Theology student

“ Is there no place to assail Christianity but a divinity school? Is there no one to write infidel books except the professors of Christian theology? Is a theological seminary an appropriate place for a general massacre of Christian doctrine? ”

“ There had not been time for her even to take a class in Sunday school, and she knew her religion only as it applied to her one little narrow life, she thought, not realizing that, when one has applied a great faith to the circumstances of even a narrow life, and applied it thoroughly through a lifetime, one has learned more theology than one could get in years of a theological seminary. ”

“ But it is idle to recommend this study to the generality of students in philosophy and theology, as a substitute for the study of the minor approved authors. Dogmatic and moral theology and philosophy are real sciences, as they are taught in the Catholic schools, and they can be and must be learned from text-books and the oral instruction of professors. The presumption is in favor of the books and teachers approved by ecclesiastical authority, that they teach sound doctrine. ”

“ Some hold that education without theology is worse than none. Others maintain, quite as strongly, that education with theology is in the same predicament. But this is certain, that those who hold the first opinion can by no means agree what theology should be taught ”

“ His wide learning and liberal spirit, the rugged eloquence of his style, and his deep insight into human nature made him a most attractive and stimulating teacher; and his students responded with the utmost loyalty and devotion. The substance of his teaching was published in 1893 in the volume entitled Christ in Modern Theology, which its author described as ‘an endeavour, through a Christian doctrine of God, at a sketch of the first lines of a Christian theology’. ”

“ In religion theories have their uses, but the school of experience is the only school that can be relied upon for instruction in the mysteries and deep things of God. It often seems to me as if the Christian world, ministers included, were looking more to their creeds, and to one another, for their theology, than to the Word and the Spirit. ”

“ It is evident that philosophical instruction is regarded in the church as highly important and necessary, and as an essential part of Catholic education, more especially for those who are preparing for the study of theology. ”

“ I. By Theologians we mean men learned in Theology, who as members or masters of the theological schools which came into existence after the patristic era, taught and handed down Catholic doctrine on strictly scientific lines, in obedience to and under the supervision of the bishops. The title belongs primarily to the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages—the Scholastic Theologians strictly so-called ”

“ But if theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be muddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and any learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of Christianity by its being distinctive in his mind. ”

“ Many theological instructors teach their pupils successfully, by requiring them, besides the usual course of systematical reading, interrogative examinations, and critical study of the scriptures in the original languages, also to write disquisitions on a number of Questions in Theology. ”

“ The basis and foundation of the whole structure of the higher education, especially in the department of theology, is laid in a thorough training in logic and philosophy. The same logical and philosophical method pervades the entire system of theological instruction. Every dogma of faith, every opinion of the schools, every principle of philosophy, is subjected to a rigid and critical analysis, including an examination of all the difficulties and objections which have ever been raised by the adversaries of the Church, during all past ages and in the present. ”

“ In addition, therefore, to the elements of education which have been named before, we see that, at the beginning of the third century, Christians were expected to teach and study the liberal arts, profane literature, philosophy, and the Biblical languages. Their teachers commented on the Scriptures, and devoted themselves to a critical study of its text; positive theology, as it is called, had established itself in the schools, together with a certain systematic science of Christian ethics, and, we may add, many branches of physical science also. ”

“ These books are not merely elementary, nor are they dryly dogmatic; they give reasons and authorities, explain and illustrate, and, written in a plain and easy style, they well deserve to be entitled —Catholic Theology popularized. The science of theology, or the philosophy of religion, has been sealed except to the clergy and the highly educated among laymen. ”

“ When the novitiate has been completed the scholasticate begins. Students are obliged to read a course in arts and philosophy and to teach in some of the colleges of the society, after which they proceed to the study of theology. ”

“ In each we have generally, on one side, a body of older theologians, who since their youth have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, sundry professors who do not wish to rewrite their lectures, and a mass of unthinking ecclesiastical persons of little or no importance save in making up a retrograde majority in an ecclesiastical tribunal; on the other side we have as generally the thinking, open-minded, devoted men who have listened to the revelation of their own time as well as of times past, and who are evidently thinking the future thought of the world. ”

“ But, as a general thing, our boys, who are from the age of ten to fifteen years, know more of the principles of theology than the most educated clergymen in Christendom. In comparison to what is plainly revealed, the world of mankind are almost entirely ignorant of those principles which to them are of the greatest importance. ”

“ Teachers of Christian Science must have the necessary moral and spiritual qualifications to elucidate the Principle and rule of Christian Science, through the higher meaning of the Scriptures. "The less the teacher personally controls other minds, and the more he trusts them to the divine Truth and Love, the better it will be for both teacher and student." ”

“ It is just a question for us all to settle whether our own interests, individual or national, or our duty to God comes first. The issue has never been more simply stated, and the Church of Christ has never in all her history had such a magnificent opportunity of giving her message, and proclaiming her mission. I hope, therefore, that all my readers will take an early opportunity of learning all they can about the Christian Student Movement, and satisfy themselves as to its fitness for helping the whole Church of Christ to avail herself to the full of this God-given opportunity and possibility. ”

“ It may be said that at all events where a religion possesses canonical books, or a definite number of articles, the task of the student of religion becomes easier, and this, no doubt, is true to a certain extent. ”

