02. Preface

Preface The immediate preparation of this treatise began in 1870, when the author was called to give instruction for a year in the department of systematic theology in Union Theological Seminary. The work was resumed in 1874, when he was elected to this professorship, and was prosecuted down to 1888. But some general preparation had been made for it by previous studies and publications. The writer had composed a history of Christian doctrine in the years 1854-62 (which was published in 1863) and also a volume of theological essays containing discussions on original sin and vicarious atonement and a volume of sermons to the natural man predominantly theological in their contents. The doctrinal system here presented will be found to be closely connected with these preceding investigations; and this will explain the somewhat frequent references to them as parts of one whole. Dogmatic history is the natural introduction to dogmatic theology. The general type of doctrine is the Augustino-Calvinistic. Upon a few points, the elder Calvinism has been followed in preference to the later. This, probably, is the principal difference between this treatise and contemporary ones of the Calvinistic class.

Upon the subject of Adam’s sin and its imputation, the author has been constrained to differ from some theologians for whom he has the highest respect and with whom he has in general a hearty agreement. In adopting the traducian theory of the origin of the soul, in the interest of the immediate imputation of the first sin, he believes that he has the support of some of the more careful students of Scripture and of the deepest thinkers in the history of the church. This theory, however, even when adopted has not attained much explication. Some further development of it has been attempted; with what success, the reader must judge. The doctrine of the Trinity has been constructed upon the Nicene basis, but with more reference to the necessary conditions of personality and self-consciousness and the objections to the personality of the infinite introduced by modern pantheism. In respect to the ontological argument for divine existence, the author is in sympathy with the a priori spirit of the old theology. The statement of the doctrine of the decrees and of regeneration is founded upon the postulate that all holiness has its source in the infinite will and all sin in the self-determination of the finite.

It will be objected by some to this dogmatic system that it has been too much influenced by the patristic, medieval, and Reformation periods and too little by the so-called progress of modern theology. The charge of Scholasticism, and perhaps of speculativeness, will be made. The author has no disposition to repel the charge. While acknowledging the excellences of the present period in respect to the practical application and spread of religion, he cannot regard it as preeminent above all others in scientific theology. It is his conviction that there were some minds in the former ages of Christianity who were called by providence to do a work that will never be outgrown and left behind by the Christian church; some men who thought more deeply and came nearer to the center of truth upon some subjects than any modern minds. Non omnia possumus omnes. No one age or church is in advance of all other ages or churches in all things. It would be difficult to mention an intellect in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries whose reflection upon the metaphysical being and nature of God has been more profound than that of Anselm, whose thinking upon the Trinity has been more subtle and discriminating than that of Athanasius, whose contemplation of the great mystery of sin has been more comprehensive and searching than that of Augustine, whose apprehension of the doctrine of atonement has been more accurate than that formulated in the creeds of the Reformation. In drawing from these earlier sources, the writer believes that systematic theology will be made both more truthful and more vital. Confinement to modern opinions tends to thinness and weakness. The latest intelligence is of more value in a newspaper than in a scientific treatise. If an author in any department gets into the eddies of his age and whirls round and round in them, he knows little of the sweep of the vast stream of the ages which holds on its way forever and forevermore. If this treatise has any merits, they are due very much to daily and nightly communion with that noble army of theologians which is composed of the Élite of the fathers, of the Schoolmen, of the reformers, and of the seventeenth-century divines of England and the Continent. And let it not be supposed that this influence of the theologians is at the expense of that of the Scriptures. This is one of the vulgar errors. Scientific and contemplative theology is the child of revelation. It is the very word of God itself as this has been studied, collated, combined, and systematized by powerful, devout, and prayerful intellects. In closing up the labors of forty years in theological research and meditation, the writer is naturally the subject of serious thoughts and feelings. The vastness and mystery of the science oppress him more than ever. But the evangelical irradiations of the sun of righteousness out of the thick darkness and clouds that envelop the infinite and adorable God are beams of intense brightness which pour the light of life and of hope into the utter gloom in which man must live here upon earth, if he rejects divine revelation. That this treatise may contribute to strengthen the believer’s confidence in this revelation and to incline the unbeliever to exercise faith in it is the prayer of the author.

Union Theological Seminary New York, May 1, 1888 Preface to Volume 3 The two volumes of Dogmatic Theology published in 1888 aimed to state and defend the Augustinian and elder Calvinistic theology. The great difference between this system and the several schools of modern Calvinism and also Arminian theology consists in the doctrine of the self-determined and responsible fall of mankind as a species in Adam. This makes original sin to be really and literally guilty and condemning in every individual who is propagated out of the species, instead of only nominally and fictionally so. It also makes the origin of sin and the consequent ruin of the race of mankind to occur at the beginning of human history. The destiny of man was decided wholly in Adam and not at all in the subsequent generations of individuals propagated from him. Individual life and individual transgression, which in modern theological systems are largely employed to explain the problem of original sin, become of no consequence. They are only the necessary effect of the real cause-the voluntary determination of the race in the primitive apostasy, of which St. Paul gives a full account in Romans 5:1-21. Schleiermacher presents an example of this tendency to explain generic sin by individual transgression. In his Glaubenslehre §71 he argues elaborately to convert the original sin propagated from Adam into individual transgressions committed by the posterity. The former, he contends, is guilt only as it is subsequently adopted by each man in separate and conscious acts. “It is impossible,” he says, “that innate and inherited corruption should be guilty and condemning, if it be torn from its connection with the personal transgressions of the individual.” The purpose of this supplementary volume is to elaborate more carefully some of the difficult points in specific unity, partly by original explanations by the author and partly by extracts from that class of theologians who have advocated it. The volume contains an amount of carefully selected citations from works in the ancient, medieval, and Reformation periods and also from the English and Continental divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that are not easily accessible and are an equivalent for a large library of treatises beyond the power of most clergyman and students to possess or have access to. The original matter connected with this endeavors to clear up the obscure features of an actual existence in Adam and a responsible agency in him. The divisions of the supplement are the same as those of the Dogmatic Theology, and the heads under them indicate the pages in the dogmatics which find an explanation or a citation in the supplement.¹[Note: 1. The reader is reminded that the supplementary material that Shedd published in volume 3 is in this reprint edition collated into the main body of the theology by moving it to the end of each chapter to which it belongs.] The author believes that the value of the two volumes of Dogmatic Theology will be substantially increased by the supplementary volume.

New York, September 1894