Right of Systematic Theology

Originally Published in 1897


Systematic theology has fallen on evil days. To her may be applied, with scarcely a change of word, what Kant in the Preface to his famous Critique says of metaphysics: "Time was when she was the queen of all the sciences, and if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her, and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba - 
'Modo maxima rerum,
Tot generis, natisque potens . . .
Nunc trahor exul, inops.'"1
But a subsequent sentence also of this great thinker may be applied to theology: "For it is in reality vain," he says, "to profess indifference in regard to such inquiries, the object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity. Besides, these pretended indifferents, however much they may try to disguise themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by changes on the language of the schools, undoubtedly fall into [theological] declarations and propositions, which they profess to regard with so much contempt."