E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book.
Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge
by
D. Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Dunelm.)
Fellow of the British Academy
Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford
London: Duckworth & Co.
3 Henrietta St. Covent Garden
1909
All rights reserved
{v}
Man has no deeper or wider interest than theology; none deeper, forhowever much he may change, he never loses his love of the manyquestions it covers; and none wider, for under whatever law he may livehe never escapes from its spacious shade; nor does he ever find that itspeaks to him in vain or uses a voice that fails to reach him. Oncethe present writer was talking with a friend who has equal fame as astatesman and a man of letters, and he said, 'Every day I live,Politics, which are affairs of Man and Time, interest me less, whileTheology, which is an affair of God and Eternity, interests me more.'As with him, so with many, though the many feel that their interest isin theology and not in dogma. Dogma, they know, is but a series ofresolutions framed by a council or parliament, which they do notrespect any the more because the parliament was composed ofecclesiastically-minded persons; while the theology which so intereststhem is a discourse touching God, though the Being so named is the Godman conceived as not only related to himself and his world but also asrising ever higher with the notions of the self and the world. Wisebooks, not in dogma but in theology, may therefore be described as thesupreme {vi} need of our day, for only such can save us from muchfanaticism and secure us in the full possession of a sober and sanereason.
Theology is less a single science than an encyclopaedia of sciences;indeed all the sciences which have to do with man have a better rightto be called theological than anthropological, though the man itstudies is not simply an individual but a race. Its way of viewing manis indeed characteristic; from this have come some of its brighterideals and some of its darkest dreams. The ideals are all eitherethical or social, and would make of earth a heaven, creatingfraternity amongst men and forming all states into a goodly sisterhood;the dreams may be represented by doctrines which concern sin on the oneside and the will of God on the other. But even this will cannot makesin luminous, for were it made radiant with grace, it would cease to besin.
These books then,—which have all to be written by men who have livedin the full blaze of modern light,—though without having either theireyes burned out or their souls scorched into insensibility,—areintended to present God in relation to Man and Man in relation to God.It is intended that they begin, not in date of publication, but inorder of thought, with a Theological Encyclopaedia which shall show thecircle of sciences co-ordinated under the term Theology, though allwill be viewed as related to its central or main idea. This relationof God to human knowledge will then be looked at through mind as acommunion of Deity with humanity, or God in fellowship {vii} withconcrete man. On this basis the idea of Revelation will be dealt with.Then, so far as history and