Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 355

Chap.

THEOLOGY TO

I]

ITS

OBJECT

331

vealed, ectypal knowledge of Grod, this should never be in the sense of scholastic learning.

ology

and ever

is

Being, not

now

The motive

knowledge

will be the

of

taken

for all the-

the

Eternal

in the interest of the needs of our heart,

and

not, as a rule, for the practical purposes of life,

but solely in the interest of the world of our thought. More than this it cannot give. As a science, it is and always will be intellectual work^ and can never be anything else. Only as far as the revealed knowledge of God has a logical content, is theology able to master it. Outside of the domain of our thinking it is powerless but when the matter con;

cerns this thinking,

it is

indisputably the province of theol-

ogy to do it. But if in this way we concentrate

its

calling

upon the

criti-

examination of the self-revelation of the Eternal Beincr to us sinners, we do not mean that it is merely to explain from cal

what relates exclusively to God and to His It must be strictly theological, so that from the beginning to the end of its epic God Himself is the hero ; but as was observed by the older theologians, one can treat of God both in the direct and oblique cases (de Deo in casu recto et obliquo). Not only, therefore, that which in revelation deals this revelation

Nature.

with the being of God, but also His attributes,

activities,

and creations, so far as these contribute to the knowledge of God, should be taken up in the investigation nature, therefore, as well, and history, i.e. from the theological side and man likewise, provided he is taken as created after the image of God, and thus interpreted theologically. And as knowledge of a powerful thinker is deemed incomplete for his biography, unless you include his ideas concerning the significance of man, the great problems of life, and the development which awaits us in the future, it is self-evident, that it belongs to the knowledge of God, to investigate what He declares concerning man, His relation to the children of men, and His counsel which shall stand. The emphasis, which we put upon theology, as theology, tends by no means ;

;

to impoverish it

enriched

;

we

we

take

its content is thereby greatly only claim that whatever shall belong to its ;

it

that

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