Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 613

Chap.

it

Ill]

§ 91.

THE CHURCH AND THE OFFICE

589

will never be finished, because as a science it

can never

be at a standstill, but will always advance without ever being able to reach completion. Avas

very imperfect.

If

In the earlier ages especially

it

then for the sake of procuring the

necessary knowledge of God, the Church, which to in the second place, should have

had

we

referred

to wait for the result

would have passed Church could have begun her task. And The Church had to be in this was not to be allowed. immediate readiness. She could not be held back by any of this study, generation after generation

awa}- before the

embarrassment. Neither has this taken place. From the very beginning, before there could be so much as a question of science, the Church has borrowed the content of her preaching from the Scripture and thereby has made use of a knowledge of God, which was sufficient ad hoc, i.e. for the What was needed in the churchly life life of the Church. gradually increased

also,

but in connection with this the

Church unfolded the content of her preaching ever more richly, at the same time profiting by the fruit of scientific theology that gradually arose. Thus churchly confessions originated, which were increasingly rich and full, but these churchly confessions have never announced themselves as the results of science.

And

it is

different again in the third place

with the personal knowledge of individual person, whose

God

of each individual.

The

measured by the day, was still less able than the Church, to wait till science had ended her combats and finished her task. In a sense even more definite than the Church each individual must personally be in instant readiness, and have convictions, which for him, ad hoc, can alone be obtained by personal faith and personal experience. Every other conception is unmerciful, since it is unable to give the elect, at every given moment, according to his several condition, that knowledge of God which he needs. Distinction meanwhile is readily made between this personal, churchly and scientific theology (or knowledge of God). The first tends to supply each child of God his comfort in life and in death. The second, to enable the Church to preach and to life is

maintain her confession in the face of the world.

And

the

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