DOGMATICS AS AN ENQUIRY
2. DOGMATICS AS AN ENQUIRY
Dogmatics is the self-examination of the Christian Church in respect of the content of its distinctive talk about God. The true content which is sought we shall call dogma. This term, and therefore the word “dogmatics,” will be explained in § 7. In this initial approach we may simply say that when we describe the true content of the Church’s talk about God as the object of human work or investigation, we presuppose that it has both the capacity and the need to serve as the object of human enquiry. In other words, we presuppose that the “science of dogma” is both possible and necessary. Neither proposition is self-evident. Each must be sustained.
1. Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that the true content of Christian talk about God can be known by man. It makes this assumption as in and with the Church it believes in Jesus Christ as the revealing and reconciling address of God to man. Talk about God has true content when it conforms to the being of the Church, i.e., when it conforms to Jesus Christ … ναλοίαν τῆς πίστεως* (Rom. 12:6). It is in terms of such conformity that dogmatics investigates Christian utterance. Hence it does not have to begin by finding or inventing the standard by which it measures. It sees and recognises that this is given with the Church. It is given in its own peculiar way, as Jesus Christ is given, as God in His revelation gives Himself to faith. But it is given. It is complete in itself. It stands by its claim without discussion. It has the certainty which a true standard or criterion must have to be the means of serious measurement. Dogmatics presupposes that, as God in Jesus Christ is the essence of the Church, having promised Himself to it, so He is the truth, not merely in Himself, but also for us as we know Him solely by faith in Jesus Christ. To the extent that dogmatics receives this standard by which it measures talk about God in Jesus Christ, in the event of the divine action corresponding to the promise given to the Church, it is possible for it to be knowledge of the truth. What is or is not the true content of such talk about God is clear at once and with complete fulness and certainty in the light in which we are here set. The fulfilment of this knowledge, the event of human action, the appropriation corresponding to this address in which, through the stages of intuitive apprehension to formulated comprehension, the revelation of the analogia fidei* and the resultant clarity in dogmatics (in dogmatics too, but not first or solely in dogmatics) take creaturely form, is, of course, a second event compared with the divine action itself, united with it in faith, yet also in faith to be distinguished from it. The second event, however, does not abolish the first. In, with and under the human question dogmatics speaks of the divine answer. It knows even as it seeks. It teaches even as it learns. In human uncertainty like any other science, it establishes the most certain truth ever known. In relation to its subject, every statement in dogmatics, as a statement of faith, must be ventured with the assurance of speaking divine and not just human truth. In distinction from the academic reserve of, e.g., a philosophical proposition, it cannot evade the severity of the dogmatic. The necessary corrective is supplied by the matter itself: “in relation to its object … as a statement of faith.” The intractability of faith and its object guarantees that divine certainty cannot become human security. But it is this intractable faith and its intractable object which make possible the certain divine knowledge which is at issue in dogmatics.
