THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN RELIGION

I. Its significance as distinguished from current misconceptions.

II. Theological investigation accords with the spirit and teaching of

the Bible. III. Essential to the preservation and purity of Christian

belief. IV. Essential to the preservation and purity of Christian

character and life in the development of the individual and of the

kingdom of God. V. Essential to the effective preaching of the

gospel. VI. Man's knowledge of God progressive. VII. Theology

to be studied in reference to the questions of the day

I-43

CHAPTER II

GOD THE ABSOLUTE SPIRIT: MISCONCEPTIONS OF HIS REVELATION

OF HIMSELF AS SUCH

I. Revelation, belief, reason. II. Nature and the Supernatural.

III. The fundamental reality. IV. Transcendence and immanence.

V. God's revelation of himself contained in the Bible

44-113

CHAPTER III

GOD THE ABSOLUTE BEING

I. Self-existence. II. Omnipresence. III. Eternity. IV. Plenitude.

V. Practical influence

114-127

CHAPTER IV

GOD IS A SPIRIT: REASON

PAGES

III. Perfect as

128-176

I. God's knowledge is archetypal. II. Universal.

knowledge. IV. God the absolute Reason in relation to the consti-

tution of the Universe. V. Theistic realism

THEODICY: THE JUSTIFYING OF GOD TO MAN

I. Basis in the supremacy of reason absolute in God. II. Sorrow and

suffering. III. The fact of sin. IV. Theodicy and the revelation

of God in Christ. V. Pessimism. VI. Mystery

210-293

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRINITY : THE BIBLICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE REVELA-

TION OF GOD IN CHRIST

I. Christ the Son of Man. II. Pre-existence and humiliation. III. God

in Christ. IV. God in the Holy Spirit. V. The one only God,

Father, Son or Logos, and Holy Spirit.

294-340

CHAPTER X

THE TRINITY: ITS PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

PAGES

I. Christ presents it as central in the organization, worship, and work

of his church. II. The Trinity, as revealed in God in Christ recon-

ciling the world unto himself, gives to Christianity, as revelation,

doctrine, and life, its distinctive and essential significance and power.

III. Confirmed by the common and persistent belief in it. IV. His-

torically associated with the highest spiritual experience and power

of the church. V. The denial of the Trinity has disclosed a ten-

dency to false rationalism. VI. The Christian conception of the

Trinity meets spiritual wants disclosed in all religions and realizes

ideas which all the ethnic religions have been feeling after.

VII. Truth of the doctrine is independent of philosophical and

speculative questions discussed within the church and of the failure

to attain agreement in answering them

366-407

CHAPTER XI

THE TRINITY: PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REVELATION OF

GOD IN CHRIST

I. Christ the revealer of God. II. God in Christ the

to God. III. God in Christ the revealer of man.

ness of Christ, the ideal man

reconciler of man

IV. The unique-

408-462

PART II

GOD THE CREATOR

463-518

CHAPTER XII

THE CREATION

I. The doctrine of creation. II. The cosmogony of Genesis. III. Specu-

lative objections

463-490

CHAPTER XIII

GOD'S CHIEF END IN CREATION

I. The biblical statement in three forms. II. Theological statement.

III. God glorifying himself in sinners. IV. Man glorifying God 491-518

I. Definition: God's action in the evolution of the universe expressing

his perfections and progressively realizing the archetypal ideal of all

perfection and well-being possible in a finite universe including a

moral system of finite rational free agents. II. Classification as

providential and moral. III. God's right to sovereignty as Lord of

all. IV. God's sovereignty both absolute and exercised under law.

V. Not the sovereignty of arbitrary will. VI. Submission to God's

sovereignty.

519-547

I. God's purpose of the holy character and actions of his rational

creatures positive; his purpose of sinful character and action nega-

tive. II. In all his action recorded in the Bible God seeks to prevent

sin and to reclaim sinners from it to the life of love

569-579

PART I.

GOD, THE ONE ONLY ABSOLUTE SPIRIT

CHAPTER I

THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN RELIGION

TRUTH is the intellectual apprehension and expression of reality. As such it is the light and guide of man in the determinations of his will and the regulation of his feelings. Knowledge of reality also excites feeling and is the occasion of directing and exerting the energy in action. Theology is the intellectual apprehension and expression of what God really is in his relations to the universe, and especially to man, and of what man and the universe are in their relation to God. It is, therefore, the intellectual element in religion.

The study of theology necessarily begins with ascertaining the grounds or reasons of our belief in the existence of God and the reality of his revelation of himself to men; a belief spontaneous and inherent in all religions. We find that he exists; and that he reveals himself in the constitution and evolution of the physical universe; in the constitution and history of man; and preeminently in his action redeeming men from sin and developing his kingdom, culminating in the coming of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the Bible. This may be called Fundamental Theology, as being the result of our investigation of the fundamental grounds on which our religious belief in God rests. Naturally we inquire next, What can we know of God as thus revealed? What are his relations to the universe, and pre-eminently to man? What are the relations of the universe,

VOL. I. [