ARTICLE IV.

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AS A SCIENCE.*

By L. P. Hickok, D. D., Prof. in Auburn Theological Seminary.

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY admits of a strictly scientific investigation, and construction into a purely philosophical system. For many purposes, and especially for thorough, systematic instruction in theology, it is highly important that the religion of the Holy Scriptures be thus subjected to the rigid rule of a true and valid science. When we speak of subjecting the Christian Religion to a science, however, it should by no means be deemed as involving any unholy blending of things sacred and profane together; nor that it admits the presumption of attempting to help the wisdom of God by the foolishness of man. We design by it to express this deep conviction, that the truths of Revelation have a harmonious connection and interdependency with each other, and that it is practicable to bring them all into one intelligent system, possessing complete philosophic unity; even as the single and isolated facts in nature have a reciprocal connection, and may all be bound up in their informing laws, and thereby present to the philosophic mind one combined and comprehensive sphere of being, which in its entireness we call the universe.

In the book of both Nature and Revelation, the facts as given to him who readeth are separate and disjoined; they lie upon the page, as God hath published it, without any order or obvious connection among themselves. And yet, as truly in God's revealed word, is there an intrinsic order and beautyan inner law which combines the whole in systematic unity— as in the works of God, which are thrown in such profusion

1 The substance of the following article was delivered as an address, on the occasion of the author's inauguration to the Professorship of Christian Theology in the Theological Seminary of Auburn, January 8, 1845.

over the heavens above, and upon the earth beneath us. It is the business of the philosopher of nature to find those laws by which all her facts are bound up into a system, and in which they can be expounded as rational and intelligible; nor is there any science of nature until this work is done, and the isolated facts are therein combined, and made to possess both consistency and unity.

And it is no more a rash intrusion within the sacred inclosure of God's secret counsels, nor any more an unauthorized intermeddling with sacred things, to go reverently to work within the field of Divine Revelation, and gather its separate truths, and combine them into system according to their real relations, than it is to go out and explore nature, and put the facts of God's work together in scientific order and unity. Yea, the manifold wisdom of God, in neither department, can ever be appreciated without this; and it is as much in accordance with his will, and certainly as much subservient to the higher interests of man, that there should be a thorough science of the Christian religion, as that there should be a completed science of nature. Both fields are full of God, and each exhibits the most astonishing traces, both of the magnitude and the minuteness of his superintending wisdom, and both should be studied both in their facts and their laws; and more especially the word of Revelation, inasmuch as here are contained those great truths, with which man's deepest interests and dearest hopes stand, by far the most intimately connected. Revelation may, therefore, as properly be subjected in its separate truths, to a science, as the separate facts connected with the structure of the earth or the movements of the heavens. A Philosophy of Nature no more legitimately exists, than there may legitimately exist a Philosophy of the Christian Religion.

Now all science, properly so called, involves both facts as they are given in experience, and the laws or principles by which their being and combination may be intelligently expounded. The facts and the principles are alike essential to the validity of the science. We might observe all the facts

which the senses can reach, and even retain the conceptions of them all in our minds, but such a collection of facts merely, will not be science; the mind has thus attained only the materials for science. On the other hand, we might assume any number of principles without facts, and we shall yet be as destitute of all true science as before; the whole is but merely hypothesis. Facts alone give mere appearance; principles alone give mere theory: facts, in combination by their principles, give valid science. In getting facts, we merely observe; in attaining principles we merely speculate; in binding facts into systems by principles, we first of all philosophize.

The precise conception of what science is, becomes an essential preliminary to the accomplishment of our present design; we shall, therefore, give a more full illustration on this point, relatively to both fact and principle, before we proceed with the main discussion.

