Since Ritschl, the representatives of the history of dogma have been concerned to obscure the problem of the law in Paul and to turn theology into paths of easiness. They assert that it was a purely practical question, which did not touch doctrine in the strict sense. This was the expedient by which they escaped from the difficulty when it was raised by Baur. It is time that it should be given up. When Paul proclaims that the Greeks do not need to submit to the law, he is not led to do so by the experience that this was reasonable and practical. He declares them free because the logical implications of his doctrine compel him to do so. What Jesus thought about the matter is just as indifferent to him as His opinion regarding the legitimacy of preaching to the Gentiles. The peculiar conditions of the time between His death and [pg 247] His parousia forbid any extension of the law to believers outside of Israel. On the other hand, these conditions require that believers belonging to the Chosen People must continue to practise it as before. The assertion of the non-validity of the law is never intended by Paul in a sense which would justify the inference of its total abolition for all believers. It has received its death-blow, but retains its position outwardly up to the time of the parousia. For this limited period the watchword is: he who is under the law shall continue to observe it; he who is free from it shall on no account place himself under it. From one and the same fact two diametrically opposite conclusions are drawn; for so the unique character of the time demands. What is the relation between predestination and the sacraments? Why do the elect of the final generation need a provision which was not made for those of earlier generations? This too must result from the unique character of the time. The only logical assumption is that to this special provision corresponds a special blessedness, going beyond the ordinary blessedness involved in election as such, which is reserved for the final generation and cannot be obtained otherwise than through baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But wherein does it consist? All these questions are, like the mystical doctrine, to be answered by reference to the special conditions of the period between the death of Jesus and the parousia. It must be possible to refer back the whole of the teachings to one and the same fundamental fact. It follows that there must be no more talking about the “uniqueness of the event at Damascus” and psychologising about Paul’s “religious experience,” no more spiritualising and modernising, no making play with the distinction between religion and theology, or with the discovery or concealment of contradictions and antinomies, or other similar exercises of ingenuity.