ὁ δὲ πνευματικὸς ἀνακρίνει μὲν τὰ πάντα, ἀυτὸς δὲ ὑπʼ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρίνετααι. τίς γὰρ ἔγνωνοῦν κυρίου, ὂς συμβιβάσει αὐτόν; ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν* (1 Cor. 2:15f.). Viderint, qui Stoicum et Platonicum et dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum nec inquisitione post evangelium* (Tertullian, De praescr., 7). Aliud est, de silvestri cacumine videre patriam pacis et iter ad eam non invenire et frustra conari per invia … et aliud tenere viam illuc ducentem curia coelestis imperatoris munitam* (Augustine, Conf. VII, 21, 27). Civitas Dei … habens de rebus quas mente et ratione comprehendit etiamsi parvam … tamen certissimam scientiam* (De civ. Dei, XIX, 18). Tolle assertiones, et Christianismum tulisti* (Luther, De servo arb., 1525, W.A., 18, p. 603, l. 32). Spiritus sanctus non est scepticus, nec dubia aut opiniones in cordibus nostris scripsit, sed assertiones ipsa vita et omni experientia certiores et firmiores* (ibid., p. 605, l. 32). Veritas periclitari potest, perire non potest. Impugnatur quidem, sed non expugnatur, Quia verbum Domini manet in aeternum* (Comm. on Gal. 1:7, 1535, W.A., 401, p. 115, l. 15). Sic ego omnino nihil audio contrarium meae doctrinae; sum enim certus et persuasus per Spiritum Christi meam doctrinam de Christiana justitia veram ac certam esse* (Comm. on Gal. 3:1, W.A., 401, p. 323, l. 28). Haec est ratio, cur nostra Theologia certa sit: Quia rapit nos a nobis et ponit nos extra nos, ut non nitamur viribus, conscientia, sensu, persona, operibus nostris, sed eo nitamur, quod est extra nos, Hoc est, promissione et veritate Dei, quae fallere non potest* (Comm. on Gal. 4:6, W.A., 401, p. 589, l. 25). Ut certa est cuilibet sano haec sententia: bis quattuor sunt octo … ita sint certi nobis et immoti articuli fidei, comminationes et promissiones divinae.… Quare illam dubitationem philosophicam seu ἐποχὴν nequaquam admittamus ad doctrinam ecclesiae a Deo traditam.… Non alenda est hic aut laudanda dubitatio, sed sit fides certa assensio …*. (Melanchthon, Loci comm., 1559, C. R. 21, p. 604 f.). The “critical question” with which Eberhard Grisebach thinks it necessary to approach the work of theology has the value of sharpening the insight, not unfamiliar to some theologians, that the statements of dogmatics can have no other certainty than that which may be had by statements of faith with reference to their object, and that neither object nor faith stands at the disposal of the dogmatician. To the extent that such criticism passes from the investigation of theological certainty to its denial, it destroys itself and may be ignored. And theologians of this school may well be asked how long they think they can live on repetition of the “critical question.”
It was obviously with reference to this aspect of the possibility of dogmatics as enquiry that the Reformed orthodox adopted the dangerously abbreviated definition of theology as doctrina revelata* or patefacta*. Yet among the later writers of this school we also find the more exact statement that evidentia* and certitudo* are proper to theological propositions in respect of their ratio objectiva*, i.e., revelation, and the habitus*, i.e., faith, in which we affirm them (F. Burmann, Syn. Theol., 1678, I, 2, 60), Ea cognitio est vera, etiamsi non sit adaequata, quia quae de Deo cognoscuntur … carent omni mendacio, licet plus in re ipsa sit, quam a nobis intellegi potest* (Coccejus, Summa theol., 1669, I, 4).
2. Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that the true content of Christian talk about God must be known by men. Christian speech must be tested by its conformity to Christ. This conformity is never clear and unambiguous. To the finally and adequately given divine answer there corresponds a human question which can maintain its faithfulness only in unwearied and honest persistence. There corresponds even at the highest point of attainment the open: “Not as though I had already attained.” Dogmatics receives even the standard by which it measures in an act of human appropriation. Hence it has to be enquiry. It knows the light which is intrinsically perfect and reveals everything in a flash. Yet it knows it only in the prism of this act, which, however radically or existentially it may be understood, is still a human act, which in itself is no kind of surety for the correctness of the appropriation in question, which is by nature fallible and therefore stands in need of criticism, of correction, of critical amendment and repetition. For this reason the creaturely form which the revealing action of God assumes in dogmatics is never that of knowledge attained in a flash, which it would have to be to correspond to the divine gift, but a laborious movement from one partial human insight to another with the intention though with no guarantee of advance.
Βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι διʼ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι … ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους* (1 Cor. 13:12). And with a like application we may also recall 2 Cor. 4:7: Ἔχομεν δὲ τὸν θησαυρὸν τοῦτον ἐν ὀστρακίνοις σκεύεσιν, ἵνα ἡ ὑπερβολὴ τῆς δυνάμεως ᾗ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ μὴ ἐξ ἡμῶν*. Diximusne aliquid et sonuimus aliquid dignum Dei? Imo vero nihil me aliud quam dicere voluisse sentio: Si autem dixi, non hoc est, quod dicere volui* (Augustine, De doctr. Christ., I, 6). Cur non te sentit, Domine Deus, anima mea, si invenit te? An non invenit, quem invenit esse lucem et veritatem?… An et veritas et lux est, quod vidit, et tamen nondum te vidit, quia vidit te aliquatenus, sed von vidit te, sicuti es? Domine Deus meus, formator et reformator meus, dic desideranti animae meae, quid aliud es, quam quod vidit ut pure videat quod desiderat* (Anselm of Canterbury, Prosl., 14). Et ut omne aenigma est sermo obscurus, nodosus, involutus, intellectu difficilis: ita nostra Theologia ratione obiecti est inevidens, complectens mysteria profundissima et in hac mortalitate cognitu difficillima* (Hollaz, Examen Theol. acroam., 1707, Prol., I, 8).
The fact that it is in faith that the truth is presupposed to be the known measure of all things means that the truth is in no sense assumed to be to hand. The truth comes, i.e., in the faith in which we begin to know, and cease, and begin again. The results of earlier dogmatic work, and indeed our own results, are basically no more than signs of its coming. They are simply the results of human effort. As such they are a help to, but also the object of, fresh human effort. Dogmatics is possible only as theologia crucis*, in the act of obedience which is certain in faith, but which for this very reason is humble, always being thrown back to the beginning and having to make a fresh start. It is not possible as an effortless triumph or an intermittent labour. It always takes place on the narrow way which leads from the enacted revelation to the promised revelation.
… ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν* (Rom. 1:17). Augustine in an important passage evolves the doctrine that credere* must precede intelligere* to the extent that it is established by the vox de coelo* (verbum Dei*), but that it must follow it to the extent that it is to be established by the sermo propheticus* (verbum meum*). as in Mark 9:22. Faith as faith in God stands on its own feet and is the basis of knowledge. Faith as the faith of man requires knowledge and is established by it (Sermo, 43, 4–9).
Here our way diverges from that of Roman Catholic dogmatics, and we must also enter a caveat* against a certain tendency in the older Protestant tradition. Dogmatics is the science of dogma. Only in a subordinate sense, and strictly in conjunction with the primary, is it also the science of dogmas. The task of dogmatics, therefore, is not simply to combine, repeat and transcribe a number of truths of revelation which are already to hand, which have been expressed once and for all, and the wording and meaning of which are authentically defined.
Even on the Roman Catholic view there does seem to be “a true progress of the teaching Church,” namely, in knowledge and understanding in the development, application and expression of revealed truth (Diekamp, Kath. Dogmatik, 6th ed., Vol. I, 1930, p. 19 f. Cf. Vincent of Lerins and his doctrine of profectus religionis, Common., I, 22 f.). In this context, however, the truth of revelation means the “apostolic deposit” infallibly proposed by the teaching office of the Church in the two forms of Holy Scripture and oral apostolic tradition (Diekamp, op. cit., p. 24 f.). This deposit is thus identical with a sum of sacred texts. The task of dogmatics is “to mediate a fuller understanding of these truths by inferences” (op. cit., p. 76 f.). Moreover it is presupposed that the meaning of these truths or texts has already been mediated and authoritatively proclaimed by the teaching office, so that even in this task of understanding there can be no question of anything but transcription in a rather higher sense: Hinc sacrorum quoque dogmatum is sensus perpetuo est retinendus, quem semel declaravit sancta mater Ecclesia, nec unquam ab eo sensu altioris intelligentiae specie et nomine recedendum* (Conc. Vatic., Sess. III, Constit. de fide cath., c. 4).
This only too practicable view, by its direct equation of divine ascription and human appropriation in the dogmas, fails to recognise the divine-human character of the being of the Church. The being of the Church is Jesus Christ, and therefore an indissolubly divine-human person, the action of God towards man in distinction from which human appropriation as attested in the dogmas believed by the Church may be very worthy and respectable but can hardly be called infallible and therefore withdrawn from further enquiry whether this is how it should be. The concept of truths of revelation in the sense of Latin propositions given and sealed once for all with divine authority in both wording and meaning is theologically impossible if it is a fact that revelation is true in the free decision of God which was taken once for all in Jesus Christ, that it is thus strictly future for us, and that it must always become true in the Church in the intractable reality of faith. The freely acting God Himself and alone is the truth of revelation. Our dogmatic labours can and should be guided by results which are venerable because they are attained in the common knowledge of the Church at a specific time. Such results may be seen in the dogmas enshrined in the creeds. But at no point should these replace our dogmatic labours in virtue of their authority. Nor can it ever be the real concern of dogmatics merely to assemble, repeat and define the teaching of the Bible.
