SECTION IX.

ANTHROPOLOGY.

Theological differs from physiological anthropology in that, although it proceeds upon the basis of man's natural condition, it does not regard him in his relation to nature, but as he stands related to God. It is divided into the two leading sections of a doctrine of man's original state prior to the fall, and a doctrine of the fall and of sin, which was thereby introduced into human nature, and has since perpetuated itself and been actualized in the experience of every individual.

Theological anthropology of a scientific character is, of course, impossible apart from physiological anthropology; that Theological anis, apart from all acquaintance with man as naturally thropology. constituted. But the latter serves merely as a natural foundation. The most perfect familiarity with human nature in its anatomical and physiological, and even in its psychological, aspects, in so far as psychology restricts itself to psychological limits, will not be competent to disclose to our view the religious nature of man.' It is

allowable, of course, to find mere accommodation in the discourses of our Lord which relate to the world of angels and demons, which are not only based on a religious idea, but also on an earnest reality. The doctrine concerning Satan, for instance, rests on the fact of the power of evil, which reaches down into the deepest abysses of darkness (Daub's Ischarioth). It has been wittily said by Rougemont, with reference to this point: Men have pretended that all the demonology of Jesus was only an accommodation to the prejudices of his people and his age. This is as much as to say that the battles of Alma and Inkerman are only an accommodation of Napoleon III. to the prejudices of the French against the Russians. What struggle has ever been more real, more terrible, more gigantic, than that of the Son of God and of Satan in the wilderness?-Christ et ses Temoins, vol. i, p. 152. But this yields no stronger proof for the personality of Satan than for that of death, sin, or hell, which, likewise, are powers that were overcome by Christ in a real sense, and not figuratively only. The figurative designation of the thing is here interchanged with the thing itself, whose reality continues unchanged. Schenkel, following in the footsteps of Schleiermacher, has subjected the doctrine of the devil to the light of a rigorous criticism (Dogmatik, i, p. 247 sqq.). On the other hand, persons are not wanting who hold that effects are still produced, and persons possessed, by demons at the present time. 1 The remark of Rosenkranz (Encykl., p. 33), that "theological anthropology has nothing to do with the physical and intellectual nature of man," is too strong. But it is true that "it must turn over the consideration of that nature to philosophical anthropology, and fix its attention on the relation in which man stands to God." Comp. Harless, in preface to his Ethik (4th ed.): "I believe that our divines would do well by not restraining their interest in the field of physical research too far; for it is only in the light of unjustifiable abstraction that the latter can seem to have nothing in common with the mind." Darwin's theory of the descent of man, tracing him back

true that this religious nature of man may be apprehended to some extent by psychological inquiry, but, by this method, man appears only as an isolated specimen of his race; and a penetrating observation of his nature is afforded only by the history of mankind in connexion with the revelations made by God. We, therefore, urge that, as in dogmatics, theology is required to be anthropological, so, in like manner, must anthropology be theological.' The questions which relate to body and soul, or body, soul, and spirit, and to the origin of the latter (pre-existence, traducianism, creationism), are in place here only in so far as one theory or another becomes necessary for the understanding of man's religious

nature.

The proper course of dogmatical procedure will be to apprehend in their real spirit the few grand indications of the Scriptures upon such matters as the image of God, and to so present them to our spirit through the medium of exegesis, history, and philosophy, as The high idea to enable us to grasp the more exalted idea of humanof humanity. ity beneath the figurative language by which it is expressed. Upon the correct apprehension of that idea depends the correct view of sin, whether it is to be considered a mere negation, or natural deficiency, or a privation, depravation, and perversion of human nature. These are the terms that distinguish between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic views.

