Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Religion
Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3)
Strong, Augustus Hopkins
Baptists -- Doctrines; Theology, Doctrinal
Christ is the principle of cohesion, attraction, interaction, not
only in the physical universe, but in the intellectual and moral
universe as well. In all our knowing, the knower and known are
“connected by some Being who is their reality,” and this being is
Christ, “the Light which lighteth every man”_ (John 1:9)_. We
_know_ in Christ, just as “in him we live, and move, and have our
being”_ (Acts 17:28)_. As the attraction of gravitation and the
principle of evolution are only other names for Christ, so he is
the basis of inductive reasoning and the ground of moral unity in
the creation. I am bound to love my neighbor as myself because he
has in him the same life that is in me, the life of God in Christ.
The Christ in whom all humanity is created, and in whom all
humanity consists, holds together the moral universe, drawing all
men to himself and so drawing them to God. Through him God
“reconciles all things unto himself ... whether things upon the
earth, or things in the heavens”_ (Col. 1:20)_.
As Pantheism = exclusive immanence = God imprisoned, so Deism =
exclusive transcendence = God banished. Ethical Monism holds to
the truth contained in each of these systems, while avoiding their
respective errors. It furnishes the basis for a new interpretation
of many theological as well as of many philosophical doctrines. It
helps our understanding of the Trinity. If within the bounds of
God’s being there can exist multitudinous finite personalities, it
becomes easier to comprehend how within those same bounds there
can be three eternal and infinite personalities,—indeed, the
integration of plural consciousnesses in an all-embracing divine
consciousness may find a valid analogy in the integration of
subordinate consciousnesses in the unit-personality of man; see
Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Feeling and Will, 53, 54.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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