Excerpt from The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression

Several reasons have led the writer to prepare the present work on theology. He has been a teacher of the subject during the past eighteen years. His own method and standpoint in dealing with truth have, as a natural consequence, taken definite form. Theology is like any other science in the fact that if it is alive, it grows. This does not mean that it goes beyond Christ and the New Testament. It means, rather, that these are provocative of endless growth. The object of religion does not grow, but the subject never attains a final and static stage in the present life. Truth does not change, but we apprehend truth with increasing clearness.

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century, after Luther's age, theology was engaged chiefly with the issues growing out of the Reformation. The method of theology was that derived from a past age. Theologies were comprehensive, more or less philosophical and abstract treatises. There was a very commendable desire to systematize the truths of Christianity. But too often the biblical method and aim were sacrificed in the interest of a "school" of theology or a philosophical principle. For example, Arminianism overlooked certain essential truths about God in its strong championship of human freedom. As against it, Calvinism ran to extremes in some of its conclusions in its very earnest desire to safeguard the truth of God's sovereignty. We are learning to discard both names and to adhere more closely than either to the Scriptures, while retaining the truth in both systems.

During the nineteenth century the whole world of human thought underwent a remarkable revolution. In physical science a new method and ideal arose. In the social and economic sphere a new sociology and political economy took shape.

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