This is how Melanchthon seems to have understood the task (Loci comm., 1559, C.R., 21, p. 601). Rather more crudely Heidanus (Corp. Theol. christ., 1686, Prol., 1 f.) taught that Holy Scripture is non scripta ut systema quoddam, sed historica nobis facta Ecclesiae ab initio mundi ad finem describit*. Hence it is the task of Loci communes* to present res. S. Scriptura contentas certo et concinno ordine … ut certo methodo res divinas complecti et eas suo ordine collocare possitis et sicut Pharmacopolae solent medicamenta sua certis capsulis distinguere et disponere, ita vos omnia suis quaque locis digerere possitis*.
Exegetical theology investigates biblical teaching as the basis of our talk about God. Dogmatics, too, must constantly keep it in view. But only in God and not for us is the true basis of Christian utterance identical with its true content. Hence dogmatics as such does not ask what the apostles and prophets said but what we must say on the basis of the apostles and prophets. This task is not taken from us because it is first necessary that we should know the biblical basis.
Although exegesis and dogmatics are constantly interwoven in his work, for Calvin too Institutio religionis christianae* means the direction of Christian thought and speech to its own contemporary responsibility.
As the Church accepts from Scripture, and with divine authority from Scripture alone, the attestation of its own being as the measure of its utterance, it finds itself challenged to know itself, and therefore even and precisely in face of this foundation of all Christian utterance to ask, with all the seriousness of one who does not yet know, what Christian utterance can and should say today.
Nam et ego tecum credo et inconcusse credo … sed nunc molimur id quod in fidem recepimus, etiam intelligendo scire ac tenere firmissimum* (Augustine, De lib. arb., I, 3 6; cf. 4, 10). Quod enim hortante ipso quaerimus eodem ipso demonstrante inveniemus, quantum haec in hac vita et a nobis talibus inveniri queat* (ib., II, 2, 6). The purpose of Anselm of Canterbury regarding the question raised by his interlocutor is non tam ostendere, quam tecum quaerere* (Cur Deus homo?, I, 2). His aim in intellectus fidei* is not a repetition of the believer’s legere*, but a genuine intus legere* of Scripture and dogma, though not on the basis of their accepted authoritative givenness: … quatenus auctoritate Scripturae penitus nihil in ea (scil. meditatione) persuaderetur (Monol. Prol.) … ut quod fide teneamus … sine Scripturae auctoritate probari possit* (Ep. de incarn., 6). For the distinction between dogmatic enquiry and authoritative quotation we might also refer to the well-known though not wholly unobjectionable formula of Anselm: remoto Christo … quasi nihil sciatur de Christo* (Cur Deus homo?, Prol.). Quaedam disputatio ordinatur ad removendam dubitationem an ita sit; et in tali disputatione theologica maxime utendum est auctoritatibus, quas recipiunt illi, cum quibus disputatur.… Quaedam vero disputatio est magistralis in scholis non ad removendum errorem, sed ac instruendum auditores, ut inducantur ad intellectum veritatis quam intendit; et tunc oportet rationibus inniti investigantibus veritatis radicem et facientibus scire, quomodo sit verum, quod dicitur* (Thomas Aquinas, Quodlib., 4, 18).
This aspect of the matter, i.e., the necessity of dogmatics as an enquiry, was in the minds of the orthodox Lutherans when they used to distinguish theology quite expressly from Holy Scripture as ex verbo Dei exstructa* (e.g., J. Gerhard, Loci comm., 1610, Prooem., 31) docens … ex divina revelatione* (Baier, Comp. Theol. pos., 1686, Prol., 38), etc. (So, too, among the Reformed writers, Burmann, Syn. Theol., 1678, I, 2, 41.)
Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, vol. 1 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004),
Dogmatics is the self-examination of the Christian Church in respect of the content of its distinctive talk about God. The true content which is sought we shall call dogma. This term, and therefore the word “dogmatics,” will be explained in § 7. In this initial approach we may simply say that when we describe the true content of the Church’s talk about God as the object of human work or investigation, we presuppose that it has both the capacity and the need to serve as the object of human enquiry. In other words, we presuppose that the “science of dogma” is both possible and necessary. Neither proposition is self-evident. Each must be sustained.
1. Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that the true content of Christian talk about God can be known by man. It makes this assumption as in and with the Church it believes in Jesus Christ as the revealing and reconciling address of God to man. Talk about God has true content when it conforms to the being of the Church, i.e., when it conforms to Jesus Christ … ναλοίαν τῆς πίστεως* (Rom. 12:6). It is in terms of such conformity that dogmatics investigates Christian utterance. Hence it does not have to begin by finding or inventing the standard by which it measures. It sees and recognises that this is given with the Church. It is given in its own peculiar way, as Jesus Christ is given, as God in His revelation gives Himself to faith. But it is given. It is complete in itself. It stands by its claim without discussion. It has the certainty which a true standard or criterion must have to be the means of serious measurement. Dogmatics presupposes that, as God in Jesus Christ is the essence of the Church, having promised Himself to it, so He is the truth, not merely in Himself, but also for us as we know Him solely by faith in Jesus Christ. To the extent that dogmatics receives this standard by which it measures talk about God in Jesus Christ, in the event of the divine action corresponding to the promise given to the Church, it is possible for it to be knowledge of the truth. What is or is not the true content of such talk about God is clear at once and with complete fulness and certainty in the light in which we are here set. The fulfilment of this knowledge, the event of human action, the appropriation corresponding to this address in which, through the stages of intuitive apprehension to formulated comprehension, the revelation of the analogia fidei* and the resultant clarity in dogmatics (in dogmatics too, but not first or solely in dogmatics) take creaturely form, is, of course, a second event compared with the divine action itself, united with it in faith, yet also in faith to be distinguished from it. The second event, however, does not abolish the first. In, with and under the human question dogmatics speaks of the divine answer. It knows even as it seeks. It teaches even as it learns. In human uncertainty like any other science, it establishes the most certain truth ever known. In relation to its subject, every statement in dogmatics, as a statement of faith, must be ventured with the assurance of speaking divine and not just human truth. In distinction from the academic reserve of, e.g., a philosophical proposition, it cannot evade the severity of the dogmatic. The necessary corrective is supplied by the matter itself: “in relation to its object … as a statement of faith.” The intractability of faith and its object guarantees that divine certainty cannot become human security. But it is this intractable faith and its intractable object which make possible the certain divine knowledge which is at issue in dogmatics.
ὁ δὲ πνευματικὸς ἀνακρίνει μὲν τὰ πάντα, ἀυτὸς δὲ ὑπʼ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρίνετααι. τίς γὰρ ἔγνωνοῦν κυρίου, ὂς συμβιβάσει αὐτόν; ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν* (1 Cor. 2:15f.). Viderint, qui Stoicum et Platonicum et dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum nec inquisitione post evangelium* (Tertullian, De praescr., 7). Aliud est, de silvestri cacumine videre patriam pacis et iter ad eam non invenire et frustra conari per invia … et aliud tenere viam illuc ducentem curia coelestis imperatoris munitam* (Augustine, Conf. VII, 21, 27). Civitas Dei … habens de rebus quas mente et ratione comprehendit etiamsi parvam … tamen certissimam scientiam* (De civ. Dei, XIX, 18). Tolle assertiones, et Christianismum tulisti* (Luther, De servo arb., 1525, W.A., 18, p. 603, l. 32). Spiritus sanctus non est scepticus, nec dubia aut opiniones in cordibus nostris scripsit, sed assertiones ipsa vita et omni experientia certiores et firmiores* (ibid., p. 605, l. 32). Veritas periclitari potest, perire non potest. Impugnatur quidem, sed non expugnatur, Quia verbum Domini manet in aeternum* (Comm. on Gal. 1:7, 1535, W.A., 401, p. 115, l. 15). Sic ego omnino nihil audio contrarium meae doctrinae; sum enim certus et persuasus per Spiritum Christi meam doctrinam de Christiana justitia veram ac certam esse* (Comm. on Gal. 3:1, W.A., 401, p. 323, l. 28). Haec est ratio, cur nostra Theologia certa sit: Quia rapit nos a nobis et ponit nos extra nos, ut non nitamur viribus, conscientia, sensu, persona, operibus nostris, sed eo nitamur, quod est extra nos, Hoc est, promissione et veritate Dei, quae fallere non potest* (Comm. on Gal. 4:6, W.A., 401, p. 589, l. 25). Ut certa est cuilibet sano haec sententia: bis quattuor sunt octo … ita sint certi nobis et immoti articuli fidei, comminationes et promissiones divinae.