Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 597

;

Chap. Ill]

§ 88.

THE PRINCIPIUM

IN ACTION

573

the theological whole they form organic, and therefore indispensable, members.

If

it

not in

is

compare the Holy Scripture

to a

itself

objectionable to

gold mine, this compari-

son nevertheless fails as soon as an attempt is made to view Then, indeed, there is the method of theology as a whole. not a question of a quiescent, passive gold mine which awaits the coming of a miner, but rather of a power propelled by the

Holy

Spirit,

and propelling the

spirits of

men, which has drawn

furrows deep in the past, and which, from the living phenomenon of the Church, still appeals to us as a principium its

We do not step thus a handbreadth aside full of action. from the conception of theology as we found it. Theology remains to us theology in the strictest sense of the word, i.e.

the

that science whose object

Holy Scripture, which

is

is

ectypal theology, given in

the principium of theology

but we refuse to eliminate the action of this Word from our reckoning. Not only the statics, but also the dynamics must be given a hearing. Hence, as a product of the energy of the

Word,

the

place of

its

Church may not be cut

own

off,

but

it

must

in theological science as a whole.

So

find a far as

produces an effect upon the organic system of theologic science, this point will be treated in the last chapter but one this

here it is mentioned only in so far as it of this volume produces an effect upon the tnethod of theology. In this form ;

it

comes nearest

to

what

is

generally called the relation of

theology to the Church, even though

it

creates

some

sur-

prise that this question has almost always been separated

from the question about the method. If a fixed relation between theology and the Church is to be treated in another than an outward sense, this relation must also appear in tlie method.

An

Church and the practice Church as an institution has herself taken it frequently in hand through the organ of her appointed theologians. She can bind such theologians to her confession; she can forbid them to publish anything in conflict with it; and by discii:)line she can prevent them from every effort directed against it. But outivard relation between the

of theology

is

surely conceivable, in so far as the

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