Dogmatics and Faith............

DOGMATIC THEOLOGY is for the believing Christian.
In itself it does not inspire faith, but presupposes that faith already exists in the heart. "I believed, wherefore I spake," says a righteous man of the Old Testament (Ps. 116:10 [LXX-115:1]).
And the Lord Jesus Christ revealed the mysteries of the Kingdom of God to His disciples after they had believed in Him: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God" (John 6:68-69).
Faith, and more precisely faith in the Son of God Who has come into the world, is the cornerstone of Sacred Scripture; it is the cornerstone of one's personal salvation; and it is the cornerstone of theology. "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His Name" (John 20:31),

writes the Apostle John at the end of his Gospel, and he repeats the same thought many times in his epistles; and these words of his express the chief idea of all of the writings of the holy Apostles: I believe.
All Christian theologizing must begin with this confession. Under this condition theologizing is not an abstract mental exercise, not an intellectual dialectics, but a dwelling of one's thought in Divine truths, a directing of the mind and heart towards God, and a recognition of Gods love.

For an unbeliever theologizing is without effect, because Christ Himself, for unbelievers, is "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense" (1 Peter 2:7-8; see Matt. 21:44).


"The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. He established me before time was in the beginning, before He made the earth, even before He made the depths ... Before all hills, He begets me... When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him" (Prov. 8:22-25, 27, Septuagint).

The author speaks of the beauty of the world, expressing in images what was said of the creation in the book of Genesis (it was very good). He says on behalf of wisdom: "I was by Him, I was that wherein He took delight; and daily I rejoiced in His presence continually" (Prov. 8:30).

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