RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Boellinger Dog-ma
I. Meaning and Scope. Meaning and Use of " Dogma " (§ 1).
A Dogma an Established Truth (§ 2).
Basis of the Certainty of Dogmas (§3).
Dogmatics, Definition and Content (§ 4).
The Individual Element in Dogmatics {§ 5).
Dogmas Essential to Christianity (§ 6).
Sources and Norms of Dogma (§7). Fundamental Questions (§ 8). Relation of Scripture to the Inner
Life {§ 9). Conclusions (§ 10).
DOGMA, DOGMATICS.
Relation to Philosophy (§ 11). II. History of Protestant Dogmatics. 1. In Germany.
The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (§ 1).
Influence of Pietism (§ 2).
Influence of Leibnitz, Wolff, and Kant (§ 3).
Schleiermacher and his Contemporaries (§ 4).
Biblical Tendency of Beck and H. Schmidt (§ 5).
Ritscht (§ 6).
Conservative School of Modern Dog-
maticians (§7). The More Radical School of Modern
Dogmaticians (§ 8). Troeltsch (§ 9).
2. The Reformed Churches. Zwingh and Calvin (§ 1). Calvin's Successors (§ 2). The Netherlands (§3). Switzerland (§ 4).
3. England.
To the Revival of the Eighteenth
Century (§ 1). The Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries (§ 2).
4. Scotland.
5. America.
The Early Calvinistic Theology , (§1).
Universalism, Unitarianism, and
Later Types (§ 2). Presbyterians and Baptists. Late
Works (§ 3).
I. Meaning and Scope : The explanation of the word " dogma " goes back to an old usage of good Greek, in which dokei moi and dedoktai mean not only " it seems to me " or " it pleases me," but also " I have definitely determined something so that it is for me an established fact." Hence dogma has the significance of a firm, and especially a public resolution, decretum. Thus the words are found in the Septuagint and in the New Testament 1. Mean- to designate firm enactments in the ins and sphere of practical conduct; govern- XTse of mental decrees (Esther iii. 9; Dan. ii. "Dogma." g_iQ. Luke ii. 1); apostohc
regulations (Acts xvi. 4); and the Mosaic ordinances (Col. ii. 14; Eph. ii. 15). Hence also the use of the word by philosophers, especially the Stoics, to denote established declarations of truth and doctrinal formulation which by virtue of their firm vaUdity serve in turn as the basis and norm both for further concrete scientific investigations and conclusions and for concrete precepts pertaining to practical conduct. Accordingly the term may be applied both to such sentences as contain ethical principles and to such as refer to objective existences, to God and the world. The name " dogma " was then transferred to propositions in which the basal truths of ethics and religion are established and which are derived from a divine revelation. Josephus designates the content of the sacred books of Judaism as " dogmas of God " {Apion, i. 8). Ignatius likewise {Ad M agues, xiii.) speaks of " the dogmas of the Lord and of the apostles," the context referring especially to ethical norms and commandments. According to Origen {De principiis, iv. 156), Christ is " the interpreter of the saving dogmas of Christianity." These very propositions then came to be called, with reference to the validity which they have for the Church, ecclesiastica dogmata. (On this use of the word among the ancients cf. especially W- Schmidt, Christtiche Dogmatik, i., Prolegomena, Bonn, 1895.)
According to this usage and in the light of recent discussions as to the meaning of the word " dogma " and therefore also of
2. ADoRma
dogmatics " (cf. the doctrinal works
lished ' °^ Hahn, K. J. Nitzsch, Schenkel, Truth. ^- Schweizer, Biedermann, Kahnis, and Nitzsch's Dogmengeschichte), it should be definitely borne in mind that, in the language of the ancient Christians, as in that of the
philosophers, " dogma " never denotes a view or doctrine which is to be regarded as a mere opinion, but always one that is to be regarded as established— at least for those who support it. The same is true (e.g., in Origen) of the heretical dogmas, just in so far as they are held as firm convictions. When, therefore, an ecclesiastical writer speaks with precision of dogmas, he means, even without the express addition of ecclesiastica, those statements of doctrine which for the body of Christians to which he belongs are established as unimpeachable truths.
The term " dogma " itself gives no information either as to the reason why the truths expressed in the dogma have such certainty and stability or as to the authority upon which their validity
^'o-^the^ is supposed to rest. That church Certainty "^osm^^ ^^^^ upon the authority of divine revelation is hinted at in the
Dogmas, designation " dogmas of God " or " of Christ "; and all the deliverances of the Church have this implication. Then, just because the Church truly and correctly derived its dogmas from the revelation contained in the Scriptures, it leaned for support upon the authority that belonged to its very self, but it did not call the propositions dogmas on the ground that it established them by its own authority, but only because of the firm vahdity which they must have as " dogmas of God." It is a mistake to define dogma in general as a judgment resting essentially " upon personal authority " (Kahnis), nor does it belong to the conception of dogma that it should have an " authority binding in the sphere of civil law " (Schenkel). Too much significance has also been given by some recent theologians (including Lobstein, who is opposed by W. Schmidt) to a sentence of Basil (De spiritu sancto, xxvii.) according to which " the dogma is observed in silence, but the kerygmata are proclaimed to all the world." [For a discussion of the meaning of the term " dogma " and an example of the Ritschlian view of the basis of its authority see P. Lobstein, Einleitung in die evangelische Dogmatik (Freiburg, 1897; Eng. transl., Chicago, 1903).]
Starting therefore from the sense which the word " dogma " acquired in ecclesiastical and theological usage, dogmatics may be defined as the scientific exhibition of the established religious truth which the Christian community acknowledges
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