Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 64:254 (Apr 1907)
Article: The Corrective Of Theology
Author: Dwight Mallory Pratt

BSac 64:254 (April 1907) p. 379

The Corrective Of Theology

Dwight Mallory Pratt

Cincinnati, Ohio

Vital theology is not a philosophy of doctrine, but an interpretation of life. The Bible has to do, not with the theory of religion, but with its practice. It is, from beginning to end, biographical. It deals with persons, with living men and women, with souls, with character, with spiritual conditions and experience. Literally defined, “theology” is science of God, that is, Knowledge of a Person. It includes man in his relation to God, and thus has to do with life on its practical side, rather than with truth on its metaphysical side.

The mistakes and divergences of theology come from dealing with doctrine on its metaphysical, rather than on its personal and practical, side. Science of any kind becomes accurate and trustworthy only as it deals with facts. The moment the theologian separates himself from men and enters the cloister or the genial atmosphere of his literary sanctum, his reasonings lose touch with life. He finds himself in the presence of a thousand interrogation-points. Problems multiply. Beliefs lose their certainty. The mind operates, not under* the correcting and enlightening influence of actual life in a world of spiritual hunger and need, but under the unconscious

BSac 64:254 (April 1907) p. 380

influence of personal preference or prejudice or bias. In such case a man’s theology becomes merely the expression of himself, the product of his own limitations and point of view. It is automatically the outcome of his spiritual experience. It is vital if his religious life is vital, and rationalistic if his soul has lost its hold on the great spiritual certainties. I am confident that if we could see the subconscious life,—the hidden springs of thought and feeling, of belief and action,—we should find a very subtle and marvelous connection between the theology of an age or generation and the religious or spiritual life of that age. The personal element in theology is supreme, and to discerning eyes marvelously if not pathetically conspicuous. The intellect is a servant, and not a master. It follows the leadings or the bias of the spiritual life. A thinker cannot divorce himself from himself, and for this reason he must find certainty in some corrective outside of himself or in cooperation with himself.

This corrective is not philosophy or metaphysics, but life at first hand. One must deal closely and intelligently with souls, in order to know psychology; and theology is only psychology lifted into the high realms of religion and spiritual experience.

The greatest need of theology in any age is the illumination which comes from the close application of redemptive truth to the lives of s...