Systematic theology has a distinct field of its own, to which, in the Church of England at least, insufficient attention is being paid. This neglect is due in part to a failure to recognize the distinct aim of systematic theology and to a confusion of its proper subject with others, especially that of dogmatics. “Dogmatic theology” concerns itself mainly with the genesis and original significance of traditional dogma, and, in so far as it turns its attention from the past to the present, it seeks only to answer the question, What does the Church teach as de fide? Or, To what beliefs are the teachers and members of the Church essentially committed? “Systematic theology”, on the other hand, asks the question, “How can we best understand and interpret as a coherent whole the doctrinal tradition of our Church in relation to that particular world in which we are now called upon to uphold the Christian faith?
Systematic theology can only be written from the point of view of a particular Church-tradition, but it does not claim any dogmatic authority for its conclusions. The answer given to its central question is bound to vary more or less with the individual, and the variation is likely to be particularly marked in a Communion which, like the Anglican, includes widely different “schools of thought”. A man is trained in systematic theology, not by learning and accepting any particular presentation of it, but rather by exercising his powers of understanding and criticism upon some particular presentation.
This book, of which much of the substance has been delivered in the form of lectures to theological students at Durham, is an attempt to provide such a presentation with reference to the main doctrines of the Christian Creed.