# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1855_S342
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

342 Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.

of a living faith of the heart and a gentle, godly disposition. Whereas Gerhard, in his Loci, follows the so-called synthetic method as regards systematic arrangement, in that he proceeds therein from the causes, then treats the means, and finally concludes with the setting forth and development of the goal and purpose, Baier, by contrast, follows the so-called analytic method, in that, holding fast to the concept of theology as a practical science, he treats first of the final end of theology (theology in the narrower sense: of God and the enjoyment of God in eternal life), then of its subject (anthropology, the doctrine of man), and finally of the causes and means of salvation (soteriology). Baier presents the whole substance of the doctrine in short, concise paragraphs, whose individual propositions find their complete elucidation in the notes placed beneath them. In the development of the individual loci or doctrinal topics, Baier proceeds according to the definitive and causal method that had again become customary at that time. It cannot indeed be denied that the scholastic form employed in our compendium, with its terms now almost obsolete, not only creates some difficulty for the beginner and here and there gives an impression of monotony, but even at times does harm to the presentation of doctrine: yet, in the first place, where is the form for divine truth that would be perfect, that would correspond perfectly to its perfect content, and that would not bear upon itself the stamp of the human and therefore of imperfection? In the second place, we are also convinced, and have become certain of it through experience, that precisely a compendium of dogmatics without technical terms — which render many lengthy explanations unnecessary — can scarcely have the necessary completeness unless it is to overstep its bounds and swell into a work no longer easy to survey. However well founded the complaint may be that not infrequently Aristotelian philosophy has crept into theology along with the scholastic form, that form has nevertheless also been, among a considerable number of our theologians, the means of keeping vagueness of concepts at bay and of making the reader certain of the author's meaning without a great expenditure of words. Baier especially, however, has made in his theology no other than such a wholesome use of the philosophical technical terms. Whoever has once found his way in it can only be grateful to him for this manner of teaching. It is altogether otherwise with the technical language of the more recent theologians, which often makes it impossible to arrive at certainty about what the writer actually means, unless one has studied all the other works of the same writer and has taken pains thereby to learn to understand his peculiar terminology. Indeed, while even in that case it often remains doubtful whether one truly connects the writer's expressions with his actual meaning, since nowadays not infrequently the writers themselves use terms that have become fashionable, of whose strictly defined sense they themselves can give account neither to themselves nor to others—