiastical authority. And in those early centuries also 
 the tendency showed itself to combine whatever good there 
 was in each of these four chief points of view in an eclectic 
 and arbitrary way, by a compromise which avoided the con- 
 flict of principles. The conflict between the Judaistic and 
 Pagan element should not be coordinated with that between 
 these five tendencies as if it were similar to them, since it falls 
 of itself under the antithesis already named. A separate men- 
 tion of this specific struggle, however, should be made, in 
 so far as it worked a permanent effect in the Christian 
 Church, both in the pseudo-symbolic stamp of the Romish 
 Church, in Chiliasm so prevalent again in these later times, 
 and in Sabbatism and in all strivings after holiness by 
 works that seek their point of support in the Old Testament. 
 Under all these forms, the antithesis is the same between 
 the real manifestation of Christ and what preceded this 
 manifestation by way of preparation. And while this ques- 
 tion, which first presented itself objective-historically, re- 
 turned subjectively, later on, when Christ became real, to 
 
646 § 102. THE INTERNAL CONFLICT [Div. Ill 
 
 every one who was converted unto Him, it enters too deeply 
 into the life of the Church itself not to be classified under 
 a proper head. 
 
 § 102. The Internal Conflict 
 
 The change brought about by the reign of Constantine 
 the Great is vastly important also in the history of theol- 
 ogy. Not that he personally exerted a dominating influence 
 upon theology, but in so far as the change of the religion of 
 the throne offered surest proof that the conflict against Pagan- 
 ism had reached a provisional decision, and had terminated in 
 a complete triumph of the Christian religion. It is indeed 
 noteworthy that, without any direct connection, the eccle- 
 siastical events at Alexandria run almost parallel with the 
 political events. In 313, the very year of the second edict of 
 Milan, Arius was ordained a presbyter in Alexandria. In 321 
 Arius is condemned by the Synod at Alexandria, while Con- 
 stantine is at the point of coming over to Christianity in 323. 
 And in 325, at the council of Nice, Arius falls, Athanasius 
 appears upon the scene, and the emperor of the Roman Em- 
 pire, which was still at the height of its power, casts his 
 influence in the scale of the worship of the Christ as " Begot- 
 ten, not made, and of one essence with the Father." And 
 with this all other relations are changed. The Christians 
 become polemics, and compel heathen scholars to appear as 
 apologists. Not the Christian religion, but Paganism, is now 
 denied a starting-point in public life. The influence upon 
 public opinion has now passed into the hands of presbyters 
 and bishops. Pagan cult bleeds to death for want of finan- 
 cial support, while Christian ceremonial begins to exhibit 
 pomp and splendor. Moral preponderance is turned en- 
 tirely to the side of the Christian religion. Henceforth the 
 higher classes follow after the Cross in ever-increasing 
 numbers. Christian schools flourish in proportion as heathen 
 schools wane. And, as is generally observed in such 
 changes in the state of affairs, from now on, talent, the 
 energy of personality, and the power of the word turn their 
 back upon Paganism, and place themselves at the service of 
 
Chap. V] § 102. THE INTERNAL CONFLICT 647 
 
 the newly arrived religion. And this explains the almost 
 immediate transition from the naivety of the first period, to 
 the almost midlife maturity that marks this second period. 
 The fourth and fifth centuries are contrasted with the second 
 and third almost as light and shadow, and this sudden blos- 
 soming of intellectual life and even of genius within the 
 Christian domain is so overwhelming, that already in the 
 sixth century unmistakable signs appear of deterioration, 
 and in the seventh century the decline of the middle ages 
 has already set in. The almost simultaneous appearance of 
 the dominating Fathers in the East, as well as in the West, by 
 which the heroic names of Athanasius and Augustine have 
 been attached to the orthodox development of the Church and 
 theology for all ages, — a fact which finds no explanation 
 from history, nor from psychology, but only from the provi- 
 dential leading of the Creator of spirits and geniuses, — proves 
 of itself, that the change brought about by Constantine marks 
 the beginning of the fundamental period of Christian the- 
 ology. All that follows after can only be built upon the 
 permanent foundation laid by these gigantic architects. For 
 both these cycles of Patres, which group themselves about 
 Athanasius in the East, and about Augustine in the West, 
 neither lean nor rest upon what went before, but stand en- 
 tirely upon their own feet, with Atlantic strength to support the 
 development coming after them. This appears most clearly 
 from comparison between the meagre efforts of earlier apolo- 
 gists and the Civitas Lei of Augustine. With every earlier 
 apologist it was a mere effort of hands and feet to protect 
 the body against the assailant, but in Augustine we meet with 
 a Herculean figure that destroys the monster with a stroke 
 of the sword and makes the dragon retreat into his hole. 
 Augustine is the Christian triumphator, before whose tri- 
 umphal chariot are borne the spoils of Paganism and Mani- 
 cheism as trophies. In him and after him the Christian 
 religion is dominant, while nothing remains for Paganism but 
 the convulsions of approaching death. Gloriously has Gol- 
 gotha been avenged, and the cross, which was once an 
 accursed tree, is now a symbol of honor. 
 
648 § 102. THE INTERNAL CONFLICT [Div. Ill 
 
 By this, however, theology obtained an entirely different 
 character. Whereas in the first period, it had been chiefly 
 bent upon self-defence against the arch-enemy, that enemy 
 was now vanquished, and thus the antithesis between regen- 
 erate and unregenerate human consciousness could no longer 
 be the most conspicuous. When the school, at which Proklus 
 flourished last, was closed at Athens, and the last supporters 
 of classic tradition fled to Persia, there was no more need for 
 a further conflict about this deepest and most incisive antith- 
 esis. As an intellectual power. Paganism no longer stood. 
 All intellectual power was now withdrawn within the walls 
 of the Christian Church; consequently, the antitheses which 
 were to impel theology to action could not but have their 
 rise in the heart of that Church itself. Hence it became a 
 conflict within its own bosom. 
 
 If the question is raised whether the deepest significance of 
 this conflict is not still stated bj"- the antithesis between nature 
 and grace, between Humanism and Theism, the answer lies 
 close at hand. It continued of course always the same antithe- 
 sis, but with this difference, that now the anti-Christian power 
 made its appearance dressed in a Christian and even an eccle- 
 siastical garb. After persecution had ceased and the Christian 
 religion had been duly inaugurated in its career of honor, the 
 transition to Christianity became so colossal, especially among 
 the upper classes, and so largely a matter of fashion, tjiat there 
 could scarcely be any more question of an actual transforma- 
 tion of spirits. People were everywhere baptized, but as 
 baptized members they brought their pagan world-view with 
 them into the Church. Two classes of Christians therefore 
 soon stood arrayed in a well-ordered line of battle over against 
 each other : those who were sincere, who were truly partici- 
 pants of the new principle of life, and were but waiting for 
 the propitious moment in which to work out this principle 
 into a proper world of thought ; and on the other side the 
 pseudo-Christians, who from their natural, unregenerate life- 
 principle reacted against the Cross, in order to maintain the 
 old world-view, now exhibited in Christian form. It is this 
 conflict which compelled the Christian Church to awake from 
 
Chap. V] § 102. THE INTERNAL CONl^LICT 649 
 
 her mystical-practical life to energetic activity of spirit, and to 
 create theologically from her own life-principle a correspond- 
 ingly adequate world of thought. And this was done Christo- 
 logically and Soteriologically. First Christologically, because 
 the central starting-point of her activity lay in the Christ, 
 so that the just relation between the Divine and human, 
 between nature and grace, had first to be established in the 
 dogma concerning Christ. And after that, Soteriologically, 
 because in the application of the salvation which had appeared 
 in Christ, everything depended upon a correct insight into 
 the true relation between God's action and man's action in 
 bringing about his salvation. In both these questions the sin- 
 cere Christians proved the stronger, because the conflict was 
 prosecuted from out their own life -principle. As long as it was 
 merely the formal question between the Divine and human 
 factors in the process of attaining certainty in Divine things, 
 the philosophers were their superiors, and their defence could 
 not be one of principle. From the scientific view-point, their 
 apology was weak. But when called upon to formulate dog- 
 matically who Christ was, and how grace operates in the Child 
 of God, the tables were turned. The pseudo-Christians had 
 to deal with a matter foreign to them, while those who 
 were sincere handled what constituted a component part of 
 their own life, the object of their love and worship, the cause 
 of their eternal joy. Thus the sympathy of a holy love 
 sharpened their intellectual capacities, and it explains itself, 
 how these unexcelled Fathers of the Church have caused the 
 stream of theologic life to flow from the rock as with a magic 
 wand, and at the same time have given to theology its inner 
 certainty. Theology could never have substantiated itself by 
 any demonstration from without; and only by starting out 
 from the Christ and the work of grace in the sinner, and, 
 objectively as well as subjectively, formulating accurately 
 the antithesis between the life of nature and the life of grace, 
 did it clear for itself formally also the way to vindicate its 
 view-point. 
 
 For this reason the antithesis between philosophy and the 
 Christian religion could not be a stimulant in this period. 
 
