History of Dogma, Volume 1 | Page 9

ideals of life, as well as on the
letter, whether of Scripture, or of tradition no longer
understood--dogma in its development and re-expression has
continually changed, according to the conditions under which the
Church was placed. If dogma is originally the formulation of Christian
faith as Greek culture understood it and justified it to itself, then dogma
has never indeed lost this character, though it has been radically
modified in later times. It is quite as important to keep in view the
tenacity of dogma as its changes, and in this respect the Protestant way
of writing history, which, here as elsewhere in the history of the Church,
is more disposed to attend to differences than to what is permanent, has
much to learn from the Catholic. But as the Protestant historian, as far
possible, judges of the progress of development in so far as it agrees
with the Gospel in its documentary form, he is still able to shew, with
all deference to that tenacity, that dogma has been so modified and used
to the best advantage by Augustine and Luther, that its Christian
character has in many respects gained, though in other respects it has
become further and further alienated from that character. In proportion
as the traditional system of dogmas lost its stringency it became richer.
In proportion as it was stripped by Augustine and Luther of its
apologetic philosophic tendency, it was more and more filled with
Biblical ideas, though, on the other hand, it became more full of
contradictions and less impressive.
This outlook, however, has already gone beyond the limits fixed for
these introductory paragraphs and must not be pursued further. To treat
in abstracto of the method of the history of dogma in relation to the

discovery, grouping and interpretation of the material is not to be
recommended; for general rules to preserve the ignorant and half
instructed from overlooking the important, and laying hold of what is
not important, cannot be laid down. Certainly everything depends on
the arrangement of the material; for the understanding of history is to
find the rules according to which the phenomena should be grouped,
and every advance in the knowledge of history is inseparable from an
accurate observance of these rules. We must, above all, be on our guard
against preferring one principle at the expense of another in the
interpretation of the origin and aim of particular dogmas. The most
diverse factors have at all times been at work in the formation of
dogmas. Next to the effort to determine the doctrine of religion
according to the finis religionis, the blessing of salvation, the following
may have been the most important. (1) The conceptions and sayings
contained in the canonical scriptures. (2) The doctrinal tradition
originating in earlier epochs of the church, and no longer understood. (3)
The needs of worship and organisation. (4) The effort to adjust the
doctrine of religion to the prevailing doctrinal opinions. (5) Political
and social circumstances. (6) The changing moral ideals of life. (7) The
so-called logical consistency, that is the abstract analogical treatment of
one dogma according to the form of another. (8) The effort to adjust
different tendencies and contradictions in the church. (9) The
endeavour to reject once for all a doctrine regarded as erroneous. (10)
The sanctifying power of blind custom. The method of explaining
everything wherever possible by "the impulse of dogma to unfold
itself," must be given up as unscientific, just as all empty abstractions
whatsoever must be given up as scholastic and mythological. Dogma
has had its history in the individual living man and nowhere else. As
soon as one adopts this statement in real earnest, that mediæval realism
must vanish to which a man so often thinks himself superior while
imbedded in it all the time. Instead of investigating the actual
conditions in which believing and intelligent men have been placed, a
system of Christianity has been constructed from which, as from a
Pandora's box, all doctrines which in course of time have been formed,
are extracted, and in this way legitimised as Christian. The simple
fundamental proposition that that only is Christian which can be
established authoritatively by the Gospel, has never yet received justice

in the history of dogma. Even the following account will in all
probability come short in this point; for in face of a prevailing false
tradition the application of a simple principle to every detail can hardly
succeed at the first attempt.
Explanation as to the Conception and Task of the History of Dogma.
No agreement as yet prevails with regard to the conception of the
history of dogma. Münscher (Handbuch der Christl. D.G. 3rd ed. I. p. 3
f.) declared that the business of the history of dogma is "To represent
all the changes which the