2. § 2. Encyclopaedic Place of Dogmatics.
§ 2. Encyclopaedic Place of Dogmatics.
. About the place of dogmatics in the encyclopaedia of theology there is almost no difference. All assign it to Systematic or Dogmatic
Theology, i.e. to that group of disciplines which occupy themselves with dogma, and to which, besides dogmatics, ethics, symbolics, history of dogma, and elenctics also belong. Only Schleiermacher, Kurze Darstellung des theol. Studiums, 2te Ausg. 1830 § 195, added it to historical theology, because it is the science von dem Zusammenhange der in der Kirche zu einer gegebenen Zeit geltenden Lehre, Der Christl. Glaube § 19, also Rothe,
Zur Dogm. 1863 S. 14, and thus gives a statistics of the present.
Schleiermacher came to this peculiar opinion, because he wished to separate dogmatics as strictly as possible from apologetics. While the latter, as part of philosophische theologie, has to show what Christian truth is, the former has only to describe what counts as truth in one or another Christian church. Yet Schleiermacher by this absolutely did not intend to ascribe to dogmatics only a reporting character; he does indeed assign to it a critical task and demands that it be systematic, that it give its own conviction, and
that it describe not what has counted, but what counts, Dr. Is. van Dijk, Begrip en methode der Dogmatiek 38 v.; Hagenbach, Encycl. § 80. But [10] thereby it already goes beyond purely historical description. The Christian congregation cannot be satisfied with an objective report of its content of faith, but demands that its faith also be unfolded and set forth as truth. The dogmatician also does not stand neutrally outside and over against the faith of the congregation, as over against the religious doctrine of Mohammedans and Buddhists, but belongs to that congregation, and thus also describes what for him counts and must count as truth. And finally there is an essential difference between works such as those of Hase, Schmid,
Schweizer and Heppe, which give an objective description of the Luth. and Geref. doctrine, and dogmatics, which wishes to demonstrate and present the truth of religious convictions. If Schleiermacher, calling dogmatics a historical discipline, meant by that nothing other than that it is a thetic, positive science, which does not seek its object but finds it and now describes it, then his intention is to be appreciated, but the designation nevertheless incorrect. If, however, he entertained the opinion that dogmatics had only to describe a historical given and made no claim to normative truth, then his view has very certainly been incorrect and nowadays is also generally rejected. Hagenbach, Encycl. § 80; Herzog2 3,
643.
2. Since dogmatics thus belongs to the disciplines of dogmatic theology, it must be well distinguished from its sisters. All disciplines in this part of theology have to do with dogma, i.e. with the truth, as God has revealed it, but each in its own way. It can be listened to, as it is confessed clearly and powerfully by the congregation in its confession, and then theologia symbolica arises. It can be presented in a simple, comprehensible form, as
milk 1 Petr. 2:2 to the youthful members, the children of the congregation, and then theologia catechetica speaks, to be well distinguished from catechetics, the art of doing that. It can be maintained in its truth and right over against opponents, and then theologia elenctica accomplishes its task.
It can also be set forth thetically and positively, but in a scientific, systematic form, for developed consciousness, and then dogmatics is practiced. All these disciplines [11] have in common with one another that they display the thesauri Sacrae Scripturae, but each in its own way.
Dogmatics does that, as people used to say in former times, in a scholastic, school-like way, that is, in such a way as ought to take place in the schools of science. Naturally, if not everything, then much depends here on the standpoint that the dogmatician takes. If he, with the pietists and theologi biblici, assumes a sharp antithesis between Scriptureand church-doctrine, then he will adhere as narrowly as possible to Scripture, also in words and expressions, and will process the found material as little as possible by thinking. If he sees in the confession of the church, in the historia dogmatum, not a corruption but a development of Scriptural truth, then his dogmatics will be ecclesiastically and confessionally colored. And if he stands rationalistically over against both Scripture and church, the convictions of faith that he presents will bear above all a negative character.
All that is a difference of method and will be discussed later. But precisely for that reason it is not good, with Prof. Doedes, Encyclopaedie, § 48, to distinguish a threefold dogmatics, viz. N. Test. or Christian, ecclesiastical, and critical. For thereby equal rank and right of existence are granted to all three, the confusion increases still more, the N. Test. dogmatics comes to stand as the Christian one par excellence over against the two others, the first two kinds of dogmatics can proceed entirely outside one's own
conviction, and critical dogmatics alone becomes that of one's own independent view. The task of dogmatics is rather always one and the same.
It is and by its nature can be nothing other than a scientific exposition of religious truth, an enarratio verbi Dei, a display of the thesauri Sacrae
Scripturae, a παραδοσις εἰς τυπον διδαχης, Rom. 6:17, so that we have in it a forma and imago of the doctrina coelestis. Dogmatics therefore is itself not the Word of God; it is always only a faint image and a weak likeness of it; it is a fallible, human attempt to think and to speak after, in one's own, free way, what God formerly, many times and in many ways, spoke through the Prophets and in these last days has spoken to us through the Son,
Polanus, Syntagma p. 539; Heidegger, Corpus Theol. Christ. Loc. I § 58.