The history of man's fall into sin is likewise involved in great difficulties when regarded as simple history. But the genesis of sin, as repeated daily, may, nevertheless, be demonstrated from the masterly and matchless narrative. It is impossible to deny that the consciousness of a common guilt, of which every individual partakes, is profoundly religious in its nature, and attested by both Scripture and experience. Nowhere do psychological inquiry and The doctrine of the study of God's word, considered as the judge of human thoughts, more fully complement, or rather explain, each other than in the doctrine of sin. Does not Paul speak on this point (Rom. vii) with reference to his own experience, and from out of the depths of human nature as a whole? The same holds true of Augustine and Luther. Abstract reason will, of course, always incline toward Pelagianism upon such doctrines, since it affords a necessary corrective in many particular respects.

sin.

to an ape, which has been so much discussed of late, will not at all disturb the scholar who knows how to distinguish between the domain of religion and that kind of natural science which must often take a backward step; but it will afford food for reflection and for profounder thought with respect to the limitations of our knowledge. 1 Comp. Bunsen, Hippolytus i, p. 289 sqq.

But the mind derives no satisfaction from that course, inasmuch as it is continually reminded of a rupture that is more profound than reflection is able to perceive.1

SECTION X.

CHRISTOLOGY.

Comp. Kling, in Herzog's Encyklopaedie, s. v. ii, and article Christology, in M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopædia, vol. ii.

Christology the centre of dog

matics.

Inasmuch as the religious relation subsisting between God and man finds its historical exemplification only, and in a peculiar manner, in the person of Jesus Christ, the God-man, Christology must constitute, not merely an essential part, but the very centre of a system of dogmatiès. Its task will be to conceive Jesus as sinless man, as free from error, in so far as this stands connected with sin, and, for that reason, as being the only-begotten Son of God, and God manifest in the flesh. It will be required to harmonize the qualities which Jesus possesses in common with the race, or human nature, with those which stamp him as unique, and exalt him above the race, and, therefore, of the divine nature, without, on that account, being authorized to set aside his real and complete humanity, or to obscure the greatness of his specific deity.

basis of Christology.

The life of Jesus forms the historic basis of Christology. But the latter has to cultivate thoroughly a ground which Life of Jesus the former, in its character as a purely historical sci- the ence, could not include within its territory. There has been no lack, however, of theologians who assert that Christology is superfluous, and who thereby stab Christian dogmatics, considered as specifically Christian, to the heart. Their dogmatics is

1 Comp. Hundeshagen, Der Weg zu Christo, i, p. 136.

Rothe, among others, points out the necessity of apprehending the divine nature of Christ from the study of the picture of his human life: "To speak of recognizing and acknowledging the divine element in Christ without having observed it shine forth from what is human in him, or having caught its reflection in the mirror of his humanity, is merely to bandy idle words. . . . Apart from the underlying pasis of humanity, the whole of the sacred life and work of Jesus by which redemption was effected becomes a magnificent phantasmagoria, an empty pageant, upon which no one may depend for comfort and for hope either in life or death. The unavoidable conse quence, in short, is unmitigated Docetism."-In Schenkel's Zeitschrift, pp. 380, 383. 3 Thus by Henke, in the preface to his Linamenta, p. 12: "Ut omnis haec in Christum religio ad religionem Christi magis revocetur, omni opera contendendum est." Comp. Röhr, Briefe über Rationalismus, p. 36: "What supernaturalists term Christology in their dogmatics does not appear in my system as an integral part at all; for, while it constitutes a religion which Jesus taught, it is not one whose object he

confined altogether to theology and anthropology, and in the progress of their works Christ appears simply as one theologian and anthropologist among others, to whom an occasional appeal is made, but not as the dɛávoρwлоç, who is himself the central feature of dogmatics.

Objections

man."

to

But objection against this very dɛávdowлоç idea has been raised from many quarters. The term, it is true, is not biblical, term "God- and cannot be found in the Bible Dictionary. But can all the terms with which the attributes of God are designated, and others with which dogmatics has been enriched, be found in the Bible? The term "God-man" may, no doubt, be so understood as to involve a contradiction. If the idea proceeds on the assumption of an un-human God and an un-divine man, who are to be joined together in an outward form, the one will necessarily exclude the other; in other words, the ancient "finite is not capable of the infinite." But it has been correctly shown that the divinely human character of Christianity and the divine humanity of the Saviour condition each other.' It is only necessary to remember, in this matter, that language of this character is developed on the soil of religion, and not on that of abstract speculation. The entire doctrine of the person of Christ may be apprehended in a very irrational way, either as describing the mechanical contact of two dissimilar things, the two members of the Form of Concord, or as a mixture of divine and human elements, as we see in Apollinarism. In this way the one is disturbed and obscured by the other rather than modified and complemented by it.

