2. Though there is no formal definition in the passage, it is worth recording that, towards the end of his Chief End of Revelation (1881), A. B. Bruce sharply contrasts “dogmas of theology” with “doctrines of faith.”[19] While he manifests no wholesale dislike to doctrine, such as is seen in the Broad Church school, Bruce inverts the Catholic estimate. Dogma stands lowest, not highest. It seems hardly better than a caput mortuum, out of relation to the original faith or the original facts that are held to have given it birth. There is more than a touch of Matthew Arnold in this; though, while Arnold held nothing in religious experience beyond morality to be objectively genuine, Bruce believed in God’s “gracious” purpose.[20]
3. Much more like Chrismann’s view is the “generally accepted position” among Protestant scholars, as its leading representative to-day, F. Loofs, has called it;[21] the doctrine enforced within any one church community is dogma. This definition is significant. It means that historians recognize the peculiar importance of those beliefs which are constitutive of church agreement; and it finds some support from the philosophical and political associations of ancient “dogma.” Also Roman Catholic writers could accept the definition in so far as their own church’s authoritative teachings are concerned. But can a historian separate the opinions which rose to authority in the church from the other opinions which succumbed? Or the accepted modifications of a theory from those which were rejected? Again, can we substitute church authority for that which is always the background of “dogma” as interpreted from inside—divine authority?[22] Or, again, can we say definitely which doctrines are “enforced” in Protestant communions and so are “dogmas”? It has even been asserted by A. Schweizer (Christliche Glaubenslehre nach prot. Grundsätzen, 1863-1872) that Protestantism ought not to speak of dogmas at all, except as things of its imperfect past.[23] And historically it seems plain that—since the age of Protestant scholasticism—there has been nothing in Protestant church life to which the name “dogma” can be assigned, without dropping a good deal of its original connotation. Dogma is no longer[24] held to be of immediate divine authority. Hence Catholic, and scientific or historical, definitions of dogma are on different planes. They never properly meet.[25]
4. A. Harnack varies in his usage. He is not prepared to exclude the great medieval pronouncements, or the modern Roman Catholic definitions, from the list of dogmas; but on the whole he prefers to keep in view “one historical species”—Loofs suggests that he ought perhaps rather to say one individual type—that greatest group of Christian dogmas which “was created by the Greek spirit upon the soil of the gospel” (Hist. of Dogma, Eng. tr., vol. i. pp. 17, 21, 22). Thus Harnack agrees with Catholic theologians in holding that, in the fullest sense, there is no dogma except the Catholic. He differs, of course, in holding dogma to be obsolete now. While Protestants, he thinks, have undermined it by a deeper conception of faith,[26] Roman Catholics have come to attach more value to obedience and “implicit belief” than to knowledge; and even the Eastern Church lives to-day by the cultus more than by the vision of supernatural truth. Again, Harnack gravely differs from Catholic dogmatists in assigning a historical origin to what in their view is essentially divine—supernatural in origin, supernatural even in its declaration by the church. If they do not deny that Greek philosophy has entered into Christian doctrine, they consider it a colourless medium used in fixing the contents of revelation. In all this, Harnack speaks from a point of view of his own. He is no friend of Catholicism or of dogma. Perhaps his detachment makes for clearness of thought; Loofs’s friendliness towards dogma, but in a much humbler sense than the Catholic, involves the risk of confusion.
Both Loofs and Harnack contrast with “dogma” the work of individual thinkers, calling the latter “theology.” Hence they and other authorities wish to see “History of Dogma” supplemented by “Histories of Theology.” Our usual English phrase “History of Doctrine” ignores that distinction.
5. A place must be made for the definition proposed by a philosopher, J. M. E. McTaggart. In Some Dogmas of Religion (1906), he uses “dogma” of affirmations, whether supported by reasoning or merely asserted, if they claim “metaphysical” value, metaphysics being defined as “the systematic study of the ultimate nature of reality.” Briefly, a dogma is what claims ultimate, not relative, truth. This agrees with one feature in ordinary literary usage—the contrast between “dogmatizing” and suspending judgment, or taking refuge in conjecture. But it ignores another quality marked out in common speech—that in respect of which “dogmatism” is opposed to proof. Also it omits the political or social reference so much insisted on by Loofs and others. There are materials for misunderstanding here.
6. A very different view is implied in the symbolo-fidéisme of Athanase Sabatier and some other French Protestants: religious dogma consists of symbols in contrast to a scientific gnosis of reality. This is a radical version of the early Protestant idea of faith, and yields a theory of what in English we call “doctrine.” More precisely, it is a theory of what doctrine ought to be, or a deeper analysis of its nature; it is not a statement of what doctrine has been held to be in the past. And therefore the definition does not proceed from historical scholarship. Nor yet does it throw light upon “dogma,” if dogma is to be distinguished—somehow—from doctrine.
Literature.—Matthew Arnold’s Literature, and Dogma (1873) is important for literary usage: cf. A. B. Bruce, op. cit. Classical and early Christian usages, E. Hatch, Hibbert Lect. (1888), pp. 119, 120; J. B. Lightfoot on Colossians ii. 14 (20); W. Schmidt, Dogmatik, vol. i. (1895)—many quotations in extenso; C. Stange, Das Dogma und seine Beurteilung in der neueren Dogmengeschichte (1898)—a pamphlet protesting against what Loofs terms the “generally accepted view.” Articles in the (Roman Catholic) Kirchenlexikon of Wetzer and Welte, 2nd ed; (by Hergenröther and Kaulen), 1882-1901, Arts. “Dogmatik” (J. Köstlin), “Dogmengeschichte” (F. Loofs) in Herzog-Hauck’s Encykl. f. prot. Theol. (vol. iv., 1898). Art. “Glaubensartikel” in previous ed. (Herzog-Plitt, vol. v., 1879) by C. F. Kling and L. F. Schoeberlein. For works on the history of dogma see [Theology]. See also [Dogmatic Theology].
(R. Ma.)
[1] Sextus Empiricus (c. a.d. 240) denounces all forms of dogmatism, even perhaps the scepticism of definite denial. Blaise Pascal and Immanuel Kant, among others, have Sextus’s grouping in mind when they oppose themselves to “dogmatism” and “scepticism” alike. A new shade of condemnation for dogmas as things merely assumed comes to be noticeable here, especially in Kant.