“ Again, it is better to select text-books that have been written by capable men who are in sympathy with the Christian religion. The student with an immature mind, who seeks to build his faith and theories of life on the teachings of those whose predilections are away from Christianity, will find it fatal to his lofty ideals and aspirations, while instruction based on Christian theism tends to lift the mind upward, and to foster a hopeful and earnest moral and intellectual life. ”

“ He, too, believed in man's natural goodness, and held that true education is not so much the infusion of what is foreign to, as the educing of what is native in the child. But he warmly encouraged youthful acquaintance with the Bible, and said that the history of Christ is an indispensable ingredient in the education of every young mind. ”

“ I. The work of the teacher is for the gospel of Christ, hence, first of all, the teacher should be a Christian.—No person can properly instruct others in the Gospel unless he be devoted to the service of Christ.
1. He should be a Christian in belief.—No one can speak confidently and earnestly in behalf of a cause unless he believes in it. One can teach mythology, but not Christianity, without a firm conviction that the Bible is God’s book, and the Gospel the declaration of the divine plan for saving men. ”

“ The principal and students of theology, after becoming bachelors, were to read theology every reading-day, and to preach six times a year to the people, and, before becoming bachelors, every Lord's day and holiday in Latin to the students. ”

“ As for a college education in divinity qualifying boys for "preaching the word", the absurdity of the conceit is manifest in the fact that the "college-bred divines" are all at variance among themselves upon its meaning. Call a convention of priests and preachers of all religious sects and parties, and assign to them the work of publishing a scriptural and unanimous reply to the simple question, What do the scriptures teach as the measure of faith, and rule of conduct, to him who would inherit the Kingdom? ”

“ Not only will it furnish us with the best mode of giving life to what is often a barren labour, but it will also be the best safeguard against many of the evils with which the student of Ecclesiastical History is beset.
I. Gradation of importance in ecclesiatical subjects.First, it is always useful to be reminded of the various degrees of importance in the different events and institutions of the Church. There is no more common error of theological students than to regard everything connected with religion as of equal significance. ”

“ It is necessary that the religions and creeds of the Christian world be defended by the most able and learned students, in order to make them popular and to appear as true. But after these Christian students have been through academies and colleges; and the most famed seminaries in the world, and after they have studied and studied, spending a life-time in the acquisition of a theological education, it takes but one of our boys, with the aid of the Bible and the little Catechism, to wind them up as you would an old clock. ”

“ If we follow another intellectual current, we find the Mystical Scholasticism taking up, as the highest task of theology, the investigating and describing of the hidden life of the pious thinker in and with God according to its nature, course, and results by means of spiritual contemplation on the basis of one’s individual experience. Dogmatics (including Ethics) and the Canon Law constituted the peculiar field of the Dialectic Theology of the Schoolmen. ”

“ A teacher that is not in the habit of questioning persistently and searchingly can have no idea of the depth and at the same time the shallowness of the religious thinking of the average scholar. Far too many teachers prove everything by quoting the inspired Bible, taking it for granted that their scholars accept the Bible as inspired; or by referring to our divine Saviour, taking it for granted that their scholars believe Christ to be a divine Saviour. Our scholars are more shrewd than that. ”

“ When Theology expounds and coordinates the dogmas themselves, and demonstrates them from Scripture and Tradition, it takes the name of Positive Theology. When it takes the dogmas for granted, and penetrates into their nature and discovers their principles and consequences, it is designated Speculative Theology, and sometimes Scholastic Theology, because it is chiefly the work of the Schoolmen, and also because, on account of its abstruseness, it can only be acquired by scholars. Positive Theology and Speculative Theology cannot be completely separated. ”

“ For, while other students are spending their days and their nights on the ancient classics of Greece and Rome, the student who is to be a minister is buried in the Psalms, in the Gospels, and in the Epistles. While the student of law is deep in his commentaries and his cases, the student of divinity is deep in the study of experimental religion. And while the medical student is full of the diseases of animals and of men, the theological student is absorbed in the holiness of the divine nature, and in the plague of the human heart, and, especially, he is drowned deeper every day in his own. ”

“ Do not be eager to draw from your pupils an expression of their personal interest in religious truth. Lay before them, and enforce, by all the means in your power, the principles of Christian duty, but do not converse with them for the purpose of gratifying your curiosity in regard to their piety, or your spiritual pride by counting up the numbers of those who have been led to piety by your influence. Beginning to act from Christian principle is the beginning of a new life, and it may be an interesting subject of inquiry to you to ascertain how many of your pupils have experienced the change ”

“ The history and literature of the Hebrews, the life of Christ, the story of the early Church, studied with the system, the thoroughness, and the fearlessness found in other lines of investigation, afford a genuine ministry to the spiritual life. Many students who lose their Christian faith in the colleges suffer this loss because the mind has gone ahead in science, in philosophy, and in history, but has lagged back in religion. ”

“ THE RELIGION OF A COLLEGE MAN
The leading notes in the religious life of a student will naturally be intellectual and ethical. The mind is feeling its way out among the immensities which have come into view as childhood is left behind. It is seeking to know things as they are, learning how to bear itself in thought toward the natural and the supernatural, the earthly and the heavenly, the present and the future. ”