1. In reference to facts.-The region for facts extends over the entire domain of the senses. The material, vegetable, and animal world lie around us, presenting their numberless single and separate objects. The world on which we dwell has its elements of fire and air, land and water; and the solid ground on which we tread, has its rocks and minerals, earths and fossils. The fields clothed with verdure, smiling with flowers, or rich in ripened harvests, spread forth the innumerable productions of the vegetable kingdom to our observation. The animals which inhabit the earth, whether as the tenants of the air, the stream, or the ocean; whether the domesticated flocks and herds of the cultivated pastures, or the savage beasts which roam in the wilderness; are

all subject to our examination. All these constitute the separate items of facts, which may come within the perception of the senses; and to all these may be added the wonderful and glorious phenomena of the heavens above us. But in all this there is nothing which distinguishes the philosopher from the peasant. All may observe the facts, and so far as the senses reach, to all the same phenomena are given. This is simply appearance, not science.

The intellectual eye sees, beyond the mere facts, as appearance in sense, a clear and well defined operation of laws and principles, which weave all these facts into complex systems, and group them together in connected combinations. Not a blade, a shrub, or a tree; not a leaf, or flower, or peculiarity of fruit, which has not its inherent law of growth, and form, and reproduction. Not an individual among fish, fowl, or beast, which has not its own law of life, and habitude, and perpetuation of its race. These laws, given in the intellect, bind up all these facts, as given in the senses, into the regulated groups of genera, species, and varieties of being. It is competent for science to put each fact where it belongs, and to determine for it, that it has its being and development under a law, which fixes the precise point of its relationship to the great family of nature. Not the facts alone, but the laws in the facts, give to us the combined systems of the natural sciences. Each department of science has its own facts within their own law; and then these different departments are themselves circumscribed by a higher law; and thus, ultimately, the entire aggregate of all phenomena becomes ensphered in one comprehensive system, constituting one grand whole of universal nature.

Facts, therefore, must not stand alone; but in order to science, the law must be apprehended, by which all the facts become intelligible both in their variety and in their unity. Science is, in short, the colligation of facts within their laws. This is manifest, when we look at the subject on the side of the facts.

2. In reference to principles.-We may contemplate the action of mind in the light of its possession of principles alone. The intellect may go to its work without any direction from the senses. Theories the most ingenious and extensive, the most exact and self-consistent, may be constructed; such as shall excite universal attraction and admiration; and yet the whole shall have a being solely in the mind, with no outward reality conformed to it any where in the wide universe. There is in it a clearly-perceived law for something—a prin

ciple after which some outward reality might be-and if that something could any where be found in existence according to this archetype, there would be science. But neither in the heavens above, nor in the earth beneath, is there any existing thing which corresponds to this beautiful ideal theory. It is a law without any facts, and as the mind which made the theory, cannot go further and also make the facts for it, so it is wholly incompetent to make any science out of it. In all its ingenuity, the hypothesis exists in the mind only, and is thus a mere void thought.

Hipparchus, centuries before the Christian era, formed his theory of epicycles, as the law for the movements of the solar system. This elaborate and astonishing production of genius, conforms in many respects most nicely to a great number of the appearances in the heavenly movements; yet, inasmuch as Hipparchus could only contrive pathways in the heavens for the planets, but could not make them actually travel in his paths, so his theory, to this day, stands out in all its ingenuity still without facts-a most splendid, yet wholly an empty conception. As a speculation, it is both ingenious and sublime, but as stubborn facts will not consent to conform to it, so it cannot make itself to be science.

How different the result, with the creations of Newton's genius! When twenty-four years of age, in the autumn of 1666, on a clear evening, he sat alone in his garden. In the stillness of his retirement, while the blue heavens were above, and the moon and planets were wheeling on in their bright courses, he was silently and intently meditating upon the power of gravity. He held this fact in his mind, that the force of gravity does not sensibly diminish at remote distances from the earth, at the tops of the highest buildings, at the summit of the most lofty mountains; why not, then-came the thought, sudden as an electric spark—why not, then, reach as far as the moon? If it does, was the conclusion as rapidly deduced, then her motion must be controlled by it. Perhaps she is held in her orbit thereby! Perhaps here is the solution for the question of every heavenly movement! This