650 § 102. THE INTERNAL CONFLICT [Div. Ill 
 
 Already theology feels herself mistress in her own home, 
 and sees in philosophy nothing but a tamed lion, which she 
 harnesses before her triumphal chariot. At Byzantium classic 
 study had obtained a proper place of honor, from the days 
 of Emperor Photius. Boast was made of Plato and of 
 Aristotle. And it was in the footsteps of Aristotle that 
 John of Damascus in his "E/cSocri? printed an irremovable 
 dogmatic stamp upon the entire Church of the East. But 
 for theological studies in general, philosophy in all its rami- 
 fications offered none but subsidiary services. Centrally 
 theologic development in this period is dogmatic, and the 
 wide exegetical studies have no other tendency than to 
 establish scripturally once for all the truth that had been 
 found. Critically the work done does not extend beyond the 
 content of Scripture, and formally what is attempted is at most 
 to keep in hand good codexes rather than bad. Hermeneutics 
 is established in order, after given rules, to overthrow false 
 exegesis of heretical doctores, and the extent to which 
 Hieronymus busied himself with isagogical questions had 
 merely this object in view — viz. placing at the disposal 
 of the coming clergy all sorts of things worthy of their 
 notice. Thus everything was rendered subsidiary to the 
 development of dogmatics, including even historical studies ; 
 and thus dogmatics appeared mostly in the form of polemics, 
 to combat false representations. Time was not yet ripe for 
 the organic construction of a system, which should include 
 all the dogmatic treasures. Even Augustine did not vent- 
 ure upon this. What Origen had too early attempted, 
 served as an example to deter others, and what John 
 Damascene accomplished for the Eastern Church has done 
 much toward the petrifying of that Church; even though 
 it may not be overlooked, that this very early check put upon 
 dogmatic thought saved the Eastern Church from many 
 serious errors, in which at a later date the Western Church 
 lost itself. 
 
 But if theology triumphed over heresy in its own bosom 
 during this period, it was not all gold that glittered. This 
 intellectual victory had not been achieved except in union 
 
Chap. V] § 102. THE INTERNAL CONFLICT 651 
 
 with the ecclesiastical organization ; and the Church with 
 her ban had anathematized whoever had been conquered by 
 theology. This effected too close a bond between theology 
 and the Church, which resulted after the death of the 
 corypheei in a limitation of liberty for theology as a science, 
 even as in the Church everything was compelled to exhibit 
 itself too largely in one mould and move in the same direc- 
 tion. Multiformity of life was lost in the uniformity of the 
 traditional ecclesiastical type, and as soon as opposition 
 ceased, theology lost the spur for action, and almost every 
 reason for existence. Her practitioners were like an army 
 dismissed, since victory had been achieved. The heroic 
 period of the Fathers in the fourth and fifth centuries, 
 therefore, is followed by a period of lassitude and deathlike 
 stillness, which gradually turned into the barrenness of the 
 Middle Ages. At first this baneful uniformity did not make 
 itself so strongly felt. The schools of Antioch and Alexan- 
 dria, of Nisibis and Edessa, of North Africa and of Rome, 
 were strong with the vigor of youth, each having a theologi- 
 cal tendency of its own. But when presently the Eastern 
 schools lost their significance, and the West appeared in the 
 foreground, and in the West Rome's preponderance assumed 
 proportions which became more and more decisive, the dis- 
 tinction was gradually lost sight of between "heretical de- 
 parture " and " difference of tendency among the orthodox." 
 All differences were looked upon with envy. Unity in the 
 most absolute sense had become the watchword. And when 
 finally this unity was carried off as spoils, it seemed more 
 easy to maintain this unity thenceforth by ecclesiastical 
 decisions than by theologic debate. Theology had done 
 her duty, now the Church was to have the word. Not 
 theology, but the Hierarchy, as early as the sixth century, 
 held the reins of power which are to maintain the principle of 
 the Christian life. And though it is self-evident that there 
 still remained certain variations, and that absolute unity has 
 never been obtained, Rome, nevertheless, preferred to allow 
 these variations sufficient playground within its own organi- 
 zation, and when needed to provide diversion by monastic 
 
652 § 103. PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH [Div. Ill 
 
 orders. Especially the removal of the centre of gravity of 
 the Church from the East to the West, from civilized to the 
 still uncivilized nations of the Germanic-Gallic world, materi- 
 ally aided this dismissal of theology from service, and en- 
 couraged the withdrawal of study into the convents, as in 
 so many centres of learning in the midst of uncultivated 
 conditions. 
 
 § 103. Prematurely claimed Triumph 
 The long period extending across the four centuries which 
 precede and the four centuries which follow the Dark Ages, 
 is of importance for the development of Theology in its sec- 
 ond half only. This is not intended to undervalue the rich 
 development of intellectual life in the several monasteries, 
 at the courts of the Carolingian princes, and under Alfred 
 among the Anglo-Saxons, before the night of the Middle 
 Ages set in, but merely to indicate that the great progress 
 of learning rendered no material aid to the development of 
 the conception of theology as such. It brought this devel- 
 opment scarcely an indirect good. The study of the better 
 Latin authors was continued, the Church Fathers were read 
 and quoted, series of excerpts from the Fathers (catenae 
 patrum) were compiled for exegesis, chronicles were dili- 
 gently written, Alcuin prepared even some sort of a dog- 
 matic compendium from the works of Augustine, entitled 
 De fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis lihri duo, which 
 was rapidly passed on from hand to hand; but however 
 bright and clear this learning was compared to the night of 
 ignorance that still rested darkly upon Europe's west and 
 north, it produced no scientific results. There were fresh 
 wave-beats in these waters, of momentary duration, as when 
 Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel advocated adoption- 
 ism, Paschasius Radbertus constructed the theological expla- 
 nation of transubstantiation, and Gottschalk undertook once 
 more to assail the semi-Pelagianism that had crept in on every 
 hand, and the conflict about the filioque became necessary as a 
 defence against the Eastern Church ; but these eif orts effected 
 no enduring results. The Church tacitly giving shape to 
 
Chap. V] §103. PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH 653 
 
 public thought by her orthodoxy weighed too heavily upon 
 the life of the spirit; and no question was settled scientifi- 
 cally, for after a brief trial it was dismissed by the authority 
 of the ecclesiastical courts. Even an Isidorus Hispalensis, a 
 Venerable Bede, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, or Hincmar of 
 Rheims left no single work of creative genius behind them. 
 And when the ninth century produces an independent 
 thinker in the person of John Scotus Erigena, he distin- 
 guishes between affirmative and negative theology (theo- 
 logia Kara^aTiKT] and cnrocjjaTiKi]), and thereby merges real 
 theology into philosophy, and that, a philosophy in which the 
 old sin of Pantheism renews itself in a way more serious than 
 with Origen. So indifferent, however, was his time to these 
 deeper studies that this pantheistical philosopher held his 
 post of honor undisturbed at the court of the Carolingians, 
 surrounded by an orthodox clergy, and his writings were 
 condemned for the first time three centuries afterward by 
 Rome at the mouth of Pope Honorius III. as "being full 
 of the vermin of heretical depravity." 
 
 This does not imply that these three centuries passed 
 by to no purpose and without important results, but what- 
 ever labor did more than protect the inherited theological 
 treasure, directed itself almost exclusively to what was calcu- 
 lated to strengthen the Church in a practical way and civilize 
 the nations of the West. First, the system of monasticism 
 was deeply thought out, carefully ordered and clearly out- 
 lined. Then the development of ecclesiastical law took 
 a higher flight, together with the ordering of civil relations, 
 which were included in canonical law. No little effort was 
 made to establish upon a sound footing the cathedral schools, 
 which had been founded by the Carolingian princes, and to 
 provide them with good material for study. And, finally, 
 there was no want during these ages of edifying literature of 
 a pious trend, mystical flavor and sound content. But none 
 of these studies touched upon theology in her nature and 
 being. No thought was expended upon her as such, and 
 there was still less of an effort made to vindicate her relation 
 to the non-theological development or to the reason. The 
 
654 § 103. PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH [Div. in 
 
 Church was mistress in the entire domain of life. The 
 opposition of ancient Rome's classical development had been 
 silenced by the decline of the culture of the times. Germanic 
 development was still too much in its infancy to renew the 
 old strife, and thus of itself the struggle for principles came 
 to an end; the more because the ever-restless spirit of the 
 Greek came under the pressure of Islam, which prevented 
 it from exerting an influence upon the Church of the West. 
 The Dark Ages, which soon appeared, were but the natural 
 consequence of what went before. The wind blew no longer 
 from any quarter. It was a dead calm. On every hand 
 nothing but stagnant waters were seen. And thus, for want 
 of an animating impulse, the life of study waned. 
 
 It was very different, however, in the second part of this 
 long period. In 1096 the first crusade was undertaken. This 
 was an expression of Christian, chivalrous heroism, which not 
 only aroused the peoples from their sleep of death, but also 
 restored to the Church her sense of unity with the Church of 
 the East, and exerted no less mighty an influence upon the- 
 ology. Here we must retrace our steps to Emperor Jus- 
 tinian I., who closed by a decree the pagan school of Athens, 
 and thereby obliged its scholars to flee to Persia. There 
 these men tried to establish their classical school in safety, 
 and to prosecute their studies ; but however much they were 
 disappointed in this, it was nevertheless under Persian, and 
 more especially under Syrian influences, that in the eighth cen- 
 tury, under the high protectorate of the Abbasides, the classi- 
 cal studies came to Bagdad, in order there, and presently in 
 Spain, to call into being a scientific life which far surpassed 
 the civilization of Christian Europe at that time. By contact 
 with this rich Mohammedan life the old classics were intro- 
 duced again in Europe ; and when, in competition with Islam, 
 the classical studies were resumed in Byzantium, under Bardas 
 and Photius, the old Greek-Roman world of thought entered 
 Christian Europe simultaneously from these two sides, to 
 recall it from its practical, mystical and ecclesiastically tradi- 
 tional life to a higher development of its self-consciousness. 
 
