Dogma

“ From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. ”

“ A dogma is the precise enunciation of a general truth, divested so far as possible from particular exemplification. Such precise expression is in the long run a condition for vivid realization, for effectiveness, for apprehension of width of scope, and for survival. ”

“ Every dogma, every philosophic or theological creed, was at its inception a statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience. ”

“ He is primarily a doctor of the faith: dogma first, determined by authority, and commending itself to human reason; morality, not independent, but proceeding from or connected with dogma, and while truly human yet resting upon divine foundations. ”

“ Both from dogma and from worship she can remove historic incrustations. By confronting the spontaneous religious constructions with the results of natural science, philosophy can also eliminate doctrines that are now known to be scientifically absurd or incongruous. ”

“ Thus, We have reached one of the principal points in the Modernists' system, namely the origin and the nature of dogma. For they place the origin of dogma in those primitive and simple formulae, which, under a certain aspect, are necessary to faith; for revelation, to be truly such, requires the clear manifestation of God in the consciousness. ”

“ The Biblical argument for our thesis is based on the dogma that God wills all men to be saved. 1 Tim. II, 4: “ [God] will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth [i.e. the true faith] .” ”

“ With you, of course, it is different. You have a thousand things to interest and pleasantly occupy you in your work and its ceremonies, so that mere belief or non-belief in the dogma hardly matters. But in our church dogma is everything. ”

“ The power of religious dogma, when inculcated early, is such as to stifle conscience, compassion, and finally every feeling of humanity. But if you want to see with your own eyes and close at hand what timely inoculation will accomplish, look at the English. ”

“ Once established, however, as a dogma or fundamental principle in theology, its reason and fitness in reference to the final cause of the universe, the harmony of all other facts and doctrines with it, and the grandeur which it gives to the divine economy, can be conclusively and abundantly proved by rational arguments. ”

“ All teaching is dogmatic. Dogma, indeed, means only "a thing taught," and teaching not dogmatic would cease to be teaching and would become discussion and doubt. ”

“ But if a philosophical sect is a leaning toward dogmas, or, according to some, a leaning to a number of dogmas which have consistency with one another and with phenomena, tending to a right life; and dogma is a logical conception; and conception is a state and assent of the mind: not merely sceptics, but every one who dogmatizes is accustomed in certain things to suspend his judgment, either through want of strength of mind, or want of clearness in the things, or equal force in the reasons. ”

“ IX. All the dogmas of the Christian Religion are, without exception, the object of natural science or philosophy, and human reason, instructed solely by history, is able, by its own natural strength and principles, to arrive at the true knowledge of even the most abstruse dogmas; provided such dogmas be proposed as subject matter for human reason. ”

“ You must believe that you may understand; but it is that you may understand.' The dogma is authoritatively taught, that the individual may be kept safe from mere individual caprice and fancifulness, but also that he himself may come to a rational understanding of his belief. ”

“ The various opinions and beliefs of mortal man, culminating in dogma, doctrine, and theory, among which are materia medica, physiology, hygiene, etc., are predicated of matter, and afford not a single idea of God, Truth. ”

“ The problem seemed to be whether we shall support a dogmatic system by recognising a living spiritual authority, or frankly accept reason as the sole authority, and, while explaining away the repulsive dogmas, try to retain the real essence of religious belief. ”

“ To explain Holy Scripture from the religious and dogmatic standpoint forms no part of our warrant. Subject above all things to the hierarchic order, we surrender theology to the doctors of the Church and we render to human science whatsoever is included in the domain of experience and reason. ”

“ At most, we have only taken account of that part of the book where the limits of science, the belief in the supernatural, and especially the marvellous harmony between Christian dogmas and religious problems, that are innate to man, are treated with so much wisdom and authority. ”

“ It should be borne in mind, that all the dogmas and doctrines of our current religious faith originated at a period before the sun of science had risen above the moral horizon, and anterior to the birth of moral science, and hence, like other productions of that age, are heavily laden with error. ”

“ On the other hand, Dogmatics supplies to Ethics its formative principles and normative standards, and preserves the moral life from degenerating into the vagaries of fanaticism or the apathy of fatalism. But while both sciences form complementary sides of theology and stand in relations of mutual service, each deals with the human consciousness in a different way. ”

“ The great curse of Theology and Ecclesiasticism has always been their tendency to sacrifice large interests to small—Charity to Creed, Unity to Uniformity, Fact to Tradition, Ethics to Dogma. ”

“ You see that at bottom we are thrown back upon the general principles by which the empirical philosophy has always contended that we must be guided in our search for truth. Dogmatic philosophies have sought for tests for truth which might dispense us from appealing to the future. ”

“ With theology as a code of dogmas which are to be believed, or at any rate repeated, under penalty of present or future punishment, or as a storehouse of anaesthetics for those who find the pains of life too hard to bear, I have nothing to do; and, so far as it may be possible, I shall avoid the expression of any opinion as to the objective truth or falsehood of the systems of theological speculation of which I may find occasion to speak. ”