… Quare illam dubitationem philosophicam seu ἐποχὴν nequaquam admittamus ad doctrinam ecclesiae a Deo traditam.… Non alenda est hic aut laudanda dubitatio, sed sit fides certa assensio …*. (Melanchthon, Loci comm., 1559, C. R. 21, p. 604 f.). The “critical question” with which Eberhard Grisebach thinks it necessary to approach the work of theology has the value of sharpening the insight, not unfamiliar to some theologians, that the statements of dogmatics can have no other certainty than that which may be had by statements of faith with reference to their object, and that neither object nor faith stands at the disposal of the dogmatician. To the extent that such criticism passes from the investigation of theological certainty to its denial, it destroys itself and may be ignored. And theologians of this school may well be asked how long they think they can live on repetition of the “critical question.”
It was obviously with reference to this aspect of the possibility of dogmatics as enquiry that the Reformed orthodox adopted the dangerously abbreviated definition of theology as doctrina revelata* or patefacta*. Yet among the later writers of this school we also find the more exact statement that evidentia* and certitudo* are proper to theological propositions in respect of their ratio objectiva*, i.e., revelation, and the habitus*, i.e., faith, in which we affirm them (F. Burmann, Syn. Theol., 1678, I, 2, 60), Ea cognitio est vera, etiamsi non sit adaequata, quia quae de Deo cognoscuntur … carent omni mendacio, licet plus in re ipsa sit, quam a nobis intellegi potest* (Coccejus, Summa theol., 1669, I, 4).
2. Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that the true content of Christian talk about God must be known by men. Christian speech must be tested by its conformity to Christ. This conformity is never clear and unambiguous. To the finally and adequately given divine answer there corresponds a human question which can maintain its faithfulness only in unwearied and honest persistence. There corresponds even at the highest point of attainment the open: “Not as though I had already attained.” Dogmatics receives even the standard by which it measures in an act of human appropriation. Hence it has to be enquiry. It knows the light which is intrinsically perfect and reveals everything in a flash. Yet it knows it only in the prism of this act, which, however radically or existentially it may be understood, is still a human act, which in itself is no kind of surety for the correctness of the appropriation in question, which is by nature fallible and therefore stands in need of criticism, of correction, of critical amendment and repetition. For this reason the creaturely form which the revealing action of God assumes in dogmatics is never that of knowledge attained in a flash, which it would have to be to correspond to the divine gift, but a laborious movement from one partial human insight to another with the intention though with no guarantee of advance.
Βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι διʼ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι … ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους* (1 Cor. 13:12). And with a like application we may also recall 2 Cor. 4:7: Ἔχομεν δὲ τὸν θησαυρὸν τοῦτον ἐν ὀστρακίνοις σκεύεσιν, ἵνα ἡ ὑπερβολὴ τῆς δυνάμεως ᾗ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ μὴ ἐξ ἡμῶν*. Diximusne aliquid et sonuimus aliquid dignum Dei? Imo vero nihil me aliud quam dicere voluisse sentio: Si autem dixi, non hoc est, quod dicere volui* (Augustine, De doctr. Christ., I, 6). Cur non te sentit, Domine Deus, anima mea, si invenit te? An non invenit, quem invenit esse lucem et veritatem?… An et veritas et lux est, quod vidit, et tamen nondum te vidit, quia vidit te aliquatenus, sed von vidit te, sicuti es? Domine Deus meus, formator et reformator meus, dic desideranti animae meae, quid aliud es, quam quod vidit ut pure videat quod desiderat* (Anselm of Canterbury, Prosl., 14). Et ut omne aenigma est sermo obscurus, nodosus, involutus, intellectu difficilis: ita nostra Theologia ratione obiecti est inevidens, complectens mysteria profundissima et in hac mortalitate cognitu difficillima* (Hollaz, Examen Theol. acroam., 1707, Prol., I, 8).
