Download Brief Outline of the Study of Theology; Drawn Up to Serve As the Basis of Introductory Lectures Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ...with regard to Christianity, --by setting forth both that unity and this difference, --that it properly belongs to the body of phenomena just mentioned. This is effected by laying down and applying the correlative notions of the Natural and the Positive. The laying down of these notions, the former of which expresses what is common to all, and the latter the possibility of different, peculiar modifications thereof, belongs, properly speaking, to the province of the Philosophy of Religion; and for that reason, the said notions are equally valid also for the Apologetics of every religious community. Supposing, now, that we were in a position to refer in this manner to the Philosophy of Religion for the notions just specified, all that would be left, of this problem, for Christian Apology to deal with, would be merely what is contained in the paragraph next following. 44. It will then be necessary (reverting to the notion of the Positive), to lay down a formula expressive of the peculiar, essential character of Christianity, and, / connecting it with that which is characteristic in other religious communities, to take it up under the said notion in the way of generalization. This is, certainly, the fundamental problem of Apologetics: but in proportion as a formula of the kind referred to is to be found only by means of a critical process (comp. 32), in the same proportion is it to be completely verified only in its practical application, 45. It is also necessary that Christianity should establish the validity of its claim to a separate historical existence, by the nature and manner of its origin; and this is effected by a reference to the notions, Revelation, Miracle, and Inspiration. The more it relies ultimately upon...