Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 325

Chap.

THEOLOGY AS "KNOWLEDGE OF GOD"

1]

forms of

ritual,

301

but can also deal with the theology which,

outside of these rituals, can be observed in their mysteries It is well said, that and in their poets and philosophers. even the most repulsive idolatry stands in organic relation There is a generic unity, which in to the purest revelation. former times was too greatly lost from sight, and is still

overlooked too much, especially by ]\Iethodism overlooked The purest confession of also in the work of missions. ;

truth finds ultimately

its

starting-point in the seed of re-

thanks to common grace, and, on the other hand,

ligion

(semen

is still

present in the fallen sinner

religionis), which,

;

no form of idolatry so low, or so corrupted, but has Without natural sprung from this same semen religionis. Theology there is no Abba^ Father, conceivable, any more than In so far, then, we agree in principle with a Moloch ritual. Science of Religion (Religionswissenschaft). present day the there

On it,

is

the other hand, as soon as

we

it tries

to

place ourselves in direct opposition to fill

in the interval

between

this Abba,

Father, and the Moloch ritual with the undulations of a gradually advancing process.

There

is

here no transition nor

gradual development, but an antithesis between the positive

and negative working of a selfsame power. With natural Theology it is the same as it is with faith and ethics. Ethical life knows only one normal development, viz. that to holiness; but over against this positive stands the negative Sin is an " actual depridevelopment along the line of sin.

want (carentia), and therefore it is and such by the negative working of all the glorious power which by nature belongs to the ethical life. Likewise unbelief, as shown above, is no want of faith, but an actuosa privatio fidei, i.e. the power of faith turned into its opposite. And in the same way idolatry also is no outcome of the imagination, nor of factors in vation," and not merely a virtue turned into

its

opposite,

human consciousness that gradually develop themselves, but of an actuosa privatio of the natural knowledge of God. In the idolater both the motive and the content of this natu-

the

ral

theology are turned into their opposites.

It is the

same

wheel, turning itself on the same pivot, but in a reverse or

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