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. 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).