The Project Gutenberg EBook of Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) by Augustus Hopkins Strong This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) Author: Augustus Hopkins Strong Release Date: October 25, 2013 [Ebook 44035] Language: English ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY (VOLUME 1 OF 3)*** Systematic Theology A Compendium and Commonplace-Book Designed For The Use Of Theological Students By Augustus Hopkins Strong, D.D., LL.D. President and Professor of Biblical Theology in the Rochester Theological Seminary Revised and Enlarged In Three Volumes Volume 1 The Doctrine of God The Judson Press Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Seattle, Toronto 1907 Contents Preface . .3 Part I. Prolegomena. .9 Chapter I. Idea Of Theology. .9 I. Definition of Theology. .9 II. Aim of Theology. 10 III. Possibility of Theology. 12 IV. Necessity of Theology. 41 V. Relation of Theology to Religion. 50 Chapter II. Material of Theology. 61 I. Sources of Theology. 61 II. Limitations of Theology. 82 III. Relations of Material to Progress in Theology. 86 Chapter III. Method Of Theology. 90 I. Requisites to the study of Theology. 90 II. Divisions of Theology. 96 III. History of Systematic Theology. 103 IV. Order of Treatment in Systematic Theology. 117 V. Text-Books in Theology. 119 Part II. The Existence Of God. 121 Chapter I. Origin Of Our Idea Of God's Existence. 121 I. First Truths in General. 124 II. The Existence of God a first truth. 129 III. Other Supposed Sources of our Idea of God's Existence. 143 IV. Contents of this Intuition. 154 Chapter II. Corroborative Evidences Of God's Existence.162 I. The Cosmological Argument, or Argument from Change in Nature. 166 iv Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) II. The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Order and Useful Collocation in Nature. 170 III. The Anthropological Argument, or Argument from Man's Mental and Moral Nature. 183 IV. The Ontological Argument, or Argument from our Abstract and Necessary Ideas. 194 Chapter III. Erroneous Explanations, And Conclusion. 204 I. Materialism. 204 II. Materialistic Idealism. 216 III. Idealistic Pantheism. 227 IV. Ethical Monism. 239 Part III. The Scriptures A Revelation From God. 252 Chapter I. Preliminary Considerations. 252 I. Reasons a priori for expecting a Revelation from God. 252 II. Marks of the Revelation man may expect. 258 III. Miracles, as attesting a Divine Revelation. 265 IV. Prophecy as Attesting a Divine Revelation. 303 V. Principles of Historical Evidence applicable to the Proof of a Divine Revelation. 320 Chapter II. Positive Proofs That The Scriptures Are A Divine Revelation. 328 I. Genuineness of the Christian Documents. 328 II. Credibility of the Writers of the Scriptures. 391 III. The Supernatural Character of the Scripture Teaching. 396 IV. The Historical Results of the Propagation of Scripture Doctrine. 433 Chapter III. Inspiration Of The Scriptures. 445 I. Definition of Inspiration. 445 II. Proof of Inspiration. 450 III. Theories of Inspiration. 460 v IV. The Union of the Divine and Human Ele- ments in Inspiration. 483 V. Objections to the Doctrine of Inspiration. 505 Part IV. The Nature, Decrees, And Works Of God. 555 Chapter I. The Attributes Of God. 555 I. Definition of the term Attributes. 556 II. Relation of the divine Attributes to the divine Essence. 557 III. Methods of determining the divine Attributes. 563 IV. Classification of the Attributes. 564 V. Absolute or Immanent Attributes. 568 VI. Relative or Transitive Attributes. 628 VII. Rank and Relations of the several Attributes. 676 Chapter II. Doctrine Of The Trinity. 695 I. In Scriptures there are Three who are recog- nized as God. 698 II. These Three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to conceive of them as distinct Persons. 739 III. This Tripersonality of the Divine Nature is not merely economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal. 748 IV. This Tripersonality is not Tritheism; for, while there are three Persons, there is but one Essence. 758 V. The Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are equal. 766 VI. Inscrutable, yet not self-contradictory, this Doctrine furnishes the Key to all other Doctrines. 789 Chapter III. The Decrees Of God. 810 I. Definition of Decrees. 810 II. Proof of the Doctrine of Decrees. 814 III. Objections to the Doctrine of Decrees. 825 vi Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) IV. Concluding Remarks. 844 [Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.] [v] Christo Deo Salvatori. “THE EYE SEES ONLY THAT WHICH IT BRINGS WITH IT THE POWER OF SEEING.”