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There are two principal kinds of theology,
or perhaps two different standpoints from which it can be regarded:
HISTORICAL THEOLOGY
and
DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.
(There are other departments of theology as well,
MORAL THEOLOGY, ASCETIC THEOLOGY, PASTORAL THEOLOGY, etc.,
which are applications of Dogmatic Theology and with which we are not now
concerned.
Dogmatic Theology and its various applications make up what is called SYSTEMATIC
THEOLOGY.)
is the description and definition of beliefs that have been held by men of
different religions,
or Christians of different ages and denominations.
It is, strictly speaking, a department of Comparative Religion.
is the science,
not merely of what has been held about God,
but of what is true about Him.
This book is chiefly about dogmatic theology.
(See F. J. Hall, Dogmatic Theology, v. 1, ch. 1, part 3.)
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The principal source of our knowledge of God
is His revelation in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which was the culmination of His revelation through the Hebrew prophets.
Apart from this we have two main sources of our knowledge of God.
The first is the study of religious experience in all lands and ages,
which is called Comparative Religion.
It is a very modern science,
in its present form little more than a century old,
but it has made great progress and collected and classified a vast mass of
facts of the most various kinds.
From these facts the following general results have been obtained.
The need of God, which is satisfied by religion, is universal.
It is very doubtful whether any tribe has ever been discovered which had
no religion at all.
We may fairly conclude that since human beings everywhere need someone
to worship,
there must be a God the worship of who will satisfy so universal a need.
The consequences of religious belief and practice upon human life and conduct
are very important indeed.
The greatest differences between individuals, groups, and races are due to
differences of religion.
It is therefore absurd to assume, as is often assumed in English-speaking
countries,
that a man's religion is entirely his own affair and is of no importance
to anyone else.
Religion is a fundamental activity of man;
it is not a by-product of anything else.
It is not merely a form of culture, or of philosophy, or of art, or of politics;
on the contrary, all these are often rooted in religion.
Religion always implies dependence on some non-human power or powers.
(If Marxian Communism, as practiced in Soviet Russia, is to be regarded as
a kind of religion, it is an exception to this rule.)
Religion is always a social or communal activity.
It is not "what a man does with his loneliness", but it is an activity
of man as a social being.
The worship of God cannot be fully practiced in solitude, any more than any
other human activity.
The second source of our knowledge of God (apart from revelation) is the
analysis of,
or inquiry into, the nature of man and of his relation to the world around
him.
Man alone among material things,
is able to inquire into his own nature,
the universe of which he is a part,
and the relation between them because he alone is self-conscious.
He is therefore aware of four questions, to each of which God is the true answer.
The first is the question,
Why was the universe made, and what is its purpose?
The universe shows, as we shall see, many signs of having been made by design
and with very great skill,
which seems to show that SOMEONE made it,
and that He had a reason for making it.
The second is the question,
What is the conscious self?
We know of no other self-conscious beings in the whole vast universe of which
natural science tells us.
Are we to believe that the human race is a mere accident in a material universe,
or that the universe itself has behind it a Person like,
but infinitely greater than,
human beings?
The third is the question,
What is the meaning of the difference, which we all feel,
between right and wrong?
Every human being possesses this power to distinguish between right and wrong,
which we call the conscience;
and it does not correspond to anything else in nature.
Do the words "I ought" belong to something universal,
or are they merely an accidental result of the development of life in this
planet?
The fourth is the question,
What is meant by beauty?
Is beauty merely something that gives pleasure to a particular person, or
is it a permanent principle corresponding to something in the nature of the
universe?
The right answer to these questions is:
By these means men have been able to seek after God and to know something
of Him.
St. Paul blamed the pagans because, though without God's revelation,
they did not make use of the means of knowing God that they had,
but fell into idolatry and abominable immorality (Rom.1.20).
But no one has ever attained to any clear knowledge of God unless God has
revealed Himself to him.
It is for this reason that the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas,
an early second-century Christian book,
claims for the Christians that they possess what no one else possesses,
because God has revealed Himself to them alone.
It is our boast that we have found what all the philosophers have sought in vain.