Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 308

284

ECTYPAL THEOLOGY

§60.

[Div. Ill

the stem of humanity, while humanity as an organic whole is saved, and as such forms the ''body of Christ." By "believing humanity,"' therefore, we understand the human race as an organic whole, so far as it lives^

i.e.

so far as unbelief

has turned again to faith or shall turn. In the general consciousness of humanity thus taken, the content, according to the original disposition of our creBud by ation, should be formed by individual accretion.

bud unfolds, and thus only

is

the foliage of the bush gradu-

Without sin the

ally adorned with flowers.

logical action,

which translates the content of faith into a clear conception, and thus into knowledge of God, would have gone out from the individuals, and from these single rills the stream would have been formed. Here, also, the way would have led from within outward. This, however, was cut off by sin. As soon as sin had entered in, revelation had to Avork from without inward, since sin had fast bolted the door which fj-ave

access to the manifestation of

God

in the soul.

No

sooner had sin gained an entrance than Adam discerned and perceived the presence of the Lord approaching him from And thus the problem without in the cool of the day. arises, in

what way the

logical action,

which

is

to transmute

the content of faith into knowledge of God, can come from

without, in order

now

inversely, from the general conscious-

And from no simple solution for this very complicated problem, but a very complex one, which can only be fully explained in the chapter on the principium The lines alone can here be indicated, whose of Theology. combination and crossing offer the figure for this solution.

ness, to reach the consciousness of the individual.

the nature of the case there

In the

first place,

is

then, let us observe that the general

subject of the essential ego of restored humanity can be no abstraction, simply because an abstraction

Agreeably

any logical action.

that this general subject

say that there

is

is

is

incapable of

to this the Scripture teaches

tlie

As we commonly

Christ.

a thinking head in an association, group,

or party, or that he

thinking head for

who forms

a school

all his school, so in a

is

the essentially

much more

rigorous

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