Part IV.—Christology.
Christology—Χριστού λόγος—has Christ for its subject, and might properly include his divinity and subsistence in the Trinity; his incarnation and unique personality; his prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices. Such truths are central to Christianity, and determinative of what it is in itself, and in distinction from other religions. Their inclusion in Christology would give to it a very wide scope. Then, in addition to the range of its own legitimate topics, the subject is greatly broadened in its doctrinal history. Few questions in theology have been more persistently or deeply discussed. The fact is quite natural to the intrinsic importance of the subject. Besides, the discussion has been intensified by the divergences of doctrinal views of the Christ. For the present, however, we are specially concerned with the one question of the person of Christ. This does not mean the omission of other great topics of Christology. They must be included in a system of Christian theology because they involve fundamental truths of the system. Some of them are inseparably connected with the question of the person of Christ, but may be more appropriately discussed in other parts of the system. The question of personality is itself a subject of wide scope. It is such m the range of its own topics, and also in its doctrinal history. It is the one question of Christology which has been most in discussion. Opposing views have been maintained; and the issues thus raised have been regarded, not as matters of merely speculative interest, but as questions of the profoundest religious concern. The result is that the theories and discussions respecting the person of Christ occupy a large place in the history of Christian doctrine. Any one who wishes to study these discussions can readily find ample resources in the literature which they have produced, particularly in Corner’s great work on the development of the history of the doctrine of the person of Christ. However, systematic theology is concerned with this history only so far as it may be helpful in reaching the true doctrine.