The fact that it is in faith that the truth is presupposed to be the known measure of all things means that the truth is in no sense assumed to be to hand. The truth comes, i.e., in the faith in which we begin to know, and cease, and begin again. The results of earlier dogmatic work, and indeed our own results, are basically no more than signs of its coming. They are simply the results of human effort. As such they are a help to, but also the object of, fresh human effort. Dogmatics is possible only as theologia crucis*, in the act of obedience which is certain in faith, but which for this very reason is humble, always being thrown back to the beginning and having to make a fresh start. It is not possible as an effortless triumph or an intermittent labour. It always takes place on the narrow way which leads from the enacted revelation to the promised revelation.
… ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν* (Rom. 1:17). Augustine in an important passage evolves the doctrine that credere* must precede intelligere* to the extent that it is established by the vox de coelo* (verbum Dei*), but that it must follow it to the extent that it is to be established by the sermo propheticus* (verbum meum*). as in Mark 9:22. Faith as faith in God stands on its own feet and is the basis of knowledge. Faith as the faith of man requires knowledge and is established by it (Sermo, 43, 4–9).
Here our way diverges from that of Roman Catholic dogmatics, and we must also enter a caveat* against a certain tendency in the older Protestant tradition. Dogmatics is the science of dogma. Only in a subordinate sense, and strictly in conjunction with the primary, is it also the science of dogmas. The task of dogmatics, therefore, is not simply to combine, repeat and transcribe a number of truths of revelation which are already to hand, which have been expressed once and for all, and the wording and meaning of which are authentically defined.
Even on the Roman Catholic view there does seem to be “a true progress of the teaching Church,” namely, in knowledge and understanding in the development, application and expression of revealed truth (Diekamp, Kath. Dogmatik, 6th ed., Vol. I, 1930, p. 19 f. Cf. Vincent of Lerins and his doctrine of profectus religionis, Common., I, 22 f.). In this context, however, the truth of revelation means the “apostolic deposit” infallibly proposed by the teaching office of the Church in the two forms of Holy Scripture and oral apostolic tradition (Diekamp, op. cit., p. 24 f.). This deposit is thus identical with a sum of sacred texts. The task of dogmatics is “to mediate a fuller understanding of these truths by inferences” (op. cit., p. 76 f.). Moreover it is presupposed that the meaning of these truths or texts has already been mediated and authoritatively proclaimed by the teaching office, so that even in this task of understanding there can be no question of anything but transcription in a rather higher sense: Hinc sacrorum quoque dogmatum is sensus perpetuo est retinendus, quem semel declaravit sancta mater Ecclesia, nec unquam ab eo sensu altioris intelligentiae specie et nomine recedendum* (Conc. Vatic., Sess. III, Constit. de fide cath., c. 4).
This only too practicable view, by its direct equation of divine ascription and human appropriation in the dogmas, fails to recognise the divine-human character of the being of the Church. The being of the Church is Jesus Christ, and therefore an indissolubly divine-human person, the action of God towards man in distinction from which human appropriation as attested in the dogmas believed by the Church may be very worthy and respectable but can hardly be called infallible and therefore withdrawn from further enquiry whether this is how it should be. The concept of truths of revelation in the sense of Latin propositions given and sealed once for all with divine authority in both wording and meaning is theologically impossible if it is a fact that revelation is true in the free decision of God which was taken once for all in Jesus Christ, that it is thus strictly future for us, and that it must always become true in the Church in the intractable reality of faith. The freely acting God Himself and alone is the truth of revelation. Our dogmatic labours can and should be guided by results which are venerable because they are attained in the common knowledge of the Church at a specific time. Such results may be seen in the dogmas enshrined in the creeds. But at no point should these replace our dogmatic labours in virtue of their authority. Nor can it ever be the real concern of dogmatics merely to assemble, repeat and define the teaching of the Bible.