 The new theological activity which was thus called into 
 
Chap. V] § 103. PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH 655 
 
 being bears the name of Scliolasticism, which name is derived 
 from docere in soola, and for this reason Scholasticism is also 
 connected with the rise of the universities. At first ac- 
 quaintance the classical world did not stand high in the 
 general esteem. The beautiful in the world of old Hellas 
 and the virility in the world of old Rome was not loved by 
 the Middle Ages and Scholastics. This love flamed up only 
 when the Byzantine scholars fled from Turkish violence into 
 Italy, and when, as a fruit of their activity, Humanism made 
 its entry. No, the Scholastics cared less for Homer, iEschy- 
 lus, Virgil and Horace, than for Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. 
 On the first acquaintance with the works of Greece's great 
 philosophers especially, it was soon evident that these men 
 were profounder students than the clergy of the times. And 
 since these Scholastics knew too little Greek to read Aristotle 
 at once in the original, they obtained by their acquaintance 
 with the thinker of Stagira about such an impression as a Zulu 
 negro must receive from a visit to the arsenal at Woolwich. 
 What were the weapons they had thus far used, when com- 
 pared to the rich supply of arms from the arsenal of Aristotle ? 
 And as the Christian knights were inspired to high exploits 
 by crusade upon crusade undertaken against Islam, the sight 
 of this glittering arsenal in the writings of Aristotle made the 
 scholars of those days quickly cast aside the sling and stone 
 and immediately arm themselves with the lances of Aris- 
 totle's categories and with the armor of his distinctions, and 
 so to gain trophies for their Christian faith. At the outset 
 they foresaw none of the danger this implied. As yet they 
 perceived nothing of what was to come to light in Abelard, 
 in the Nominalists, and presently in the Humanists. They 
 did not surmise that the Greek-Roman tradition held a spirit 
 peculiar to itself, and that when once called out from its 
 grave this spirit would soon prove able to enlist once more 
 the sympathies of thinking minds, and for a second time let 
 loose against the Church the old enemy which had spoken in 
 Celsus and Porphyry. They thought they were simply deal- 
 ing with the armor of a buried hero, and that they had a 
 perfect right to appropriate this armor to themselves. 
 
656 § 103. PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH [Div. Ill 
 
 Even thus, however, there was something very beautiful 
 in this impulse. If it lay in the nature of the case that the 
 ■world of thought of unregenerated humanity must of neces- 
 sity be different from that of regenerate humanity walking 
 in the light of God's Word, the task of theology was not ex- 
 hausted in a self-defence against this world of natural thought. 
 She was called, in the first place, to populate her own world 
 of thought and to regulate it. The content of the Divine 
 Revelation had been committed to her, not to possess it as 
 gold in a mine, but to delve it out of that mine, and then to 
 convert that gold into all sorts of ornaments. The content 
 of Revelation had not been given dialectically, nor had it been 
 cast in the form of discursive thought. That which had been 
 revealed of God could therefore not be taken up as such into 
 the human consciousness. It had first to be worked over, 
 and its form be changed so as to suit human capacity. What 
 had been shown to the Eastern mind in images and symbols, 
 had to be assimilated by Western thinking and reproduced 
 intellectually. For this it was indispensable that the believ- 
 ing Christian should also learn how to think, and how to 
 sharpen his powers of thought, in order to grasp the content 
 of his faith, not resting until he had succeeded, from the 
 root of palingenesis and by the light of photismos, in lead- 
 ing the human consciousness to a coherent, comprehensive 
 world of thought entirely its own. And this they failed to do. 
 In the period of naivety the struggle with Paganism had been 
 broken off rather than fought out. Under the inspiration of 
 the Fathers of the Church all the powers of thought had been 
 directed to the establishing of the mysteries, to prevent here- 
 sies ; but in the following ages they neglected to analyze the 
 further mysteries of the faith to the root. Thus they failed 
 of creating a Christian Philosophy, which should give to the 
 Christian world, to the glory of God, what old Hellas had 
 possessed in Plato and Aristotle, thanks to Socrates' initia- 
 tive. This want has been felt by the Scholastics, if only 
 feebly. They saw that Aristotle could teach them how to 
 think. They were ashamed of the fact that the scholars of 
 Bagdad and Cordova excelled the Christians in virility of 
 
Chap. V] § 103. PREMATURELY CLAIMED TRIUMPH 657 
 
 thought. And then they, too, threw themselves upon the 
 world of thought, they worked themselves into it, and became 
 masters in it of the first rank, with a virtuosity which claims 
 our admiration till this day. Suddenly they rise like cedars 
 from the barren tablelands of the Dark Ages. And in so far 
 as they, immovable in their faith, did not shrink before any 
 intellectual labor, however gigantic, they are still our exam- 
 ples as intellectual heroes. He who refuses to consult with 
 Thomas Aquinas weakens himself as a theologian. 
 
 However, we have qualified their labor as a triumph grasped 
 prematurely. In the preface of the latest edition of Lom- 
 bardus' Sententiae apd Thomas' Summa, Paris, 1841, the edi- 
 tor wrote in a high-pitched key of these Sententiae and this 
 Summa: "Stupendous works indeed, the former of Avhich 
 ruled all Europe for a century and a half and gave birth to 
 Thomas Aquinas, while the latter, being assuredly the very 
 sum of theology, has ruled all Europe for five centuries from 
 the day it was brought to light, and has begotten all suc- 
 ceeding theologians." This flattering speech aims none too 
 high; for after Thomas there has no one arisen who, as a theo- 
 logian, has thought out the domain of sacred study so com- 
 prehensively from all sides, and who has penetrated as deeply 
 to the bottom of all questions so heroically as he ; and only 
 the latest development of philosophy has given the stream 
 of theological thought a really new bend. The very rise of 
 this newer philosophy, however, has discovered how greatly 
 Thomas was mistaken, when he thought that he had al- 
 ready hit the mark, when he placed the formal intellectual 
 development of the Grecian world at the service of the 
 Church. Undoubtedly it is since then only that theology 
 within its own ground has come to a richer development, 
 such as it had never known before, which has enabled it to 
 assimilate and to reproduce no mean part of the treasures of 
 Revelation ; but the struggle for principles, which theology 
 had to carry on for the vindication of her own right of ex- 
 istence, had scarcely yet begun. Theology and philosophy 
 (taken now in the material sense) are too closely identified 
 by Thomas. He takes too little account of the world of 
 
658 § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY [Div. HI 
 
 thought of unregenerate humanity as an independent whole. 
 It is with him still too much a subtle gymnastic of intellect, 
 which defends every part of the Church confession of that 
 day by distinctions, and again by distinctions against objec- 
 tions, and vindicates the same as being in harmony with 
 reason. And it was especially serious because thus the 
 foundation of the building of Christian Doctrine was sought 
 by far too much in the subject itself and for the subject in 
 the understanding. For thus finally reason sat in judgment, 
 and though reason appeared in favor of the doctrines of the 
 Church when speaking from the mind of a Thomas, there 
 was no guarantee that this same reason, in another subject 
 would not presently arrive at an opposite conclusion, and 
 then where was the triumph of the Christian religion ? In 
 Abelard it had already been shown with what fire men were 
 playing. That fire had been extinguished by the holy energy 
 of Bernard of Clairvaux and by the ban of Innocent II. But 
 what was to be done, when presently that same fire should 
 break out again in wider extent and with greater furj^? 
 There was an increase of knowledge, but victory had not 
 yet been achieved. The mystical Scholastics were already 
 aware of this, for which reason they offered dialectical pro- 
 ficiency the support of the fervor of devotion and faith. But, 
 of course, in this also there was no lasting security. That 
 security could be regained only when return was made to the 
 Holy Scripture. 
 
 § 10-4. Development of Multiformity 
 
 The subject in hand is neither Religion nor the Church, 
 but Theology as a science, and therefore in the period pre- 
 ceding the Reformation the emphasis falls upon the unfolding 
 of multiformity. The return to the Holy Scripture as the 
 sole principium was of far-reaching importance. Such men 
 as Thomas Aquinas, etc., fully intended to base their confes- 
 sion upon the Holy Scripture, and on the other hand it is 
 also known that while devoted to the study of the Script- 
 ures, Erasmus held to the confession of Rome till his death. 
 Similarly the motive of the newer development has been 
 
Chap. V] § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY 659 
 
 sought in the principle of free investigation, but only to be 
 overthrown by the confession of the Reformers themselves, 
 that they never pleaded for a freedom of investigation which 
 lacked all foundation in faith. It is self-evident, moreover, 
 that he who finds the motive of the new evolution of the 
 science of theology too exclusively in the return to the Holy 
 Scripture or too formally in freedom of investigation, excludes 
 thereby Romish theology altogether, and arbitrarily contracts 
 the domain of theology. That the labor of the Romish 
 Church was at first disqualified, is readily understood ; but 
 this narrow view has been abandoned a century ago, and in 
 theological circles the learned Jesuits especially are duly 
 recognized again. It certainly cannot be questioned that 
 the Romish theology of the last decenniums can claim the 
 name of theology in the strict sense of the word with far 
 more justice than what is still brought to the market under 
 the name of theology by the men of the Science of Religion 
 or by the speculative or ethical modern tendency. In view 
 of this the point of departure for this period lies for us in the 
 development of multiformity. Not as if such a multiformity 
 were intended by Luther or Calvin. This is by no means 
 asserted here. At Wittenberg, as well as at Geneva, the con- 
 viction was unassailable for long years that their own confes- 
 sion bore an absolute and exclusive character. Everything 
 that contradicted this was a falsification of the truth, just 
 as in both spheres of the Reformation one's own Church was 
 held to be the purest, not merely by way of comparison, but 
 so as to be actually looked upon as the only lawful contin- 
 uance of the Church of the apostles; and Rome's Church 
 was not only rejected as deformed, but, as a false imitation of 
 the Church, was abhorred by the epigones of the Reforma- 
 tion as the Church of the Antichrist. And this could not be 
 otherwise at first. Notwithstanding the fact that the schism 
 of the Eastern Church had been continued for more than four 
 centuries, men had still refused to consider it anything more 
 than a schism. Age after age they were accustomed to the 
 idea that truth, which of necessity must be absolute, was 
 also bound to maintain this absolute character in the unity of 
 
