Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Our doctrine that faith is knowledge and the highest knowledge is
to be distinguished from that of Ritschl, whose theology is an
appeal to the heart to the _exclusion_ of the head—to _fiducia_
without _notitia_. But _fiducia_ includes _notitia_, else it is
blind, irrational, and unscientific. Robert Browning, in like
manner, fell into a deep speculative error, when, in order to
substantiate his optimistic faith, he stigmatized human knowledge
as merely apparent. The appeal of both Ritschl and Browning from
the head to the heart should rather be an appeal from the narrower
knowledge of the mere intellect to the larger knowledge
conditioned upon right affection. See A. H. Strong, The Great
Poets and their Theology, 441. On Ritschl’s postulates, see
Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 274-280, and
Pfleiderer, Die Ritschl’sche Theologie. On the relation of love
and will to knowledge, see Kaftan, in Am. Jour. Theology,
1900:717; Hovey, Manual Christ. Theol., 9; Foundations of our
Faith, 12, 13; Shedd, Hist. Doct., 1:154-164; Presb. Quar., Oct.
1871, Oct. 1872, Oct. 1873; Calderwood, Philos. Infinite, 99, 117;
Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 2-8; New Englander, July, 1873:481;
Princeton Rev., 1864:122; Christlieb, Mod. Doubt, 124, 125; Grau,
Glaube als höchste Vernunft, in Beweis des Glaubens, 1865:110;
Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 228; Newman, Univ. Sermons, 206;
Hinton, Art of Thinking, Introd. by Hodgson, 5.
2. Man’s capacity for the knowledge of God
_In the capacity of the human mind for knowing God and certain of these
relations._—But it has urged that such knowledge is impossible for the
following reasons:
A. Because we can know only phenomena. We reply: (_a_) We know mental as
well as physical phenomena. (_b_) In knowing phenomena, whether mental or
physical, we know substance as underlying the phenomena, as manifested
through them, and as constituting their ground of unity. (_c_) Our minds
bring to the observation of phenomena not only this knowledge of
substance, but also knowledge of time, space, cause, and right, realities
which are in no sense phenomenal. Since these objects of knowledge are not
phenomenal, the fact that God is not phenomenal cannot prevent us from
knowing him.
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