Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 282

258

ECTYPAL THEOLOGY

§60.

lation to

man

of humanity,

And

man.

in

liis

generations,

and only

finally, in

i.e.

[Div. Ill

to the organic unity

in this organic unity to the single

the fifth place, account must be kept

which this revelation had to assume, regard the act of revelation and its content, with to both and the forming of its channel in the human spirit, in order, in spite of the obstruction of sin, to accomplish its original plan and to realize the purpose implied in its Though it is thus unquestionably true that in tendency. our sinful state we could never attain to a true Theology, i.e. a true knowledge of God, unless the form of revelation were soteriological, it is nevertheless necessary that in our representation of revelation also the fact be emphasized that the soteriological element is ever accidental, bears merely an intervenient character, and remains dependent upon the fundamental conception of revelation which is given in creation itself, and Avhich teleologically looks forward to a state of things in which there shall be no more sin, so that every soteriological act shall belong to a never-returning past. of the special character

The

first

proposition therefore reads

:

Grod reveals

Him-

His oivn sake, and 7iot in behalf of man. This only true starting-point for the real study of Revelation has been too much lost from view, not only in recent times, but even in the more prosperous periods of sound Theology. Even in the treatment of the dogma of "the necessity of sacred Scripture," the fact of sin was always taken as the point of departure, and thus the starting-point for Revelation was found in the soteriological necessity of A revelation before causinsf liffht to arise in our darkness. sin was, to be sure, recognized, but it was never successself for

fully placed

and

in

relation

to

revelation

in

the theological

was especially noticeable in the mechanical placing side by side of natural and revealed Theology. To repair this omission is therefore a necessity. Every sense

;

this

interpretation of Revelation as given for man's sake, de-

forms

it.

You

either reduce Revelation to the Creation, or

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