660 § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY [Div. Ill 
 
 form and expression. And while the rigorous maintenance 
 of the unity of the Church rendered this result possible, the 
 very thought of a certain multiformity for the life of the 
 Church could not commend itself to any one. This concep- 
 tion of unity had entered so deeply into the public conscious- 
 ness of those times, that while multiformity was already in 
 existence de facto, and caused its effects to be felt, they still 
 argued and acted as though there were never anything but the 
 single, uniform Church. It did not enter into the common con- 
 sciousness of that day that the uniformity of the Church had 
 found its logical expression in the papal idea, and that with the 
 refusal of obedience to the Pope that uniformity was broken 
 forever, never again to be restored. In the days of the in- 
 terim the dream was still dreamed, to restore by mutual con- 
 sent, a unity which would also include the papal Church. 
 The numberless conferences between Lutherans and Re- 
 formed, and between Reformed and Anabaptists proceeded 
 without distinction, from the desire to unite in the unity 
 of the faith everything that had broken with Rome. The 
 Byzantine spirit, which had come upon the German princes, 
 rejected the idea of all multiformity in the Church within the 
 boundaries of each, so resolutely and definitely that at length 
 the principle of cuius regio eius religio, i.e. " that the religion 
 of the crown must be the religion of the people," could for a 
 while rule as the leading thought. And when finally, yield- 
 ing to the force of facts, and compelled by the European- 
 Romish league to political cooperation, the correlation of the 
 Lutheran and Reformed elements could no longer be neglected, 
 their mutual recognition resulted more from the impulse of 
 self-protection than from the impulse of a clearly self-conscious 
 conviction. 
 
 That this delusion of unity assumed with the Lutherans 
 forms that were so much more sharply outlined than with 
 the Reformed, — leading first to the rejection of the Reformed 
 exiles on the coast of the North Sea, and finally to the decapi- 
 tation of Crell in 1601, — cannot be attributed to the fact that 
 the Reformed already occupied on principle a far wider stand- 
 point, but was exclusively the result of their clearer insight 
 
Chap. V] § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY 661 
 
 in the liberty of tlie Church. They claimed an autonomous 
 life for the Church under her only King, Christ Jesus, and 
 though later they went so far in granting the State a civil 
 right over sacred things (ius circa sacra), that this liberty 
 of the Church became actually an illusion, yet from the 
 beginning their standpoint was more accurately chosen. In 
 Lutheran lands, the princes, aided by teachers of their ap- 
 pointment acting as ecclesia docens, took the guidance of the 
 Church in their hands, while the Reformed demanded that 
 all ecclesiastical questions should be decided by the lawful 
 representatives of the churches, convened in Synod. This 
 is the reason that the State, in Reformed lands, had less in- 
 terest in the exclusion of those of differing opinions, since 
 it found in these diverging groups a support over against the 
 ever-bolder pretensions of the autonomous churches. Hence 
 the principle, "that the religion of the crown must be the 
 religion of the people," could never gain a foothold in the 
 Reformed lands, the result of which was that from the begin- 
 ning the ecclesiastical life in these lands exhibited a char- 
 acter of greater multiformity. Exiles, who were refused 
 a shelter elsewhere, found protection in Reformed coun- 
 tries, and thus the idea of the liberty of conscience, which 
 is an immediate result of multiformity, became of itself an 
 established doctrine in the Reformed kingdoms much earlier 
 than in Lutheran and Romish states. He who found 
 himself in trouble for his religion's sake had no standing 
 or chance for life anywhere but in the Reformed lands, viz. 
 in Switzerland and in the Netherlands. 
 
 But it cannot be questioned for a moment, that to Luther 
 the honor belongs of having dealt the fatal blow to the false 
 uniformity of the Church. When Luther burned the papal 
 bull, that unity was essentially destroyed. He derived the 
 moral right for this action from no canonical rule, but from 
 the authority of God, by whose Word it was assured unto 
 him in the deepest depths of his conscience. And by this 
 the subjective-religious principle received its right as a 
 power, which, if needs be, could defy churchly authority. 
 And when Luther's initiative found an echo in the hearts 
 
662 § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY [Div. ni 
 
 of many thousands, and became the point of departure for a 
 separate Church organization, multiformity of churchly life 
 became thereby eo ipso, a fact. For if Luther held to the 
 idea that every one who, like himself, broke with Rome, 
 was bound to arrive at like results with himself, from the 
 nature of the case this idea could not be maintained. For so 
 soon as another effort made its appearance by the side of his, 
 which showed itself possessed of the power to be even more 
 efficient in founding churches than his, he might indeed 
 write to Zwingli from Marburg : " You are people of another 
 spirit " ; but after the Pope had been renounced, and the 
 State had no power outside of its boundaries, there was no 
 authority to prohibit this third " Church-forming " power from 
 making its appearance and from consolidating itself: 1517 
 made Luther powerless in 1529. That the Anabaptist and 
 Socinian movements, in their dualistic-mystic and moderate- 
 rationalistic activity, have not produced like results, and 
 still flourish in small groups at most, which have never 
 obtained any universal significance, is not attributable to the 
 fact that these Anabaptists and Socinians were refused the 
 right of existence ; for men would fain have treated the Cal- 
 vinists in the same way, and the Calvinists also barely toler- 
 ated the Martinists ; but it was the immediate result of their 
 want of " Church-formative " (Kirchenbildende) power. 
 Such then was the lesson of history, viz. that the Church 
 of Christ was bound to reveal herself in more than one form, 
 but, at the same time, that this multiformity of revelation did 
 not depend upon an arbitrary whim or freak, but was deter- 
 mined by the spiritual and forming power which appeared, or 
 did not appear, in the several tendencies that raised their heads. 
 Gradually, and of itself, this multiformity of the churches 
 led to the recognition of four fundamental types of Church 
 formation, apart from the Armenian, the Koptic, and other 
 churches in the far East ; viz. as the fruit of the Reformation 
 the Lutheran and the Reformed, and by the side of these the 
 G-reeh and the Romish. Four principal groups, each one of 
 which exhibits a churchly character of its own, reveals a pecul- 
 iar effort, assumes a proper form, and as such, also represents 
 
Chap. V] § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFOEMITY 663 
 
 a special theological tendency. Without attracting at once 
 attention to itself as such, this multiformity was sealed 
 confessionally in the dogma of the visible Church as the 
 revelation of the invisible Church. So long as the Romish- 
 papal delusion of unity was maintained, it was entirely 
 natural that the visible Church should be identified with 
 the invisible. Where there is only one revelation of the 
 essence, a graded difference may be viewed as an obstacle 
 to the adequateness of the revelation. But Rome removed 
 even this objection by the separation between the Clergy 
 and the Laity. As soon, however, as other church for- 
 mations arose, each of which pretended to be the revela- 
 tion of the Church, while they lacked the courage to reject 
 each other's baptism, or to deny salvation in its absolute 
 sense to those of the other confessions, the essence and the 
 revelation of the Church fell of themselves apart. From 
 thenceforth what one saw could no longer be the Church, 
 the body of Christ, and hence of necessity, simultaneously 
 with the multiformity of church formations, the dogma 
 originated of the visible Church as not being adequate to 
 the invisible Church, or to the mystical body of Christ. 
 
 With this an entirely different state of things entered in 
 for theology. So long as uniformity maintained itself, 
 there was no other theology conceivable than that which 
 scientifically systematized the confession of the Church. It 
 could take no other point of departure than in the insti- 
 tuted Church, and could arrive at no other result than had 
 been found by the instituted Church. Investigation of the 
 Holy Scripture had no aim when the instituted Church 
 tendered an official Latin translation, and in exegesis pre- 
 scribed the analogy of faith even to minutest particulars. 
 Everything was known from the start; hence there could 
 be no thirst after truth; to furnish a dialectic proof for 
 the confession of the Church was superfluous for believers, 
 and could serve no purpose for unbelievers, since these 
 were bound to maintain silence for fear of the anathema 
 of the Church. All the benefit, therefore, which one de- 
 rived from Scholastic Theology was the pleasure, noble 
 