This is how Melanchthon seems to have understood the task (Loci comm., 1559, C.R., 21, p. 601). Rather more crudely Heidanus (Corp. Theol. christ., 1686, Prol., 1 f.) taught that Holy Scripture is non scripta ut systema quoddam, sed historica nobis facta Ecclesiae ab initio mundi ad finem describit*. Hence it is the task of Loci communes* to present res. S. Scriptura contentas certo et concinno ordine … ut certo methodo res divinas complecti et eas suo ordine collocare possitis et sicut Pharmacopolae solent medicamenta sua certis capsulis distinguere et disponere, ita vos omnia suis quaque locis digerere possitis*.
Exegetical theology investigates biblical teaching as the basis of our talk about God. Dogmatics, too, must constantly keep it in view. But only in God and not for us is the true basis of Christian utterance identical with its true content. Hence dogmatics as such does not ask what the apostles and prophets said but what we must say on the basis of the apostles and prophets. This task is not taken from us because it is first necessary that we should know the biblical basis.
Although exegesis and dogmatics are constantly interwoven in his work, for Calvin too Institutio religionis christianae* means the direction of Christian thought and speech to its own contemporary responsibility.
As the Church accepts from Scripture, and with divine authority from Scripture alone, the attestation of its own being as the measure of its utterance, it finds itself challenged to know itself, and therefore even and precisely in face of this foundation of all Christian utterance to ask, with all the seriousness of one who does not yet know, what Christian utterance can and should say today.
Nam et ego tecum credo et inconcusse credo … sed nunc molimur id quod in fidem recepimus, etiam intelligendo scire ac tenere firmissimum* (Augustine, De lib. arb., I, 3 6; cf. 4, 10). Quod enim hortante ipso quaerimus eodem ipso demonstrante inveniemus, quantum haec in hac vita et a nobis talibus inveniri queat* (ib., II, 2, 6). The purpose of Anselm of Canterbury regarding the question raised by his interlocutor is non tam ostendere, quam tecum quaerere* (Cur Deus homo?, I, 2). His aim in intellectus fidei* is not a repetition of the believer’s legere*, but a genuine intus legere* of Scripture and dogma, though not on the basis of their accepted authoritative givenness: … quatenus auctoritate Scripturae penitus nihil in ea (scil. meditatione) persuaderetur (Monol. Prol.) … ut quod fide teneamus … sine Scripturae auctoritate probari possit* (Ep. de incarn., 6). For the distinction between dogmatic enquiry and authoritative quotation we might also refer to the well-known though not wholly unobjectionable formula of Anselm: remoto Christo … quasi nihil sciatur de Christo* (Cur Deus homo?, Prol.). Quaedam disputatio ordinatur ad removendam dubitationem an ita sit; et in tali disputatione theologica maxime utendum est auctoritatibus, quas recipiunt illi, cum quibus disputatur.… Quaedam vero disputatio est magistralis in scholis non ad removendum errorem, sed ac instruendum auditores, ut inducantur ad intellectum veritatis quam intendit; et tunc oportet rationibus inniti investigantibus veritatis radicem et facientibus scire, quomodo sit verum, quod dicitur* (Thomas Aquinas, Quodlib., 4, 18).
This aspect of the matter, i.e., the necessity of dogmatics as an enquiry, was in the minds of the orthodox Lutherans when they used to distinguish theology quite expressly from Holy Scripture as ex verbo Dei exstructa* (e.g., J. Gerhard, Loci comm., 1610, Prooem., 31) docens … ex divina revelatione* (Baier, Comp. Theol. pos., 1686, Prol., 38), etc. (So, too, among the Reformed writers, Burmann, Syn. Theol., 1678, I, 2, 41.)
Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, vol. 1 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004),
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