RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Apologetics
entirety, as the absolute religion. It has for its object the laying of the foundations on which the temple of theology is built, and by which the whole structure of theology is determined. It is the department of theology which establishes the constitutive and regulative principles of theology as a science; and ;n establishing these it establishes all the details which are derived from them by the succeeding departments, in their sound explication and systematization. Thus it establishes the whole, though it establishes the whole in the mass, bo to speak, and not in its details, but yet in its entirety and not in some single element deemed by us its core, its essence, or its minimum expression. The subject-matter of apologetics being determined, its distribution into its parts becomes very much a matter of course. Having denned apologetics as the proof of the truth of the Christian religion, many writers naturally confine it to what is commonly known somewhat loosely as the "evidences of Christianity." Others, defining it as " fundamental theology," equally naturally confine it to the primary principles of religion in general. Others more justly combine the two conceptions and thus obtain at least two main divisions. Thus Hermann Schultz makes it prove " the right of the religious conception 5. Division of the world, as over against the tendof Apolo- encies to the denial of religion, and getics. the right of Christianity as the absolutely perfect manifestation of religion, as over against the opponents of its permanent significance." He then divides it into two great sections with a third interposed between them: the first, " the apology of the religious conception of the world; " the last, " the apology of Christianity; " while between the two stands " the philosophy of religion, religion in its historical manifestation." Somewhat less satisfactorily, because with a less firm hold upon the idea of the discipline, Henry B. Smith, viewing apologetics as " historico-philosophical dogmatics," charged with the defense of " the whole contents and substance of the Christian faith," divided the material to much the same effect into what he calls fundamental, historical, and philosophical apologetics. The first of these undertakes to demonstrate the being and nature of God; the second, the divine origin and authority of Christianity; and the third, somewhat lamely as a conclusion to so high an argument, the superiority of Christianity to all other systems. Quite similarly Francis R. Beattie divided into (1) fundamental or philosophical apologetics, which deals with the problem of God and religion; (2) Christian or historical apologetics, which deals with the problem of revelation and the Scriptures; and (3) applied or practical apologetics, which deals with the practical efficiency w Christianity in the world. The fundamental truth of these schematizations lies in the perception that the subject-matter of apologetics embraces the two great facts of God and Christianity. There is some failure in unity of conception, however, arising apparently from a deficient grasp of the peculiarity of apologetics as a department of theological science, and a consequent inability to permit
it as such to determine its own contents and the
natural order of its constituent parts.
If theology be a science at all, there is involved in that fact, as in the case of all other sciences, at least these three things: the reality of its subject-matter, the capacity of the human mind to receive into itself and rationally to reflect this subject-matter, the existence of media of communication between the subject-matter and the percipient and understanding mind. There could be no psychology were there not a mind to be investigated, a mind to investigate, and a self-consciousness by means of which the mind 6. The Con- as an object can be brought under
ception of the inspection of the mind as subject. Theology as There could be no astronomy were
a Science, there no heavenly bodies to be investigated, no mind capable of comprehending the laws of their existence and movements, or no means of observing their structure and motion. Similarly there can be no theology, conceived according to its very name as the science of God, unless there is a God to form its subjectmatter, a capacity in the human mind to apprehend and so far to comprehend God, and some media by which God is made known to man. That a theology, as the science of God, may exist, therefore, it must begin by establishing the existence of God, the capacity of the human mind to know him, and the accessibility of knowledge concerning him. In other words, the very idea of theology as the science of God gives these three great topics which must be dealt with in its fundamental department, by which the foundations for the whole structure are laid, — God, religion, revelation. With these three facts established, a theology as the science of God becomes possible; with them, therefore, an apologetic might be complete. But that, only provided that in these three topics all the underlying presuppositions of the science of God actually built up in our theology are established; for example, provided that all the accessible sources and means of knowing God are exhausted. No science can arbitrarily limit the data lying within its sphere to which it will attend. On pain of ceasing to be the science it professes to be, it must exhaust the means of information open to it, and reduce to a unitary system the entire body of knowledge in its sphere. No science can represent itself as astronomy, for example, which arbitrarily confines itself to the information concerning the heavenly bodies obtainable by the unaided eye, or which discards, without sound ground duly adduced, the aid of, say, the spectroscope. In the presence of Christianity in the world making claim to present a revelation of God adapted to the condition and needs of sinners, and documented in Scriptures, theology can not proceed a step until it has examined this claim; and if the claim be substantiated, this substantiation must form a part of the fundamental department of theology in which are laid the foundations for the systematization of the knowledge of God. In that case, two new topics are added to the subject-matter with which apologetics must constructively deal, Christianity — and the Bible. It thus lies in the very nature of apolo-
Apologetics