664 § 104. DEVELOPMENT OP MULTIFORMITY [Div. Ill 
 
 enough in itself, which one enjoyed in exhibiting the shin- 
 ing brightness of the Church's confession in all its parts, 
 even when seen by the light of the data of logic. But this, 
 of course, became entirely different when the multiformitj'^ 
 of the churches became an established fact. Apologetics 
 over against Paganism, which had gradually become super- 
 fluous, was no longer sufficient to answer the needs of the 
 day, but controversy with the confessions of the other Church 
 formations now presented itself. The unity of the Church 
 had to be maintained under the multiformity in its reve- 
 lation. And no longer able to derive his point of departure 
 from the Church, the theologian had to seek this elsewhere. 
 Thus theology became free, not in the sense of ever being 
 loosened from her object and principium, but so that each of 
 the Church formations expected her to vindicate its effort, 
 and thus from that moment on had to reckon with her criticism. 
 It was self-evident that, resulting from the difference of spirit- 
 ual disposition and spiritual sphere, the multiformity of the 
 Church formations should also communicate its multiform 
 stamp to theology. But theology as such could never dis- 
 miss the problem of how this multiformity was to be brought 
 into harmony with the unity of the body of Christ. It had 
 already been seen that the truth of God was too rich and 
 the great salvation in Christ too aboundingly precious, by 
 reason of the Divine character exhibited in both, for them 
 to be able to reach their full expression in one human form. 
 And though the several nations assimilated one and the same 
 truth and the selfsame salvation, the disposition of the several 
 groups of people was too many-sided not to adopt them in dif- 
 ferent ways, and to reproduce them in different manners. 
 The claim could never be surrendered that each one for him- 
 self should accept and confess the truth in the way in which 
 it appeared most accurate to him and satisfied his needs most 
 fully. But human limitations were at least recognized ; and 
 theology could not rest until, together with all the care which 
 she bestowed upon the treatment of one of her concrete 
 forms, she at the same time allowed the relation between the 
 ideal and concrete fully to exhibit itself. She also was not 
 
Chap. V] §104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFORMITY 665 
 
 able to make the full content of Divine truth shine forth in 
 a single deduction. She could not be studied except by men, 
 and hence like the Church life itself she remained subject to 
 human limitations. But since the churches could deal only 
 with the concrete result, and thus incurred the danger of 
 communicating a sectarian flavor to their life, and of losing 
 sight of the catholicity of the Church as an organism, it was 
 the mission of theology to raise herself on the wings of the 
 idea above what was exclusively concrete, and from this 
 higher vantage ground to vindicate the good and perfect 
 right of the instituted churches to their confession and life- 
 tendency. 
 
 This higher call inspired theology with a zeal such as she 
 had not known since the fourth and fifth centuries. Again 
 she had to fix her point of departure objectively in the Holy 
 Scripture and subjectively in palingenesis, and in the faith 
 awakened by this. Again free access to the Holy Script- 
 ure was accorded her. The Vulgate, as the sanctioned trans- 
 lation, fell away. Exegesis became a serious study by which 
 to master the content of the Divine Revelation. In dogma, 
 with the Scripture as the touchstone, distinction had to be 
 made between truth and error. Church history was called 
 upon to point out the several streams of Church life which 
 had been held back under the false papal unity, and to 
 exhibit them as still existing historically. The difi;eience 
 between formation and deformation of churches had become 
 tangible, and it was the task of theology openly to make 
 exhibition of the difference between the two. Thus the- 
 ology became an independent power, with a task of her own, 
 with a life-purpose of her own, and bound to the claim of 
 truth rather than to any churchly decision. 
 
 However energetic and sparkling the life was which charac- 
 terized this reformative development of theology, it would 
 have been better still if she could have conquered her lib- 
 erty, in the good sense, at once. But in this she only partially 
 succeeded. Her growth outside of the universities is scarcely 
 worthy of mention, and at the universities, because of the 
 appointment of the professors by the State, she became too 
 
666 § 104. DEVELOPMENT OF MULTirORMITY [Div. Ill 
 
 greatly subject to the influence of the State. Provisionally 
 this was preferable to being bound to the instituted churches, 
 but it entailed the subsequent loss of separating her too greatly 
 from the life of the Church, and of allowing too great an in- 
 fluence to be exerted upon her by non-theological factors. 
 Since the ministry was educated almost exclusively at the uni- 
 versities, theology, with her diverging tendencies and schools, 
 has undoubtedly exerted a disturbing influence upon the 
 churchly life. And as a reaction against this it has called 
 the narrow-hearted sectarian stream into life, which would 
 prefer to confine theology to an ecclesiastical seminarium. 
 This measure would restore the Romish passion for uniform- 
 ity, but now without the counterpoise which Rome still 
 furnished in its world-wide organization and in its orders. 
 Compulsion here is of no avail, and since the multiform- 
 ity of churchly life goes and must go as far as it is post- 
 ulated by the variations in the organic life of the Church, 
 so likewise, in order to fulfil her mission, theology must be 
 left entirely free, and cannot be limited by any boundary 
 except by such as is indicated in the life-relations themselves. 
 Not the State, as having authority in the sphere of the mag- 
 istrate, but science and the Church are here to determine the 
 boundary. Theology is inconceivable as a science studied for 
 mere pleasure, and therefore every theological effort, which 
 does not find a corresponding stream in the Church, is bound 
 of itself to bleed to death. Hence for a while it progressed 
 fairly well, i.e. as long as the stream of churchly life pro- 
 pelled itself with power. Both Lutheran and Reformed 
 theology completed their first task when they explained 
 systematically these two new tendencies in the churchly 
 life and in the churchly confession, and thus vindicated 
 them over against Rome as well as over against each other. 
 But so soon as the pulse of the churchly life began to 
 beat more faintly, foreign factors began to undermine the 
 healthful vitality of theology as well. This became evi- 
 dent in the syncretistic and pietistic tendencies, even before 
 Rationalism, as the train-bearer of Philosophy, threw down 
 the glove to her. 
 
Chap. V] § 104. DEVELOPMENT OE MULTIFORMITY 667 
 
 In the seventeenth century Syncretism appeared as a nat- 
 ural reaction against the multiformity of churchly life. And 
 it cannot be denied that George Calixtus was actuated by 
 a spiritual motive. The controversy and the separation in 
 churchly life had caused the instituted churches to lose too 
 much from sight their unity in Christ and their sodality as 
 revelations of the body of Christ, and it was against this that 
 Calixtus raised his irenical voice. On the other hand, it 
 must be said that this was accompanied by a certain humanistic 
 indifference to the points of dogma which were in question 
 between the churches. A man like Calixtus did not under- 
 stand that one could really be concerned because of a contro- 
 versy about Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, or the 
 negation of Substantiation. And what was worse, he was 
 not sufficiently acute as a theologian to construct his irenics 
 theologically, so that he saw no other means than to go back 
 to the councils of the first centuries. Hence his effort could 
 not be crowned with success. This irenical wave went down 
 as rapidly as it had risen. Not, however, without reminding 
 theology of her vocation to maintain more faithfully the es- 
 sential unity of the Church in the midst of her multiform 
 tendencies. Holding itself too closely to the instituted 
 Church, theology had departed too widely from the spirit- 
 ual life of the Church as an organism. 
 
 This last fault avenged itself in the movement of the Pie- 
 tists. Theology had become too abstract. She had found 
 her foundations in the Holy Scripture, but she had taken that 
 Holy Scripture too one-sidedly as a revelation of doctrine, 
 and had thereby lost too much from sight the spiritual 
 reality, and had forgotten that if Luther had found the 
 rock-foundation on which he stood in the Scripture, he had 
 also clung with both hands to that rock. In the end, the 
 inspiring motive for theology must always come from the. 
 subject. Without the spiritual alliance between the theologi- 
 cal subject and the spiritual reality of which the Holy Script- 
 ure brings us the revelation, a barren Scholasticism is con- 
 ceivable, but no vitalized and living theology. This was: 
 felt by Spener; hence the reaction that went forth from him 
 
668 § 105. THE APPARENT DEFEAT [Div. Ill 
 
 and from liis followers against orthodox theology; a reac- 
 tion, however, which, as is generally the case, wanted to 
 throw out "mit dam Kiude das Bad," i.e. "the bath with 
 the child." At heart Pietism became aw^i-theological. How- 
 ever much of invaluable good it has brought to the life of the 
 churches, it was unable to restore theology from its barren- 
 ness to new freshness. It rather cooperated with the syn- 
 cretistic movement, and so allowed non-churchly factors free 
 play to work destructively upon theology. Reformation 
 theology has not known a second quickening (^ilan) in the 
 higher sense of the word. She has worked out more minutely 
 what was at first treated only in vague terms. She has fur- 
 nished rich detailed studies. With hair-splitting exactness 
 she has picked apart almost every conceivable antithesis, with 
 the Lutherans as well as with the Reformed. And especially 
 in exegesis and in Church history she has continued to gather 
 her laurels, but as theology she has remained stationary ; and 
 when the stream of churchly life has flowed away from under 
 her, she has finally proved to be an expanse of ice that could 
 not be trusted, and that broke and sank away the moment 
 Philosophy threw itself upon her with all its weight. 
 
