Excerpt from Manual of Theology Theology is the science which deals with the Being and Nature of God. Christian Theology is the expression and analysis of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. All speculation into the First Cause of the world, the ground of moral obligation, even the immortality of the human soul, is or may be theological; that is, any one of these questions may be so discussed as to bring before us the notion of a Supreme Being, who made the world, whose nature is the source of the distinction of right and wrong, who brought man's soul into being, and preserves it continuously from dissolution. On the other hand, all such questions fail to be theological just in proportion as the idea of the Supreme Being is dropped out of sight. They must then be treated as subor dinate sections of physics, or of psychology, or of metaphysics. They take their theological colour from their contact with the idea of a Supreme Being, and no treatment of them apart from this idea is, in the strict sense, theological at all. As for the Being and Nature of God, apart from the Christian revelation of Him, we must derive our knowledge of it from the theological treatment of the questions mentioned above. By reflection upon the order of nature, of a certain kind, we reach the notion of a Creator. By reflection of a certain kind upon the moral law we reach the notion of a Personal Ruler of mankind, who rewards and punishes; and this result leads on to the discussion of the Immorality of Man. These are the contents of Natural Theology, as it is called; and they represent more or less completely the area over which man can move in the way of independent Speculation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.