Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 29:115 (Jul 1872)
Article: Dr. Hodge’s Systematic Theology.
Author: Anonymous

BSac 29:115 (July 1872) p. 553

Dr. Hodge’s Systematic Theology.1

An orator recently addressing the Massachusetts Medical Society remarked that “progress is the pride of the day; and the charm of antiquity is broken. In the early history of the country, medicine and theology were allied together, each having firm faith in the infinite and none in the infinitesimal; but now sugar is the staple article both in theological and medical dispensaries.” In the system of theology which Dr. Hodge is giving to the public, there are signs of progress. It contains more of the saccharine element than is found in the older treatises emanating from his school. Still, it is in the main, allopathic rather than homoeopathic in its treatment of its” patients. It is in this respect as it should be. It gives evidence of its author’s sound mind and extensive learning. It is written in a vigorous and flexile style. It presents theology in a compact form. The spirit of it is candid and fair. It propounds various theories which we regard as untenable, and defends the real truth by some arguments which we regard as inconclusive. The excellences and the faults of the system — the excellences being greater than the faults—appear in almost every chapter. Let us look, for example, at volume one, part one, chapter one, entitled “Origin of the Idea of God.”

Dr. Hodge supposes that the existence of God can be proved, and also that it is self-evident. We have an “innate knowledge “of his being. Dr. Hodge defines innate knowledge to be “that which is due to our constitution as sentient, rational, and moral beings.” “The soul is so constituted that it sees certain things to be true immediately in their own light. They need no proof. Men need not be told or taught that the things thus perceived are true.” These immediate perceptions are called “intuitions,” “primary truths,” “laws of belief,” “innate knowledge or ideas”

BSac 29:115 (July 1872) p. 554

(1:195). “All that is meant is that the mind is so constituted that it perceives certain things to be true without proof and without instruction” (1:192). “What is seen immediately without the intervention of proof to be true, is, according to the common mode of expression, said to be seen intuitively” (1:193).

Among the truths of which we have an innate knowledge, Dr. Hodge specifies the following: “The part of a thing is less than the whole;” “A straight line is the shortest distance between two points;” “Nothing cannot be a cause;” “Every effect must have a cause;” “Sin deserves punishment,” etc.

Dr. Hodge places the truth of God’s existence in the same category with the axioms which we have now specifi...