 § 105. The Apparent Defeat 
 
 The reformation movement certainly succeeded in the six- 
 teenth century in exorcising the pagan spirit from Humanism. 
 Whatever gains this revival of the pagan spirit achieved 
 in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was not 
 capable of obtaining a solid footing among the nations of Mid- 
 dle and Northern Europe. And when the conflict which Hu- 
 manism ill league with the Reformation had undertaken 
 against the papal power approached its end, it can be said with- 
 out exaggeration, that the Reformation had become Rerrin im 
 Ilause, and that Humanism had to adapt itself to the per- 
 formance of all sorts of subsidiary service. Paganism in its hu- 
 manistic form was bent too much upon the outward world, and 
 was too little animated and too vaguely conscious of being a 
 bearer of a special life -principle, to enable it to place a life- 
 and world-view of its own over against that of the Reforma- 
 
Chap. V] § 105. THE APPARENT DEFEAT 669 
 
 tion. But if it subjected itself, this subjection was not 
 sincere, and the theologians soon perceived that children 
 of another spirit cooperated with them in the other faculties. 
 The more Protestantism was interpreted from its negative 
 side, and free investigation was taken as investigation with- 
 out a spiritual tie, and the more the liberty of conscience, and 
 gradually even that of the press, assisted in the publication 
 of what was thought and pondered, so much the more did 
 a spirit of free thought begin to develop itself among the 
 well-to-do classes in the countries of the Reformation, which 
 impelled individual thinkers to devise philosophical systems, 
 and which among the great masses created an irreligiousness 
 without ideals, that entered into an ever sharper conflict with 
 the mystical and ideal character of the Christian religion. 
 It has by no means been the thorough idealistic systems of 
 Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz that have created the great- 
 est commotion. Much more dangerous were the effects 
 worked by Deism, which spread across the Continent from 
 England; by the spirit of the Encyclopedists, which caused 
 its power to be felt from France ; and by the so-called " Auf- 
 kljirung " (Illumination) which quickly asserted itself in Ger- 
 many. To some extent the origin of these influences was 
 truly philosophical, if philosophical be taken as antithesis to 
 theological; but as a rule they were of too low an order 
 and of too little exaltation to justify their claiming for them- 
 selves the honorable name of philosophical in the higher 
 sense of the word. It was a low moralism, such as plain 
 public opinion loves, which clips every wing, and knows no 
 higher standard than the everyday and common one. Low 
 shrubberies might grow ; each oak or cedar, that wanted to 
 lift up its head, was immediately cut down. For the ideal 
 there was nothing to spare but mockery, poetry went down 
 into sentimentalism, admiration was unknown, men were 
 weaned from all higher impulses and laughed at the fools who 
 still persisted in a desire to go up in the balloon. Of course 
 such a time-spirit and the Christian religion stood over 
 against each other as two antipodes. Too bad that m just 
 those days the Christian Church and Christian Theology 
 
670 § 105. THE APPAEENT DEFEAT [Div. Ill 
 
 lacked the holy fire and energy of heroism to withstand 
 with righteous indignation this spirit of dulness and su- 
 perficiality. But the churches and the universities them- 
 selves were caught in the meshes of this unholy spirit, and 
 men soon saw in Rationalism the caricature of what Christian 
 theology ought to be. And this in turn was attacked by 
 Supernaturalism in such a way as to make the entire defeat 
 of Christendom still more humiliating. Pietistic circles, to be 
 sure, were maintained in Lutheran lands, and mystical and 
 methodistical circles in Reformed lands, which hid the salt of 
 the Gospel, lest it should lose its savor, but these spiritually 
 attuned circles failed of exerting any saving influence upon 
 ofiicial churches and official theology. The ground on 
 which this Deism and this Aufklarung offered battle was no 
 ground on which the Christian Church or Christian theology 
 could join battle. The thrusts given did not carry the sting 
 sufficiently deep to reach the deepest life-consciousness. 
 Thus it remained a mere skirmishing, a constant skirmishing 
 on the outer lines, and no one seemed to realize into how 
 shameful a corner they were being pushed. It was no longer 
 the Church against the world, nor theology against the wis- 
 dom of Paganism ; but it was the world in the Church, and 
 it was theology irrecognizably metamorphosed under ration- 
 alistic and naturalistic influences into a caricature of itself. 
 
 But, however feebly, the antithesis continued to be felt. 
 Rationalism over against Supernaturalism certainly implied 
 that the scientific consciousness of unregenerate humanity 
 refused to undergo the influence of Revelation, and therefore 
 demanded that the treasure of Revelation should first be 
 examined at the frontier by reason. And, on the other 
 hand, the very appearance of Supernaturalism as such im- 
 plied an effort to make certain demands for the scientific con- 
 sciousness of regenerate humanity, by which Revelation might 
 escape from testing by the reason. The deepest antithe- 
 sis between theology and the wisdom of the world was cer- 
 tainly present in this almost fatal conflict ; only it received 
 no special emphasis as such from either side. Rationalism 
 did not appear against the Church, but in the Church, and 
 
Chap. V] § 105. THE APPARENT DEFEAT 671 
 
 adapted itself, therefore, to forms which often did not fit 
 in with its principle, and weakened itself by its utter want 
 of piety. But Supernaturalism also was not able to array 
 itself for a conflict of principles. It betrayed somewhat more 
 of a religious sense, but of a kind which never reached the 
 warmth of the mystical life of communion with the Infinite ; 
 which, therefore, scarcely noticed the psychological antithe- 
 sis; and being almost more hostile to Pietism than to Ration- 
 alism, it, for the most part, sought strength in sesquipedalian 
 words and in lofty terms ; and deemed its duty performed by 
 the defence of faith in the great facts of Revelation, indepen- 
 dently of their spiritual significance. 
 
 As a result of this wrong attitude, theology lost in less than 
 half a century almost all the authority it had exerted in 
 the circles of science and public opinion. It was no longer 
 thought worth while to continue a conflict which, from both 
 sides, was carried on with so little tact and spirit. It soon be- 
 came evident that the interval which separated Rationalists 
 and Supernaturalists grew perceptibly less. He who was 
 still bent upon making a name for himself as a theologian, 
 withdrew into some side study of theology, in which at least 
 there were historical and literary laurels to be gathered. The 
 Church life went into a decline. The life of the clergy par- 
 took somewhat of the character of the times when " priest 
 laughed at priest " in the days of Imperial Rome. And it was 
 very clear, as early as the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 that theology had nothing more to say with respect to the 
 great problems which were presenting themselves. Thus the 
 French Revolution came, without thinking it worth her while 
 to assume any other attitude toward the Church than that of 
 disdain. The " Italia fara da se," which was a proverb con- 
 cerning Italy's future in the days of Cavour could then have 
 been prophesied concerning Philosophy : Filosofia fara da se ; 
 i.e. "Philosophy will have her own way." Theology could 
 exert an influence in three ways : at her frontiers she could 
 give battle to the spirit of Paganism, or she could make a 
 deeper study of the faith of the Christian Church, as had 
 been done in the fourth and sixteenth centuries, or, finally. 
 
672 § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESUBRECTION [Div. lU 
 
 she could make the mystical and practical life of the Church 
 express itself in conscious action. But when theology did 
 none of these three, but squandered her time in a skirmish, 
 which scarcely touched upon the first antithesis, which went 
 outside of the mysteries of the faith, and had no connection 
 with the mystical-practical life of believers, she herself threw 
 her once brilliant crown down into the dust, and the opponent 
 could not be censured for speaking of theology as an antiquity 
 no longer actual. 
 
 § 106. The Period of Resurrection 
 The nineteenth century is far superior to the eighteenth, 
 not merely in a cosmical, but also in the religious sense. 
 Here also action effected reaction. The bent-down spring 
 rebounded at last. And it will not readily be denied, that in 
 our nineteenth century a mystical-religious movement has 
 operated on the spirit, which may be far from comparable 
 to the activity of the Reformation, but which, leaving out 
 of account the Reformation period, seeks to rival it in recent 
 history. Revivals of all sorts of tenets belong to the order 
 of the day, in Europe as well as in America. In spite 
 of its one-sidedness. Perfectionism has gained a mighty fol- 
 lowing. Methodist and Baptist churches have developed an 
 activity which would have been inconceivable in the eigh- 
 teenth century, and which affords its masterpiece in the Sal- 
 vation Army. Missions have assumed such wide proportions, 
 that now they have attained a universal, historical signifi- 
 cance. New interests have been awakened in religious and 
 churchly questions, which make manifest how different a spirit 
 had come to the word. Even negative tendencies have found 
 it advisable, in their way, to sing the praises of religion. And, 
 however unfavorably one may judge of Mormonism, Spiritism, 
 etc., it can scarcely be denied that their rise and temporary 
 success would not have been possible, if the problem of reli- 
 gion had not taken a powerful hold upon the general mind. 
 If then, after the shameful defeat of theology in the period 
 of the " Illumination " (Aufklarung), we may affirm an un- 
 deniable resurrection of theology in the nineteenth century, 
 
Chap. V] § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION 673 
 
 let it be said that this is owing, first of all, to the many mys- 
 tical influences, which, against all expectation, have restored 
 once more a current to the religious waters. A breath of 
 wind from above has gone out upon the nations. By the 
 woes of the French Revolution and Napoleon's tyrannies the 
 nations were prepared for a new departure in an ideal di- 
 rection. The power of palingenesis has almost suddenly 
 revealed itself with rare force. By the very radicalism of 
 the revolutionary theory the sense of a twofold life, of a two- 
 fold effort, and of a twofold world-view has come to a clearer 
 consciousness in every department. Moreover, it may not 
 escape our notice, that it has pleased God, in almost every 
 land and in every part of the Church, to raise up gifted per- 
 sons, who, by Him "transferred from death into life," as 
 singers, as prophets, as statesmen, as jurists, and as theolo- 
 gians, have borne a witness for Christ such as has not been 
 heard of since the days of Luther and Calvin. 
 
 It would, however, be a great mistake to explain the resur- 
 rection of theology from this powerful revival alone. It 
 may not be overlooked that this mystical-pietistical revival 
 was more than indifferent to theology as such. As far as it 
 called into life preparatory schools for ministers and mission- 
 aries, this revival lacked all theological consciousness, and 
 undertook little more than a certain ecclesiastical training for 
 its students ; a sort of discipline more bent upon advancing 
 a spirit of piety and developing a power of public address, 
 than upon theological scholarship. It was more the " passion 
 of the Soul," and the desire after religious quietistic enjoy- 
 ment, that inspired general activity, than the purpose, cher- 
 ished even from afar, to give battle in the domain of thought, 
 or to maintain the honor of Christ in the intellectual world. 
 The life of the heart, or emotions, and the life of clear conscious- 
 ness were looked upon more and more as separate and dis- 
 tinct, and religious activity, which found itself strong within 
 the domain of the emotions, but very weak on intellectual 
 ground, deemed it good tactics to withdraw its powers within 
 the domain within which it felt itself to be invincible. If 
 this reveil had been left to itself, the vocation of Christianity 
 
674 § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION [Div. Ill 
 
 to take up the content of Revelation also into the thinking 
 consciousness, and from this to reproduce it, would readily 
 have passed into entire forgetfulness. And it is Philosophy 
 which has been used by the King of the Church as a means 
 of discipline to force His redeemed once again to enter upon 
 that sacred vocation. 
 
