Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation,: 10th Edition, 1890
Religion
Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation,: 10th Edition, 1890
Christianity; Incarnation
must necessarily be understood, are only such as all men apply to any
similar generalisation about responsibility for conduct. 'If ye
believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins,' is paralleled by
'They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.' We
claim only to interpret the one as rationally as all men understand
the other.
It has seemed to be desirable, while insisting upon the claims of
dogma, not indeed in the name of allegiance to imposed authority, but
in the name of truth, and on the ground of its simple identity with
truth, to try to state, with the utmost possible plainness, whatever
could be truly admitted in the way of apparent qualification of those
claims. Truth is supreme, and eternal; and dogma, so far as it
coincides with truth, is, of course, all that truth is. For the
dogmatic position of the Church and her Creeds, we claim that it is
the true and simple expression upon earth of the highest truth that
is, or can be, known. But dogmatic theologians are not infallible, and
so far as the name of dogma has been claimed for mistaken presumption
or misleading statement of truth, so far may dogma have seemed to
fight against truth. The words, indeed, 'dogmatic' and 'dogmatism'
have acquired a bad reputation. But this is not the fault of dogma. A
dogmatist, in the invidious sense of the word, does not mean one who
studies dogma, but rather one who foolishly utters what are not dogmas
as if they were. The dogmatic temper is the temper of one who is
imperiously confident that he is right when he is not. That is to say,
the words dogma, dogmatic, dogmatize, etc., are commonly used of
something which is the mere abuse and travesty of their proper
meaning. It is hard that dogma itself should be prejudiced by this
caricaturing misuse of its name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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