21 June 2018

Charles Hodge: the forgotten theologian

Charles Hodge may not be forgotten by some, but it's been a long time since I have dabbled in his Systematic Theology. Sometimes I think I am more sure of the divine origin of the Bible than I am of my own salvation. No one who gives Scripture an honest read can say it's just another book or just stories and fairy tales. It has a power of its own precisely because it is from God.

Here's a quote from Hodge's Systematic Theology:

First, All truth must be consistent. God cannot contradict himself. He cannot force us by the constitution of the nature which He has given us to believe one thing, and in his Word command us to believe the opposite. And, second, All the truths taught by the constitution of our nature or by religious experience, are recognized and authenticated in the Scriptures. This is a safeguard and a limit. We cannot assume this or that principle to be intuitively true, or this or that conclusion to be demonstrably certain, and make them a standard to which the Bible must conform. What is self-evidently true, must be proved to be so, and is always recognized in the Bible as true. Whole systems of theologies are founded upon intuitions, so called, and if every man is at liberty to exalt his own intuitions, as men are accustomed to call their strong convictions, we should have as many theologies in the world as there are thinkers.

Hodge, C. (1997). Systematic theology (Vol. 1, p. 15). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

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