 It was only when the Christian Church had lost her 
 authority completely and theology lay in the sand as a con- 
 quered hero, that in Kant and his epigones the men arose 
 who, anew and more radically than their predecessors, re- 
 sumed the ancient conflict of the Greek-Roman Philosophy 
 against the Christian religion, which had been broken off 
 rather than decided in the third century. The logic of 
 principles demanded this. Where two contrary principles 
 come to stand over against each other, it is of no avail that 
 the conflict between them is abandoned after the manner 
 of Constantine, or that, as was done in the Middle Ages 
 and in the first period of the Reformation, it is suspended 
 and limited by the preponderance of churchly authority. 
 Such contrary principles but await the first favorable oppor- 
 tunity to take new positions from both sides, and to continue 
 their inevitable conflict, if possible, still more radically. Car- 
 tesius, Spinoza and Locke began this conflict from their side 
 at a somewhat earlier date, but without making the Christian 
 religion feel that it was a conflict of life and death. And 
 only when the "Illumination " (Aufklarung) had depleted 
 the Christian religion entirely of her honor, did Philosophy 
 obtain the chance to come forward in full armor. For though 
 it cannot be denied, that with such men as Kant and Fichte, 
 and especially Schelling, and in part also with Hegel, Phi- 
 losophy did by no means tread the Christian religion under 
 foot, but rather tried in its way to restore the honor of the 
 Christian mysteries, which the Church had shamefully aban- 
 doned ; yet it would but betray color-blindness if we refused 
 to recognize how the gigantic development of modern Phi- 
 losophy has revived most radically the ancient and necessar}^ 
 conflict between the unregenerate consciousness and the prin- 
 cipium of palingenesis, and with ever greater precision places 
 
Chap. V] § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION 675 
 
 the pantheistic starting-point over against Christian Theism 
 — even though its first ardor is now followed by a period of 
 exhaustion. 
 
 The greatest step in advance effected by this consisted in 
 the fact that Kant investigated the thinking subject, and 
 thereby gave rise to a riper development of the organic con- 
 ception of science. The principle and method of science had 
 been made an object of study before, but in the sense in 
 which at present we recognize an organic whole of science 
 it was still entirely unknown, even in the days of the Refor- 
 mation. At that time men still produced piece-work, each 
 in his own domain, and effected certain transitions at the 
 boundaries by the construction of temporary bridges; but 
 the subject, as the organic central point from which went 
 forth the whole activity of science as in so many beams of 
 one light-centre, was not yet apprehended. Hence the earlier 
 theology, however richly furnished within its own domain, 
 makes an impression which is only in part truly scientific. 
 Before Kant, theology had as little awakened to a clear con- 
 sciousness of itself as any other science, and much less had the 
 position of theology in the organism of science been made clear. 
 However much Kant and his contemporaries and followers 
 intended injury to the Christian religion, the honor is theirs 
 of having imparted the impetus which has enabled theology 
 to look more satisfactorily into the deepest problems that face 
 it. Schleiermacher has unquestionably exerted the most 
 preponderant influence upon this resurrection of theology. 
 This, apart from his titanic spirit, is owing more especially 
 to the fact that in Schleiermacher the mystic-pietistic power 
 of the life of the emotions entered into so beautiful and 
 harmonious a union with the new evolution of Philosophy. 
 At however many points his foot may have slipped, and in 
 however dangerous a manner he cut himself loose from ob- 
 jective Revelation, Schleiermacher was nevertheless the first 
 theologian in the higher scientific sense, since he was the 
 first to examine theology as a whole, and to determine in 
 his way her position in the organism of science. That the re- 
 sult of his work has nevertheless been more destructive than 
 
676 § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION [Div. Ill 
 
 constructive, must be explained from the fact that he did not 
 perceive that the conflict did not involve the triumph of Theol- 
 oo-y over Philosophy, or the victory of Philosophy over The- 
 ology ; but from each side a first principle was in operation, 
 vrhich necessarily on the one side gave rise to a Philosophy 
 entirely naturalistic, seconded by a religion both pantheistic 
 and mystical, vrhile in opposition to this a proper Christian 
 Philosophy must needs construct its conception of the whole 
 of science, and in this organism of science vindicate the 
 honor of a theistical theology. By this, however, the fact is 
 not altered that Schleiermacher has given theology back to 
 herself, has lifted her out of her degradation, has inspired her 
 with new courage and self-confidence, and that in this formal 
 sense even confessional theology, which may not hide the 
 defeat of his epigones, owes to him the higher view-point at 
 present occupied by the whole of theology, — a merit the 
 tribute of gratitude for which has been paid to Schleier- 
 macher by even Romish theology in more ways than one. 
 
 It is to be I'egretted, however, that with the awakened 
 desire to orient itself in the organism of science, theology 
 has suffered so greatly from the want of self-limitation. 
 The intensive power with which theology studied and dis- 
 sected the content of Divine mysteries in the fourth and 
 fifth centuries, partly also in the thirteenth, but more espe- 
 cially still in the sixteenth century, was entirely exhausted. 
 There have been many who could scarcely imagine how so 
 much ado could have been made over the rjv ore ovk fjv of 
 Arius, or over the " This is my body," in the conflict over the 
 sacraments. Is not that which one confesses in common with 
 all Christians, at least with all Protestants, of tenfold greater 
 importance ? Moreover, would not the strength of resistance 
 in defence of the Christian religion increase, in proportion 
 as these interconfessional differences are buried deeper in the 
 dust of forgetfulness ? Thus, in a sense more dangerous than 
 in Calixtus' days, there arose a syncretistic reaction against 
 the multiformity which, under the ordinance of God, had un- 
 folded itself in the Reformation. This reaction was certain 
 either to force a return to the unity of Rome, or to lead to 
 
Chap. V] § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION 677 
 
 such an extinction of the conception " Christian," that at 
 length even Buddhism becomes " Christian." It lay in the 
 nature of the case that every " Union " was and could be noth- 
 ing but a " machine," so that those of a more practical turn 
 of mind could think of no other unity except that which 
 had existed historically before multiformity came into being. 
 While, on the other hand, when the conflict was interpreted 
 as a defence of the good right of religion over against the 
 intellect, piety had to be generalized, till at length all kinds 
 of religious utterances were classed under one and the self- 
 same conception. The result of this has been that a certain 
 Romanizing tendency has met with a wide reception, espe- 
 cially through Schleiermacher's emphasis put upon the Ohurch, 
 which led to Romanticism on a large scale in Germany, and 
 in England to High-Ohurchism. A second result was that 
 theology, which ever pursued an arbitrary " Conception of 
 Union," involuntarily entered in the Vermittelungstheologie 
 upon an inclined plane in which it would readily lose all 
 mastership over itself. And as another result no less, a 
 third tendency appeared, which transmuted that which was 
 positively Christian into the idea of the piously religious, 
 and thus prepared the transition of theology into the sci- 
 ence of religion. 
 
 That this last tendency, even though it is still called 
 theological, furnishes no theology, needs no further proof. 
 The science of religion is an anthropological, ethnological, 
 philosophical study, but is in no single respect theology. 
 And when it presents itself as such at the several univer- 
 sities, it plays an unworthy, because untrue, part. Ver- 
 mittelungstheologie also is more and more disposed to put 
 away its theological character. We desire in no way to 
 minimize its value, especially in its earlier period. It has 
 furnished excellent results in many ways, and in many 
 respects it has brought lasting gains. But in two ways it 
 has lost ground. Not perceiving that by the side of the- 
 ology a Christian Philosophy was bound to arise, it has 
 theologized philosophy too greatly and interpreted theology 
 too philosophically. On the other hand, it has sought its 
 
678 § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION [Dit. Ill 
 
 point of support too one-sidedly in the mystical life of the 
 emotions, and thus it has deemed itself able to dispense with 
 the objective foundation in the Word of God and in the insti- 
 tuted Church. By virtue of its character, therefore, it occu- 
 pied no definite view-point. Chameleon-like, it has lent itself 
 to all kinds of divisions into groups and individual variations. 
 But it has never denied its general feature, of feeling stronger 
 in its philosophical premises than in historic theology, and so 
 it has preferred to turn itself irenically to the left, while it 
 shrank from confessional theology as from an unwelcome 
 apparition. It has also prosecuted no doubt the study of 
 history, especially history of dogma, but ever with this pur- 
 pose in view — viz. to dissolve it, in order presently, by the 
 aid of the distinction between kernel and form, to put its 
 philosophical thought into the dogma. This is the case with 
 the more intellectual, while in other circles of the Vermit- 
 telungstheologie the dualism between the emotional and in- 
 tellectual life has come to so open a breach, that the transition 
 to the school of Ritschl, which has anathematized every meta- 
 physical conception, is already achieved. However widely 
 spread the influence of this Vermittelungstheologie may be, 
 even in Scotland and in America, now that she more and 
 more deserts her objective point of support in the Holy 
 Scripture, sets herself with ever greater hostility against the 
 Confessional churches, and continues ever more boldly her 
 method of pulverizing Christian truth, she can no longer 
 be a theology in the real sense of the word, but turns of 
 necessity into a philosophical and theosophical mysticism. 
 However much she may assert that she still holds fast to 
 Christ, it is nothing but self-deception. As history slips 
 away from her and the self-testimony of the Christ, Christ 
 becomes to her more and more a mere name without a con- 
 crete stamp of its own, and consequently is nothing but the 
 clothing of a religious idea, just such as Modernism wills it. 
 
