Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 345

§ 64.

CiiAi'. I]

DEFORMATIONS OF THEOLOGY

concecie otlieis the right of doing the same.

sion and yours contain equally

They

little or

much

S'll

Their confesof worth, just as

same theme. Each and you stand and complement, of these variations enrich personally higher, just in proportion as being less narrow in the attachment to your own confession, you have an open eye and ear to rejoice in all expressions of life. This is not meant to be taken eclectically, for since you have no favorite flower, you gather no bouquet from the several confessions, but simply walk among the several flower-beds to enjoy whatever is beautiful in this confessional garden. All this lacks From this view-point every form of seriousness of purpose. Confessional life confession becomes an article of luxury. kind of poetry. a longer at truth, but serves as aims no

you please.

are variations of the

emotions one experiences certain pious perceptions one also seeks a certain mystical communion with the hidden world of the infinite and in so far as one accepts the reality of that world, he is seriously minded; but he has In the

life of his ;

;

no faith in what he himself expresses or in what he hears It does not become us, it is said, others say concerning it. No significance, therefore, to do anything but stammer. should be attached to the sounds, forms, or words which we speak, as though these expressed the higher reality. At most They these sounds have the worth of a musical character. aid to give utterance to our better feelings, and presently But for this very reason, the song revive them again. which another sings from his heart is equally beautiful. There is no more truth to be confessed. All that remains is a pious, aesthetic enjoyment of what has been stammered by man in all manner of ways concerning the truth. A Calvinistic prayer, Avhich drinks in encouragement for higher life from the fountain of eternal election, impresses, from this point of view, equally strongly as the Ave verum corpus of the Romish worshipper, as he kneels before the uplifted host.

This sceptical point of view, therefore, should not be confounded with the mystical antithesis, which opposes all dogma, all confessions and also all special revelation. This

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