Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 270

246

§ 58.

THE IDEA OF THEOLOGY

[Div. Ill

When the knowledge "in part" have passed away, the identity of our consciousness That same ego^ which now can only faintly shall continue. discern the image of God in a glass, shall presently be conscious of the fact that it knows that selfsame God whose image it first saw "darkly," and will recognize in the Divine face those very features which formerly it observed in the From this, at least, we see glass imperfectly and indirectly. that the so-called scientific investigation shall sometime fall away; that it bears no absolute character; and that it derives its temporal necessity merely from the condition brought about by sin, and its possibility logically from " common grace" and theologically from the "particular grace" of di-

ing away of present things. shall

vine illumination.

And

scientific investigation

if

this is so, it follows of itself that

can never be Theology, and

is

only

an accidental activity amid present conditions and within given boundaries, impelled by the thirst after Theology, or Hence the rather by the thirst after the knowledge of God. higher idea of the knowledge of Grod determines Theological science and not Theological science the idea of Theology.

There can, and there will hereafter, be a rich Theology without the aid of a Theological science while on the other hand when Theological science withdraws itself from the knowledge of God, it loses all sufficient reason, and can lead ;

no other than a nominal existence. The naming of the animals by the original man in paradise In the domain of zoology, also, presents a partial analogy. the real end in view is not scientific study, but knowledge of the animal. In our present condition this knowledge cannot be acquired except by empirical investigation and the drawBut if we knew ing of conclusions from the data obtained. and understood the animal at once, this empirical investigation and this drawing of conclusions would be purposeless, and hence dispensable. And something like this is told us in the story of paradise. There was here really a knowledge To Adam of the animal by the "seeing of face to face." the animals were no enigma as to us, but were known and and therefore he could give them a understood by him ;

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