The question how dogmatics can best fulfill this its task is a question of method and must later be treated separately. [12]
3. Most closely related to dogmatics is ethics. The word dogma formerly comprised both, the articuli fidei and the praecepta decalogi, the dogmata fidei and the dogmata morum. Ethics was either incorporated into dogmatics, with Lombardus, Thomas, Melanchton, Calvin, Martyr,
Musculus, Sohnius etc., or worked out in a second part after dogmatics, with Polanus, Amesius, Heidegger, Wollebius, Wendelinus, Maestricht,
Brakel etc. or also treated entirely independently, separated from dogmatics, with Danaeus, Ethices Christ. libri III 1577, Keckermann, Walaeus,
Polyander, Amyraldus, Pictet, Driessen, Hoornbeek, Heidegger, Osterwald, J. A. Turretinus, Stapfer, Beck, Wyttenbach, Endeman, cf. A. Schweizer,
Die Entw. des Moralsystems in der ref. Kirche, Stud. u. Krit. 1850, Heft 1; Gass, Gesch. der chr. Ethik II Bd., 1te Abth. 1886 S. 131 f.; Luthardt,
Gesch. der chr. Eth., 2te Hälfte 1893. The influence of Aristotle, which already began with Melanchthon's philosophia moralis 1539, held back the
development of Christian ethics. The separation, which later set in, had as a consequence that ethics lacked a principle of its own, went to seek this at an inopportune time in philosophy, as a degenerate theol. ethics came to stand hostile over against dogmatics and displaced it from its place, and finally completely erased the boundaries between it and dogmatics. Proof is furnished by the fruitless attempts to distinguish the two. With Kant religion no longer has any content of its own, but is only the conception of the good as a command of God, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen
Vernunft, ed. Rosenkranz S. 184. Schleiermacher gave to both as content the Christian life, but dogmatics describes that life in relative rest, ethics in relative movement, Die Christl. Sitte, ed. Jonas, 2te Aufl. 1884 S. 12-24.
Rothe saw the insufficiency of this distinction and therefore made dogmatics into a historical subject, which treated the dogmata of the church, ethics into a speculative science, which develops its material dialectically out of the God-consciousness, Theol. Ethik, § 15. Dorner, Glaubenslehre I 9 f., Sittenlehre 47, Herzog2 4, 352, Wuttke, Christl. Sittenlehre I 9, Palmer,
Moral des Christ. 24 f. e. a., distinguish the two as knowing and doing, understanding and will. Doedes, Encycl. § 52 no. 4 and Van Oosterzee, Chr.
Dogm. § 4 no. 4 as doctrine of salvation and as doctrine of life; Gunning, Het ethische beginsel der Theologie 12 as life of Christ in the [13] church and in the individual; Daubanton, Theol. Stud. III 114 v. as doctrine of God and doctrine of man, etc. All these distinctions suffer from the defect that they seek a principial difference between dogmatics and ethics. And there is none. The theol. ethics, well to be distinguished from the philos. ethics, has no principle of its own, but is rooted wholly and entirely in dogmatics. The indicated lines of separation create a dualism between God and man, individual and community, salvation and life, rest and movement,
understanding and will, and pave the way for ethics to go seeking a principle of its own along a speculative philosophical path, as with Rothe, to lose its theological character and from out of its speculative height to look down contemptuously upon historical, positive dogmatics. If dogmatics and ethics must be treated separately, which for various reasons is desirable, but is still dissuaded by many, such as Sartorius, Nitzsch, Beck,
A. Dorner, Ueber das Verhältniss der Dogm. u. Ethik in der Theol. Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. Oct. 1889; Hofmann, Schriftbeweis I 14; Wendt, Die Aufgabe der System. Theol. 1894 S. 12 f., then the distinction between the two can lie only herein, that man, however at all times absolutely dependent on God, is nevertheless also a free and independently acting being. Reborn and renewed by the grace of the H. Spirit, sinful man also again receives desire and strength to live according to God's commandments. Dogmatics describes the acts of God before and toward and in man; ethics describes the acts which the renewed man now does on the ground and in the power of those acts of God. In dogmatics man is passive, receives and believes; in ethics he himself appears acting. In dogmatics the articuli fidei, in ethics the praecepta decalogi are treated. There the fide is dealt with, here the caritate, obedientia, bonis operibus. Dogmatics develops what God is and does for man and makes him know God as his Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier; ethics sets forth what man now is and does for God, how man wholly and entirely, with understanding and will and all powers, devotes himself to God out of gratitude and love. Dogmatics is the system of the knowledge of God, ethics that of the service of God. Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Vers. III 14.; H. Schultz,
Grundriss der ev. Dogm. 2te Aufl. 1892 S. 3; Wendt, t. a. p. 17. Both sciences [14] are not independent over against each other, but together form one system, are corresponding members of one organism, Wendt, ib. 19.