 It is entirely different, on the other hand, with confessional 
 theology, such as the Lutheran, Reformed, and Romish the- 
 ologies, which are beginning to give more frequent signs of 
 life. In its confessional type it continues to bear a concrete 
 
Chap. V] § 106. THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION 679 
 
 and a real historical character, and behind this shield it is 
 safe against the attack which subjectivism in the intellectual 
 and mystical domain is trying to make upon the Christian 
 religion. It holds an objective point of support in the 
 Holy Scripture and in the dogmatic development, which 
 protects it from being overwhelmed in the floods of many 
 waters. And what is of greater significance still, thanks to 
 this very objective-historic character, it is in less danger 
 '. of being involuntarily annexed by philosophy. It may even 
 now be prophesied, that, while modern theology fades into a 
 science of religion or into a speculation, and Vermittelungs- 
 theologie shallows into mysticism, or finds its grave in the 
 philosophical stream, this confessional theology alone will 
 maintain its position. Even now it can be observed how 
 this theology will fulfil a twofold mission : first, a univer- 
 sal one, viz. so to investigate the fundamental questions 
 which are common to all the churches, that the radical 
 difference between the consciousness of regenerate and un- 
 regenerate humanity shall ever be more fully exposed to 
 light; and, secondly, to raise the special form of its own 
 confessional consciousness to the level of the consciousness- 
 form of our age. But this confessional theology will only 
 come to a peaceful process of development when the convic- 
 tion shall be more universally accepted, that the radical 
 difference between regenerate and unregenerate humanity 
 extends across the entire domain of the higher sciences, and 
 therefore calls for two kinds of science just as soon as the 
 investigation deserts the material basis and can no longer be 
 constructed without the intermingling of the subjective factor. 
 The exact boundary-line between Theology and Philosophy 
 must not be sought between Christian Theology and panthe- 
 istic or pagan Philosophy, but between a Theology and 
 Philosophy, hoth of which, as Keckermann already desired 
 it, stand at the view-point of palingenesis. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 
 
 [The figures given refer to pages.] 
 
 Abelard, 658. 
 
 JEschylus, 655. 
 
 Alcuin, 653. 
 
 d'Alembert, 10. 
 
 Alstedt, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 30. 
 
 Anselm, 383. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 17, 165, 235, 236, 
 
 238, 323, 335, 595, 657, 658. 
 Aristotle, 3, 16, 124, 231, 288, 293, 
 
 362, 408, 650, 655, 666. 
 Anna, 586, 646, 676. 
 Athanasius, 232, 233, 234, 646, 647. 
 Augustine, 231, 236, 237, 239, 281, 
 
 323, 335, 355, 590, 643, 647, 650. 
 
 Bach, 68, 536. 
 
 Bacon of Verulam, 17. 
 
 Bardas, 654. 
 
 Bede, 653. 
 
 Beethoven, 536. 
 
 Beneke, 20. 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, 658. 
 
 Berthold, 628. 
 
 Boeckh, 11, 194. 
 
 Boerhave, 11. 
 
 Bohl, 574, 575. 
 
 Bonaventura, 17. 
 
 Bornheim, 141. 
 
 Brockhaus, 10. 
 
 Buhle, 11, 18. 
 
 Burdaoh, 19. 
 
 BtisGh, 18. 
 
 Csesarius, 233. 
 
 Calixtus, 667, 676. 
 
 Calvin, 238, 265, 309, 323, 374, 375, 
 
 571, 575, 622, 659, 673. 
 Capella, Maroianus, 16. 
 Carrifere, 521. 
 
 Cartesius, 674. 
 Cassiodorus of Seville, 16. 
 Celsus, 642, 655. 
 Chrysostom, 233. 
 Cicero, 624, 655. 
 Clarisse, 11. 
 Clement, 648. 
 Confusius, 151. 
 Constantine, 644, 647, 674. 
 Crell, 660. 
 
 Damascene, John, 650. 
 Darwin, 165, 209. 
 Demosthenes, 3. 
 Descartes, 669. 
 Diderot, 10. 
 
 Dionysius Areopagite, 234. 
 Doedes, 631. 
 
 Edison, 211. 
 
 Elyot, 6, 11. 
 
 Erasmus, 658. 
 
 Erigena, John Scotus, 653. 
 
 Ernesti, Johann August, 18, 19. 
 
 Ersch, 10. 
 
 Eschenburg, 19. 
 
 Eusebius, 5. 
 
 Eiohte, 11, 16, 19, 20, 22, 36, 37, 
 
 133, 674. 
 Erancke, 628. 
 Eurst, 60. 
 
 Galen, 2. 
 Gessner, 18, 19. 
 Gladstone, 409. 
 Gottschick, 628. 
 Gregory of Nyssa, 234. 
 Gregory the Presbyter, 232. 
 
 681 
 
682 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 
 
 Gregory Nazianzus, 232, 235. 
 Griiber, 10, 22. 
 
 Hagenbaoh, 635. 
 
 Harless, 635. 
 
 Hartmann, Von, 521, 523. 
 
 Hefter, 19. 
 
 Hegel, 11, 16, 20, 228, 309, 310, 312, 
 
 674. 
 Hegesippus, 642. 
 Heraolitus, 124, 270. 
 Hesyohius, 4, 5. 
 Hierocles, 642. 
 Hieronymus, 650. 
 Hincmar, 653. 
 Hodge, 318. 
 Homer, 229, 655. 
 Honorius III., 653. 
 Horace, 655. 
 
 Hugo of St. Victor, 16, 17. 
 Hyperius, 635. 
 
 Innocent II., 658. 
 Isidore of Seville, 16. 
 Isidorus Hispalensis, 653. 
 Isoorates, 3. 
 
 Jablonski, 10. 
 Josephus, 622. 
 Justinian I., 654. 
 
 Kant, 19, 133, 147, 165, 288, 293, 397, 
 
 476, 674, 675. 
 Kienlen, 628. 
 Kirchner, 206. 
 Klugel, 11, 18. 
 Koch, 116. 
 Kraus, 19. 
 Krug, 11. 
 
 Laertius, Diogenes, 16. 
 
 Leibnitz, 669. 
 
 Locke, 674. 
 
 Lombard, Peter, 236. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, 102. 
 
 Lucien, 231. 
 
 Luther, 281, 398, 659, 662, 673. 
 
 Maooovius, 388. 
 Martiuius, Mathias, 7, 9, 10. 
 Martyr, Justin, 232, 233. 
 Maurus, Hrabanus, 16, 653. 
 
 Meyer, 10. 
 Moor, de, 238, 256. 
 Mozart, 211, 263, 536. 
 Mursinna, 11. 
 
 Napoleon, 673. 
 Naumann, 536. 
 
 Origen, 5, 362, 643, 644, 650, 653. 
 
 Paohymeres, 234. 
 
 Philalaos, 126. 
 
 Philostorgius, 233. 
 
 Photius, 234, 650, 654. 
 
 Pierer, 10. 
 
 Planck, 635. 
 
 Plato, 13, 14, 16, 17, 124, 203, 229, 
 
 230, 231, 362, 408, 420, 650, 655, 
 
 656. 
 Pliny, 2, 16. 
 Plutarch, 124, 127, 231. 
 Porphyry, 642, 655. 
 Pythagoras, 126. 
 
 Quadratus, 642. 
 Quintilian, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14. 
 
 Rabiger, 45, 52, 635. 
 Ramus, Peter, 9, 293. 
 Raphael, 68. 
 Reimarus, 18. 
 Reisch, 7. 
 Reuss, 11. 
 Ringelberg, 7. 
 Ritsohl, 678. 
 Ruef, 11. 
 Runze, 2. 
 
 Scala, Paulus de, 7, 10. 
 
 Soalichius, Paul, 5. 
 
 Sohaller, 19. 
 
 Schelling, 20, 674. 
 
 Sohleiermaoher, 228, 240, 242, 309, 310, 
 
 311, 313, 314, 627, 675, 676, 677. 
 Schmid, Erhard, 11, 19. 
 Socrates, 124, 656. 
 Solon, 124. 
 Spencer, 250. 
 Speusippus, 16. 
 Spinoza, 674, 699. 
 Staudlin, 635. 
 Strabo, 4. 
 
ESTDEX OF PROPER NAMES 
 
 683 
 
 Suicer, 5, 231, 232, 234. 
 Suidas, 10. 
 Sultzer, 19. 
 
 Tasche, 20. 
 Thales, 124. 
 Theodoret, 234. 
 Theophylaot, 235. 
 Tholosanus, Gregorius, 9. 
 Tittman, 20. 
 
 Varro, 16, 237. 
 
 Veronious, Franciscus, 587. 
 
 Vincent of Beauvais, 16, 17. 
 
 Virgil, 655. 
 Vitruvius, 4. 
 Vives, Louis de, 17. 
 Voetius, 564, 587, 622. 
 
 Woltjer, 194. 
 Wower, 9. 
 
 Xenophon, 124. 
 
 Zedler, 10. 
 Zezschwitz, 637. 
 Zonaras, 5. 
 Zwingli, 661. 
 
i