DEVELOPMENT
Y73
DEVELOPMENT
tber, -wlko in his reply (dated April SI, 1544) finds it icult to believe in the change, bat says that, at all tnts, r>6 vay has not received this doctrine fh>m him,
I that be (Lather) would continue to fight that bomination" publicly and privately. After his re-
II to Hungary, D^vay labored as preacher and " sen- *' ^elder^ "^ the town of Debreczin, where the Refor- tion had a powerful patron in count Valentin Tdr5k Enying, a near relative of count Kidasdy. While Debreczin, D^vay wrote, in the Hungarian language, ( exposition of the Ten Commandments, the Articles
Faith, the Lord's Prayer, and the Seal of Faith, lis book -was probably printed at Cracow. The year d place of the death of D6vay are not known, but it probable that in the year 1547 he was no longer ive. Besides the works already mentioned, D6vay the author of a hymn containing the principal arti- es of the Reformed Faith, and which was received to the hymn-book of the Reformed Church of the elvetic Confession in Hungary. — Herzog, Real-En- fklop, xix, 406, Wetzer nnd Welte, Kirchen-Lex, iii, 23 ; Craig (transl.). History of the Protestant Church t Hungary (Lond. 1854), p. 60 sq. ; Schrdckh, Kir- hengeschicJUe sdt der Reformation^ ii. 730. r>evelopinent, a word denoting primarily tm- 'oldinff, unwrappkiff ; hence, secondarily, a process of Towth or expansion. It has recently come into ex- snaive use both in philosophy and in theology. In hilosophy, it is part of the Pantheistic doctrine not imply that all existing forms of life have been devel- ped ttotn simpler forms, but also that the Infinite, as rell as the finite, passes fh>m one stage of life to an- >ther by unending development. "The whole fabric if ancient and modem Pantheism rests upon the peti- ioprincipii that the doctrine of evolution has the same legitimate application within the sphere of the Infinite md Eternal that it has within that of the finite and ^mporal, a postulate that annihilates the distinction between the two. The idea of undeveloped being has DO rational meaning except in reference to the created and the conditional'* (Shedd, History of Christian Doc- tnne, i, 13).
1. As applied to history, the doctrine of develop- ment, as stated by its ablest advocates, is that all cre- ated existences obey a law of evolution firom the po- tential germ given by the Creator ; and that this law applies to the race of man as well as to individuals of the race. As a tree is developed fh>m its seed, so the human body, the human mind, the human race, grow, according to the law of their organic life. Under this view, " history is no longer viewed as a mere inorganic mass of names, dates, and facts, but as spirit and Ufe^ and therefore as process, motion, development, pass- ing through various stages, ever rising to some higher state, yet identical with itself, so that its end is but the full unfolding of its beginning. This makes Church history, then, appear as an organism, starting from the person of Christ, the creator and progenitor of a new race ; perpetually spreading both outwardly and inwardly ; maintaining a steady conflict with sin and error without and within ; continually beset with difficulties and obstructions ; yet, under the unfailing guidance of Providence, infallibly working an ap- pointed end. This idea of organic development com- bines what was true in the notion of something per- manent and unchangeable in Church history, as held by both the Catholic and the Old-Protestant ortho- doxy, with the element of truth in the Rationalistic conception of motion and flow ; and on such gpx)und alone is it possible to understand fully and clearly the temporal life of Christianity. A permanent principle, without motion, stiffens into stagnation ; motion, with- out a principle of permanence, is a process of dissolu- tion. In neither case can there properly be any living ^tory. The conception of such history is, that while it incessantly changes its form, never for a moment Btauding stiU, yet through all its changes it remains
true to its own essence ; never outrages itself; incor- porates into each succeeding stage of growth the re- sults of the preceding, and thus never loses anything which was ever of real value" (Schaff", Apostolic Churchy § 34). Certain guards are necessary to prevent the Christian theory of development from passing into the Pantheistic view. They are stated by Dr. Shedd (History of Christian Doctrine, § 8, 4) substantially as follows : 1. The pantheists substitute development for creation. Development supposes existing materials ; creation, on the other hand, is from nothing, and pre- supposes no materials. All germs, according to Chris- tiain theism, are created hy Grod. Mere development (which b simply the wnjolding of something previously folded up) cannot account for the origin of anything. "The significant fact in natural history, not yet in- validated by the most torturing experiments of baf- fled theorists, that one species never expands into an- other, proves that though a process of development can be accounted for out of the latent potentiality at the base, the latter can be accounted for only by recur- ring to the creative power of God. The expansion of a vegetable seed, even if carried on through all the cycles upon cycles of the geological system, never transmutes it into the egg of animal life ; and this only verifies the self-evident proposition that nothing can come forth that has never been put in" (Shedd, Hist, of Christian Doctrine^ § 8). The second caution is always to discriminate the idea of a development from that of an improvement. It depends upon the nature of the germ whether the evolution shall be from good to better, or from bad to worse. By the abuse of free- will in the spiritual sphere the normal development may be displaced ; but original righteousness was not developed into original sin. Man, endowed with free- will, created sin, so to speak, under the permission of God. Abstractly, then, development may be synon- ymous with corruption and decline, as well as with improvement