THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
presents in systematized form. And more of it still is due to profoundly differing conceptions of the nature and subject-matter of that " theology," a department of which apologetics is. If we 3. Source of think of apologetics as undertaking the Divergent defense or the vindication or even the Views. justification of the '' Christian religion," that is one thing; if we think of it as undertaking the establishment of the validity of that knowledge of God, which " theology " systematizes, that may be a very different thing. And even if agreement exists upon the latter conception, there remain the deeply cutting divergences which beset the definition of " theology " itself. Shall it be defined as the " science of faith " ? or as the " science of religion " ? or as the " science of the Christian religion"? or as the "science of God " ? In other words, shall it be regarded as a branch of psychology, or as a branch of history, or as a branch of science? Manifestly those who differ thus widely as to what theology is, can not be expected to agree as to the nature and function of any one of its disciplines. If " theology " is the science of faith or of religion, its subject-matter is the subjective experiences of the human heart; and the function of apologetics is to inquire whether th^de subjective experiences have any objective validity. Of course, therefore, it follows upon the systematic elucidation of these subjective experiences and constitutes the culminating discipline of " theology." Similarly, if " theology " is the science of the Christian religion, it investigates the purely historical question of what those who are called Christians believe; and of course the function of apologetics is to follow this investigation with an inquiry whether Christians are justified in believing these things. But if theology is the science of God, it deals not with a mass of subjective experiences, nor with a section of the history of thought, but with a body of objective facts; and it is absurd to say that these facts must be assumed and developed unto their utmost implications before we stop to ask whether they are facts. So soon as it is agreed that theology is a scientific discipline and has as its subject-matter the knowledge of God, we must recognize that it must begin by establishing the reality as objective facts of the data upon which it is based. One may indeed call the department of theology to which this task is committed by any name which appears to him appropriate: it may be called " general theology," or " fundamental theology," or " principial theology," or " philosophical theology," or " rational theology," or " natural theology," or any other of the innumerable names which have been used to describe it. Apologetics is the name which most naturally suggests itself, and it is the name which, with more or less accuracy of view as to the nature and compass of the discipline, has been consecrated to this purpose by a large number of writers from Schleiermacher down (e.g., Pelt, Twesten, Baumetark, Swetz, Ottiger, Knoll, MaLssoneuve). It powerfully commends itself as plainly indicating the nature of the discipline, while equally applicable to it whatever may be the scope of the theology
which it undertakes to plant on a secure basis. Whether this theology recognizes no other knowledge of God than that given in the constitution and course of nature, or derives its data from the full revelation of God as documented in the Christian scriptures, apologetics offers itself with equal readiness to designate the discipline by which the validity of the knowledge of God set forth is established. It need imply no more than natural theology requires for its basis; when the theology which it serves is, however, the complete theology of the Christian revelation, it guards its unity and protects from the fatally dualistic conception which sets natural and revealed theology over against each other as separable entities, each with its own separate presuppositions requiring establishment — by which apologetics would be split into two quite diverse disciplines, given very different places in the theological encyclopedia.
It will already have appeared how far apologetics may be defined, in accordance with a very prevalent custom (e.g., Sack, Lechler, Ebrard, Kiibel, Lemme) as " the science which establishes the truth of Christianity as the absolute religion."
Apologetics certainly does establish
4. The True the truth of Christianity as the abso-
Task of lute religion. But the question of
Apologetics, importance here is how it does this.
It certainly is not the business of apologetics to take up each tenet of Christianity in turn and seek to establish its truth by a direct appeal to reason. Any attempt to do this, no matter on what philosophical basis the work of demonstration be begun or by what methods it be pursued, would transfer us at once into the atmosphere and betray us into the devious devices of the old vulgar rationalism, the primary fault of which was that it asked for a direct rational demonstration of the truth of each Christian teaching in turn. The business of apologetics is to establish the truth of Christianity as the absolute religion directly only as a whole, and in its details only indirectly. That is to say, we are not to begin by developing Christianity into all its details, and only after this task has been performed, tardily ask whether there is any truth in all this. We are to begin by establishing the truth of Christianity as a whole, and only then proceed to explicate it into its details, each of which, if soundly explicated, has its truth guaranteed by its place as a detail in an entity already established in its entirety. Thus we are delivered from what is perhaps the most distracting question which has vexed the whole history of the discipline. In establishing the truth of Christianity, it has been perennially asked, are we to deal with all its details (e.g., H. B. Smith), or merely with the essence of Christianity (e.g., Kiibel). The true answer is, neither. Apologetics does not presuppose either the development of Christianity into its details, or the extraction from it of its essence. The details of Christianity arc all contained in Christianity: the minimum of Christianity is just Christianity itself. What apologetics undertakes to establish is just this Christianity itself — including all its "details" and involving its "essence"— in its unexplicated and uncompressed