i8 7 7] THEOLOGY AND THE CHURCH 323 



both tend to establish a practical depreciation of 

 theology. 



Look first at the assertion, that every believer must at 

 least have a definitely formulated knowledge about 

 essentials, which is his theology. This argument is 

 pertinent to establish the identity of theology with 

 practical Christian knowledge, only on the assumption 

 that it is the formulated part of his knowledge on which 

 the Christian acts, the rest being really a superfluity. 

 And this is obviously untrue, for the very doctrines 

 which we rightly consider pre-eminently practical were 

 not formulated till a comparatively late date in the 

 history of the Church. And without any appeal to 

 history, it is enough to point to the fact that genuine 

 practical insight often keeps the simplest believer in the 

 right path, on questions the theological discussion of 

 which is full of subtleties. Here, obviously, we have 

 action based not on elementary formulated knowledge, 

 but on deep inarticulate knowledge elaborated in practice. 

 The argument, then, is powerless for the end proposed 

 to it. But it is very powerful in leading people to under 

 value theology. For when an eminent degree of practical 

 Christian wisdom and goodness is found in a man whose 

 explicit knowledge is scanty, this argument prevents 

 people from seeing that between these two things there 

 lies a great development of unformulated knowledge. 

 The importance of theology is supposed to be magnified 

 by ignoring inarticulate knowledge altogether, and the 

 result is, of course, that we have people saying on every 

 hand, &quot; What is the good of an elaborate theology when 

 a man who is so little a theologian as A or B is so excellent 

 and so useful a man ? &quot; This is an objection which can 

 only be answered by showing that the supposed useless 

 elaborations of theology are just explicit statements of 

 the very truths which, in an inarticulate form, in the 

 shape of practical tact and insight, lie at the root of 

 un theological wisdom. 



