Book contents
- Frontmatter
- ESSAYS AND CONTRIBUTORS
- PREFACE
- PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
- PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION
- Contents
- I FAITH
- II THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD
- III THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
- IV PREPARATION IN HISTORY FOR CHRIST
- V THE INCARNATION AND DEVELOPMENT
- VI THE INCARNATION AS THE BASIS OF DOGMA
- VII THE ATONEMENT
- VIII THE HOLY SPIRIT AND INSPIRATION
- IX THE CHURCH
- X SACRAMENTS
- XI CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS
- XII CHRISTIAN ETHICS
- APPENDIX I ON SOME ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN DUTY
- APPENDIX II ON THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN
VI - THE INCARNATION AS THE BASIS OF DOGMA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- ESSAYS AND CONTRIBUTORS
- PREFACE
- PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
- PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION
- Contents
- I FAITH
- II THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD
- III THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
- IV PREPARATION IN HISTORY FOR CHRIST
- V THE INCARNATION AND DEVELOPMENT
- VI THE INCARNATION AS THE BASIS OF DOGMA
- VII THE ATONEMENT
- VIII THE HOLY SPIRIT AND INSPIRATION
- IX THE CHURCH
- X SACRAMENTS
- XI CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS
- XII CHRISTIAN ETHICS
- APPENDIX I ON SOME ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN DUTY
- APPENDIX II ON THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN
Summary
1. Many years ago, in undergraduate days, I was speaking once to a friend of my hope of beginning some little acquaintance with Theology. I well remember the air of nicely mingled civility and contemptuousness, with which my friend, wishing to sympathize, at once drew a distinction for me between speculative and dogmatic Theology, and assumed that I could not mean that the mere study of dogmatic Theology could have any sort of attractiveness. I do not think that I accepted his kindly overture; but it certainly made me consider more than once afterwards, whether the ‘mere study of dogmatic Theology’ could after all be so slavish and profitless an employment as had been implied. On the whole, however, I settled with myself that his condemnation, however obviously candid and even impressive, must nevertheless remain, so far as I was concerned, a surprise and an enigma. For what, after all, did the study of dogmatic Theology mean, but the study of those truths which the mind of Christ's Church upon earth has believed to be at once the most certain and the most important truths of man's history, nature and destiny, in this world and for ever?
It is impossible, however, not to feel that my friend, in his objection, represented what was, and is, a very widespread instinct against the study of dogma. Some think, for instance, that to practical men exactnesses of doctrinal statement, even if true, are immaterial.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Lux MundiA Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation, pp. 158 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009