# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1856_S26
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

26 New Literature.

Finally, and this is the worst of it, one is led, in a case such as the present
one, to speak childishly, foolishly, and unbecomingly of the holy and exalted
majesty of God. For here God's inward being is constructed out of the
limited, sin-blinded human conceptions. Moreover such a procedure is also
contrary to Scripture, according to Romans 1:20: "so that God's invisible
being, that is, his eternal power and Godhead, is perceived, in that one
observes it in his works, namely in the creation of the world." The creature
understands God from his works, which it comprehends and from which it
rises as best it can; but not, conversely, the works from God — such an
understanding belongs to God alone. That under these circumstances the
result cannot be satisfying is already clear in part from what has gone before.
Here we would only point out further, in particular, that free will is said to
be a fundamental power of the spirit and arbitrary will a fundamental power
of the soul, whereas both, taken as faculties, are the same thing; for in order
that anyone should act arbitrarily, free will is certainly required, even though
the motive may not be evident, or may not be one to be approved — which,
however, has nothing to do with the matter. Something similar holds of
reason and the power of wisdom. Further, perception, feeling, and memory
are said to be manifestations of one and the same power, which, if one
attaches to those three words and to the word "power" their ordinary and
proper meaning, is plainly incorrect, since they are just as much distinct
powers as imagination, drive, and so forth. We find, then, the faculties of the
soul, in the wider sense of the word, partly torn apart and distributed
between spirit and soul, and partly jumbled together. Oh, what a pity! and
how far the goal remains from us! A useful psychology will correctly classify
the infinitely manifold operations of the soul in the ordinary sense of the
word, trace them back, according to the rules for causal investigations, to
faculties; describe these faculties according to their nature, their efficacy,
and their relation to one another, and so, so to speak, first analyze and then
reconstruct the whole workings of the spirit. A biblical psychology, insofar
as the biblical expressions are called upon to help, would accomplish still
more than one working merely in general in the light of revelation. For the
objects designated by those expressions are, as the object of the work of
redemption, too important, and, as the goal of revelation, too intimately
bound up with its subject matter, for one not rightly to assume that they are
designated therein in a manner suited not only to ordinary but also to the
highest and most scientific purposes. To be sure, however, before one takes
up a biblical psychology, one must undertake a rigorous empirical inquiry
into the soul; for how should one be able to think anything at all, or the
right thing, in connection with the relevant scriptural expressions, if one
does not know the thing that they are meant to designate? Only then will
those expressions cast their light upon the matter.