—Cicero. “OPEN THOU MINE EYES, THAT I MAY BEHOLD WONDROUS THINGS OUT OF THY LAW.”—Psalm 119:18. “FOR WITH THEE IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE:IN THY LIGHT SHALL WE SEE LIGHT.”—Psalm 36:9. “FOR WE KNOW IN PART, AND WE PROPHESY IN PART; BUT WHEN THAT WHICH IS PERFECT IS COME, THAT WHICH IS IN PART SHALL BE DONE AWAY.”—1 Cor. 13:9, 10. [vii] Preface The present work is a revision and enlargement of my “Systematic Theology,” first published in 1886. Of the original work there have been printed seven editions, each edition embodying successive corrections and supposed improvements. During the twenty years which have intervened since its first publication I have accumulated much new material, which I now offer to the reader. My philosophical and critical point of view meantime has also somewhat changed. While I still hold to the old doctrines, I interpret them differently and expound them more clearly, because I seem to myself to have reached a fundamental truth which throws new light upon them all. This truth I have tried to set forth in my book entitled “Christ in Creation,” and to that book I refer the reader for further information. That Christ is the one and only Revealer of God, in nature, in humanity, in history, in science, in Scripture, is in my judgment the key to theology. This view implies a monistic and idealistic conception of the world, together with an evolutionary idea as to its origin and progress. But it is the very antidote to pantheism, in that it recognizes evolution as only the method of the transcendent and personal Christ, who fills all in all, and who makes the universe teleological and moral from its centre to its circumference and from its beginning until now. Neither evolution nor the higher criticism has any terrors to one who regards them as parts of Christ's creating and educating process. The Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge himself furnishes all the needed safeguards and limitations. It is only because Christ has been forgotten that nature and law have been personified, that history has been [viii] regarded as unpurposed development, that Judaism has been 4 Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) referred to a merely human origin, that Paul has been thought to have switched the church off from its proper track even before it had gotten fairly started on its course, that superstition and illusion have come to seem the only foundation for the sacrifices of the martyrs and the triumphs of modern missions. I believe in no such irrational and atheistic evolution as this. I believe rather in him in whom all things consist, who is with his people even to the end of the world, and who has promised to lead them into all the truth. Philosophy and science are good servants of Christ, but they are poor guides when they rule out the Son of God. As I reach my seventieth year and write these words on my birthday, I am thankful for that personal experience of union with Christ which has enabled me to see in science and philosophy the teaching of my Lord. But this same personal experience has made me even more alive to Christ's teaching in Scripture, has made me recognize in Paul and John a truth profounder than that disclosed by any secular writers, truth with regard to sin and atonement for sin, that satisfies the deepest wants of my nature and that is self-evidencing and divine. I am distressed by some common theological tendencies of our time, because I believe them to be false to both science and religion. How men who have ever felt themselves to be lost sinners and who have once received pardon from their crucified Lord and Savior can thereafter seek to pare down his attributes, deny his deity and atonement, tear from his brow the crown of miracle and sovereignty, relegate him to the place of a merely moral teacher who influences us only as does Socrates by words spoken across a stretch of ages, passes my comprehension. Here is my test of orthodoxy: Do we pray to Jesus? Do we call upon the name of Christ, as did Stephen and all the early church? Is [ix] he our living Lord, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent? Is he divine only in the sense in which we are divine, or is he the only-begotten Son, God manifest in the flesh, in whom is all the Preface 5 fulness of the Godhead bodily? What think ye of the Christ? is still the critical question, and none are entitled to the name of Christian who, in the face of the evidence he has furnished us, cannot answer the question aright.