Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 633

CiiAF.

IN

IVJ

THE ORGANISM OF SCIENCE

we are by no means human personality ; this, otherwise there would be a new

609

be removed,

to

of our

indeed, must remain, since

understand the structure

creation and no reo-enerameant is simply that which in that structure has been deformed by sin and has become a sinful habit. Consequently, revealed theology distinguishes in man between what is his human structure, in order that it may attach itself to this, and all sinful deformity, in order to exclude it. And since natural theology does not belong to what constitutes the " old man," but on the contrary to the psychical structure of our human essence, revealed theology does by no means exclude this natural theology, but rather postulates it, assumes it, and joins itself to it. For this reason it was so

What

tion.

is

absurd in the last century to place this natural theology as a second principium of Divine knowledge by the side of the

Holy

Scripture, and so really to furnish

two theologies first, and vague knowledge of God from natural theology, and after that a broad and sharply outlined knowledge of God from Revelation. For sinful man, as he is able in his psychical structure from himself, in connection with his observation of the cosmos, to obtain this natural theology (Rom. i. 19, 20), is the person in all dogma toward whom Revelation directs itself, to whom it is disposed, and whom it takes thus and not otherwise. Hence our older theologians were much nearer the truth when they applied the clear distinctions between man in his original creation, fallen, and restored, to almost every dogma, provided it is carefully kept in view that they did not delineate fallen man to whom the revelation was made after life, but took their copy from the image offered of him by the Scripture. Neither did they do this in order to lose themselves in abstraction, which has nothing in com:

a brief

mon with

life,

but to obtain certainty that they did not

view of fallen man. If the}^ had gone to work empirically, and had sought from life itself to into error in their

fall

man might be, all cerwould have been wanting which is

estimate what sort of a person fallen tainty of starting-point

;

seen sufficiently clearly from the several sorts of theories thn

t

have been framed concerning

it.

On

the contrary, they

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