“ At each page one can detect the same texts cut out and separated from the comments which explain them; the same syllogisms, triumphant, but devoid of any solid foundation; the same defects of historical criticism, arising from the confusion of dates and places.
Theology may be divided into dogmatics and ethics. Dogmatic theology, in addition to the Prolegomena comprising the discussions relating to the sources of divine authority, is divided into fifteen treatises upon all the dogmas of Christianity. ”

“ The development of dogmatic knowledge consists rather in the following: the revealed truths are in the course of the centuries more and more clearly perceived and more sharply circumscribed, more surely demonstrated, more and more extensively appreciated in their connections, relations, and deductions. ”

“ The theorizing mind tends always to the over-simplification of its materials. This is the root of all that absolutism and one-sided dogmatism by which both philosophy and religion have been infested. ”

“ THE material of our study of human nature is now spread before us; and in this parting hour, set free from the duty of description, we can draw our theoretical and practical conclusions. In my first lecture, defending the empirical method, I foretold that whatever conclusions we might come to could be reached by spiritual judgments only, appreciations of the significance for life of religion, taken 'on the whole.' Our conclusions cannot be as sharp as dogmatic conclusions would be, but I will formulate them, when the time comes, as sharply as I can. ”

“ As to myself, my religious reading has long been confined to the moral branch of religion, which is the same in all religions; while in that branch which consists of dogmas, all differ, all have a different set. ”

“ The present volume is a plea for a reconsideration of the Religious question, and an inquiry as to the possibility of reconstructing Religion by shifting its basis from inscrutable dogmas to the unquestionable facts of man's moral nature. ”

“ Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules, and history records that whenever science and dogmatism have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated; ”

“ A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: While the haughty Dogmatist, persuaded that he can erect a complete system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy, disdains any further aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor. ”

“ There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature. ”

“ And in this way such a phrase as that which I have formerly used concerning God, and have been much blamed for using,—the phrase, namely, that, 'for science, God is simply the stream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfil the law of their being,'—may be allowed, and may even prove useful. ”

“ If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." ”

“ secondarily, a body of beliefs, tenets, and dogmas, then, strictly speaking, there is but one Religion in the world, for there is but one God; ”

“ And the true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion. ”

“ This should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its clear understanding depends the comprehension of the entire doctrine. What stands in the way of the modern western man’s seeing this clearly is the long training we have all had in materialistic science and materializing religion, both of which have made the mere physical body too prominent. The one has taught of matter alone and the other has preached the resurrection of the body, a doctrine66 against common sense, fact, logic, and testimony. ”

“ Hence a system of logic, of philosophy, of expressed belief, of doctrine, inevitably grows up in a thinking community, a thinking Church.
The statement of an ecclesiastical system of doctrine may not be the absolutely true one, nor the final one. Doctrine changes, even as scientific theories change with fuller information. Doctrine also expands, with the growth of the human spirit and understanding. To-day, in one's library, one has a thousand books. ”

“ The building-up of doctrine is superb. Into doctrine are woven the intellectual beliefs, the emotional experiences, and the spiritual struggles of mankind. Doctrine is an attempt to classify the spiritual problems of the race and to present a theory of redemption which shall be adequate, spiritually progressive, and the exact expression, so far as yet revealed, of the will of God for man. All Christian doctrine is centred about one point: the redemption of the race from sin. Dealing with such great and fundamental themes, each system of doctrine is an intellectual triumph. ”

“ We attribute many things to such laws, only by analogy. 2. Just for the same reasons, we say that miracles comport with God’s general laws of wisdom. These laws may be unknown to us; but no more so than those by which some die as soon as born, or live to old age, or have superior understandings, &c. 3. We see no more reason to regard the frame and course of nature as a scheme, than we have to regard Christianity as such. ”

“ The promulgation of this supreme law to creatures, is co-extensive and co-existent with reason, and binding on all intelligent beings in the universe; and is that eternal rule of fitness, as applicable to God, by which the creator of all things conducts his infinitude of providence, and by which he governs the moral system of being, according to the absolute perfection of his nature. ”

“ At the root of all our science, all our philosophy, and all our literature, the three fundamental doctrines of Christianity: the equality of all souls, the insuperable depravity of human nature, and the insistence upon Truth, are the ruling influences. ”

“ Just to this, that the universe of mind, as the universe of matter, is governed by unwritten laws of God; that the child cannot blow soap-bubbles or think his flitting thoughts otherwise than in obedience to divine laws; that all safety, progress, and success in life come of obedience to law, to the laws of mental, moral, or physical science, or of that spiritual science which the Bible unfolds ”

“ To do justice then to the proper office of postulates in our religious theory, we must sooner or later consider in what cases they naturally arise, what is the proper extent of their use, what is the basis upon which they can be made, in any special case, to rest; and, finally, whether, in view of all this, we can give them any important place in our religious doctrine. We confess at once that we want something much better than a postulate as the basis of our religion, in case we can get it. ”