2

properly de

fined.

The doctrine of the Church itself has not always been free from Doctrine of the abstruse and confusing definitions, though it has, with Church im- correct judgment, continued to insist on the dovYXÚTWS, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, and ἀχωρίστως. The truth upon this subject cannot be intuitively understood, but may be apprehended in its character as a truth to be accepted by faith; and while the truly wise may arrive at an understanding with regard to it, a satisfactory agreement and a logical settlement upon its merits are utterly impossible to persons who are merely puffed up with their knowledge.

The history of doctrines affords the most striking evidences of

might be himself." The most recent rationalizing theology seems inclined to return to this Ebionitic view. Vide the "Schlussbetrachtung" in Strauss' Life of Jesus for the German People.

1 Ebrard, ubi supra.

2 Comp. the History of Doctrines. Guizot, however, still speaks of a "continual mixture of the divine and the human."

this fact. Whenever the attempt is made to bring Christology to a logical conclusion, and formulate it, the difficulty of avoiding Ebionitism or Docetism, Nestorianism or Monophysitism, which stand on either side like Scylla and Charybdis, will present itself, and the history of doctrines will require to defend itself against the attacks of various forms of heresy in the manner best suited to repel the antagonizing error. The reason for this fact does not, however, lie in the doctrine itself, with its infinite significance, but in the human limitations which affect the dogmatics of each particular age.1

SECTION XI.

SOTERIOLOGY.

Most intimately connected with the doctrine of the Redeemer's person is the doctrine of the salvation which depends on him, and of the appropriation of this salvation on our part by faith. This is soteriology. Its objective side is found in the work of Christ, in the redemption and atonement wrought by him. Its subjective side is found in the work of the Holy Spirit upon the human heart,

1 The merely complementary relation sustained by the two leading confessions of Protestantism to each other is pointed out by Schneckenburger, Vom doppelten Stande Christi, Pforzheim, 1848. Jul. Müller beautifully observes that "at this point evangelical theology needs a new development out of the Holy Scriptures as the original source of doctrinal life, and accompanied with a rejection of the entire ballast of formulas, which, in the dogmatics of former times, was connected with the idea of the communis naturarum. In such development the leading object must be held to the preservation in doctrinal form of the evangelical picture of the life of Jesus Christ in its human truthfulness and comprehensibility, undeterred by monophysite, docetic, or Nestorian opinions, but accompanied by the declaration that this man Jesus Christ is the logos, in the flesh, God of God, born in eternity of the Father. . . . The thought that he who, as the eternal logos, is with the Father, is at the same time a true Son of man, contains such an inexhaustible fulness of knowledge respecting the common salvation, that every division based on the effort to definitely formulate the relation between the divine and human natures in Christ becomes a sin committed against the God-man himself, to whom all profess a common allegiance.-Die evangel. Union, ihr Wesen und ihr Göttliches Recht, 1st ed., Berl., 1854, p. 316 sqq. Comp. also Rothe, ubi supra, p. 384: "When this shall have become clear, that moral unity with God is to be conceived as not ideal only, but as real, as the result of a more thorough acquaintance with the interior nature of moral being, then shall we also, for the first time, have grasped the key to Christology, and behold a living Christ, in sharp and vivid outlines, before the eye of the mind-a Christ who is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and at the same time the only begotten of the Father, in whose presence we are constrained to bow and exclaim with Thomas, 'My Lord and my God!' Then will the breathings of our faith be deep and joyous, when it has seen the dawning of this bright light in the midst of darkness-it is faith in Christ, instead of unbelief, which has penetrated through the dogma."