no LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



into apologetics seems intelligible enough ; but the thing 

 is not so clear when one begins to look at it. The word 

 apologetical seems to point rather to a peculiar treatment 

 than to a peculiar class of theological problems. Do we 

 mean then that theology is ceasing to be constructive 

 and must henceforth stand on the defensive only ? If so, 

 what are we called upon to defend ? A theology already 

 completely and scientifically constructed ? Surely not ; 

 for when a scientific system is complete, it ceases to 

 demand apologetical treatment. Or are we called on to 

 admit that theological science has not attained, never 

 can attain, constructive completeness ? Then it will be 

 no longer the results of theology that we are required 

 to defend, but something prior to theology. What we 

 shall have to defend is not our Christian knowledge but 

 our Christian belief. 



As a matter of fact there seems no doubt that those 

 who view the increasing importance of apologetics as 

 natural and inevitable must hold this view. They not 

 only reject the intelligo ut credam of Abelard for the credo 

 ut intelligam of Anselm, but they deny that any advance 

 in the intelligam can modify the necessity or limit the 

 sphere of the credo. All positive theology starts not 

 from axioms but from postulates to be believed, not to be 

 proved. 



It is with these postulates then that apologetics will 

 have to do not to demonstrate them but to show that 

 it is not unreasonable that we should believe them ; nay, 

 that reason itself calls for this belief. But still there is a 

 difficulty here. I can understand a man saying that our 

 belief in the postulates of Christianity rests on purely 

 subjective grounds that we can enter into no argument 

 whatever on the subject but this position abolishes 

 apologetics. I can understand also that a man should 

 refuse to accept this view, and say that he can give as 

 good a reason for this belief as for any other belief he 

 holds ; but in this case, too, why the name apologetics ? 



