RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Theological Seminaries Theology as a Science
facts, especially of the life of Jesus, could not be drawn out to mere allegories, for this depended too much on the actuality of the same as events. Christology and soteriology took account of realities in the life of Jesus. But how Jesus as the Christ was essentially to be considered was a problem in which allegory had no place. The solution was found in the use of a theologizing on the person of the Lord which never submitted itself to mere " philosophy." In Justin's consideration of the predicate theos as belonging to Jesus as Messiah (Dialogue 5, 6) is the foundation for that religious doctrine which became the religious center of Christian dogmatics, completing itself in the doctrine of the Trinity which in the early Church received the title of theologia in the restricted sense. With this came as a second foundation of Christian doctrine the incarnation of the Logos for the redemption of man. In the early Church, however, the term " theology " was not used as in present custom to designate all Christian doctrine. In the Middle Ages sacra doctrina was the name for Christian doctrine as a whole; theologia was and remained the term for the doctrine of God in the narrow sense. Gradually the title " theology " came to include the complex of the church disciplines which are in any way concerned with God. The Reformation brought no discussion concerning the scientific idea or scope of theology (see Encyclopedia, Theological, § 4). Granted that the doctrine was drawn from legitimate sources and rightly defined, it remained only to ask what doctrine meant and did not mean for the faith, but this was not condensed into a theology. At the time of the consolidation of Evangelical doctrine into a new orthodoxy, in another tendency was essentially reproduced what the Middle Ages had already worked out in the universities (cf. E. Troeltsch, Vernunft und Offenbarung bei Johann Gerhard und Melanchthon, Gottingen, 1891; E. Weber, Die philosophische Scholastik des deutschen Protestantismus im Zeitalter der Orthodoxie, Leipsic, 1907; 0. Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus, vol. i., Leipsic, 1908). What was new as introduced by the period of the Enlightenment (q.v.) was at first weighty and fruitful when rationalism and with it the mere recourse to the reason and natural religion retreated.
The significance of Schleiermacher (q.v.) for theology consists in this, that relying on philosophy which had outgrown dogmatism, after long critical
disintegration of the idea of the Bible
3. Schleier- as the " sure book of God's revelation,"
macher, he prepared an end for the remainder
De Wette, of dogmatism in dogma, and for faith
and Strauss, in certain universal religious ideas,
anchored in the reason, innate, in such a way, however, that he established for faith a separate spiritual function — a new basis for theology— from which the character of all modern theology is determined. Theology originates in a science of God and of faith; and theology ceased to believe in philosophy. For his method of organizing theology with reference to " Encyclopedia," see Encyclopedia, Theological, § 4 (cf. Schleiermacher's Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums, Berlin, 1811). For Schleiermacher theology
has always a " given " object, wherein he agrees with the orthodox conception. There lie in the background conceptions as to faith and dogma which require examination before his theory of theology can be accepted. Of real importance for this is the final section of the introduction to Der Christliche Glaube with the heading " Of the Relation of Dogmatics to Christian Piety," especially § 15. In § 17 Schleiermacher expressly discusses the worth of the dogmatic propositions and affirms that these are of a double nature — ecclesiastical and scientific, but points out only the scientific. As the foundation of theology he laid down a discipline which he named " philosophical theology." This can take its point of departure only with reference to Christianity in the general notion of the pious community. With this proposition Schleiermacher unites theology and general science. W. M. L. de Wette's Ueber Religion und Theologie (Berlin, 1815) presents thoughts which are really not far from those of Schleiermacher, yet they have a peculiarity which is not without subsequent influence. Schleiermacher points back to Kant, Spinoza, and Goethe, De Wette to Fries and Herder; yet both are independent theologians. The view of De Wette (q.v.) concerning the nature of theology as science is founded on a double or threefold way of persuasion — the understanding which produces science; the ideal-esthetic which presents itself as faith and as feeling. Religion is faith and likewise feeling. Religion is an inner life which has been historically formed for us through Christ in a long process of spiritual church dogmas. It rests on revelation, which theology conceives in ideas and esthetic symbols. De Wette reflected on a philosophical theology which was to be nothing else than a description of human nature or anthropology. D. F Strauss (q.v.) as scholar of Hegel formed a type of theology. In his closing discussion of his Life of Jesus, and especially in his introduction to his Dogmatic (1840), he allots to theology no other task than its transformation into a philosophy of religion. Biedermann with affecting love for Christianity as such has more completely than Strauss sought to realize his program for dogmatics. Recently F. R. Lipsius (Kritik der theologischen Erkenntnis, Leipsic, 1904), with other means than Strauss, presented as aim for theology that it transform itself into (monistic) philosophy.
II. Scientific Presentation: Every theory of theology is accompanied by presuppositions. To Gottschick ecclesiastical Christianity appears as a simple reality, and he undertakes to prove that this is both an undoubted and an unde- 1. Relation rived fact of consciousness which must to Religion, be scientifically isolated; hence theology may be set forth as a science sui generis. But as yet a scientific understanding of the nature of Christianity has not been attained, and this is beset by greater difficulties than were formerly conceived (cf. Kattenbusch, Die Lage der systematischen Theologie in der Gegenwart, in ZTK, 1905, pp. 103-146; idem, in Christliche Welt, no. 22, 1901). The most significant factor in the recent history of theology must be seen in the widening of the perspective for the historical considera-
Theology as a Science