Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 52:205 (Jan 1895)
Article: The Authority And Inspiration Of The Scriptures
Author: Frank Hugh Foster

BSac 52:205 (Jan 1895) p. 69

The Authority And Inspiration Of The Scriptures

Prof. Frank Hugh Foster

The problem of Systematic Theology is always the same. In the various ages of the church, as the introduction of new information or general acceptance of new conclusions, whether from the study of nature or of man, presents it with new material, it has the task of reducing this material to order and setting forth in a systematic manner the sum total of present knowledge upon the themes which it treats. It is always constructive, never destructive. It is not the science of exploration and discovery. It has to wait for the performance of these labors by other departments of theological thought. It may therefore often lag behind the front ranks of progress. But as soon as it can say anything which seems worthy of its special office in the church, whenever it can do anything to calm the turbulent seas of controversy, to relieve anxiety, to give new points of view, or to furnish the doctrinal material for a new advance in the practical work of the church, it is responsible for the faithful performance of these services. For them it exists.

Systematic Theology is, thus, not a stationary science, though it has sometimes been conceived as such by both friend and foe. It is not like a lawyer who has taken a brief to support a certain series of opinions, which are themselves never to be questioned or subjected to revision. The church is actually learning from age to age. New truth does appear. It may not be new in the sense that it is not con-

BSac 52:205 (Jan 1895) p. 70

tained in the Scriptures, explicitly or implicitly, or because it supersedes the doctrines of revelation; but it is new to the apprehension of the age which receives it. The true attitude of Systematic Theology is that of hospitality to it, of critical investigation of its claims, of ready acknowledgment of its reality. Not everything which professes to be true is true. Not every supposed improvement is real improvement. But by receiving increments of new truth theology is still to grow as it has grown during the Christian centuries, distinguishing between the false and the true in that which it has received by tradition, separating the helpful from the harmful in what is offered it in the present, purifying, deepening, and broadening the stream of apprehended reality.

There seems to be special occasion at the present time for the exercise of these functions of Systematic Theology. The past thirty years have seen a great change wrought in the theological thinking of America. Up to that time, what growth there had been had been homogeneous and produced under influences native, for the most part, to the soil. Since then, the influence of the critical methods of Germany, and of the revol...