^{page 501 note 1} Acknowledgment. This paper was read before the Theology Forum of the University of Colorado and also for the Philosophy Department colloquium of the University of Edinburgh. The author is indebted to his colleagues in the Departments of Philosophy and Mathematics at Colorado and in the Department of Philosophy and the Faculty of Divinity at Edinburgh for many helpful comments and criticisms.

^{page 505 note 1} A friendly critic observes that the understanding of ‘dogmatic theology’ here employed is one which was characteristic of the nineteenth century, but which has undergone substantial transformation in the twentieth. My critic, commenting on Barth's rejection of natural theology, points out that in a conversation shortly before his death, Barth agreed that what he really meant to reject was an independent natural theology: presumably, a natural theology (or philosophical theology) which was sui generis and drew no substance from doctrine.

However that may be, the clear thrust of Barth's published work from first to last seems to me to argue in favor of the more restrictive understanding of ‘dogmatics’ with which I am here concerned to operate. As to the contention that my understanding of dogmatics is a nineteenth-century concept, abandoned in the twentieth, one might, of course, argue that Barth was a nineteenth-century theologian who had the misfortune of publishing all his work in the twentieth century. Barring that argument, however, I find it difficult to agree that the work of (one of) the greatest theologians of the twentieth century is really nineteenth-century theology and can therefore be disregarded in thinking about recent theological issues.

^{page 506 note 1} When I use the word credo, I am not intending only that set of assertions which is called a creed, but rather all of those things which are accepted as part of the official doctrinal material of a church: one or more of the creeds, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Apocrypha, the Church Fathers, etc.

^{page 512 note 1} The comment made above, to the effect that the truth or falsity of the dogma is not at issue for the dogmatic theologian raises the following interesting question: Must the dogmatic theologian accept the credo in order to do his theological work? I.e., for the Christian dogmatic theologian, must the ‘I believe …’ be spoken as his personal statement of belief? Or can a person do dogmatic theology from an uncommitted or ‘neutral’ point of view? Several comments might be in order, considering again the relationship between theology and mathematics.

(1) It is worth noting that no similar problem exists for the metatheologian: the ‘Second Theoretical Level’ (page 508) specifically excludes such commitment. (2) In saying it is not the purpose of dogmatic theology to prove or establish the truth or even the reasonableness of the dogma (presumably, that is what natural theology is about), it does not follow that the ‘belief state’ of the theologian is irrelevant to his task. It is relevant in two ways: (a) It is difficult to understand why the theologian would do what he does unless the dogma had some degree of Existential Pertinence (page 12) for him. Of course, a Collingwoodian historian of ideas might do some dogmatic theology in order to ‘think himself into’ the Christian's point of view; or the Jewish psychiatrist might do so in order to understand his patient's hang-ups; or an atheistic anthropologist might do so simply as an exercise in the logic of ideas—but these are obviously cases tangential to the main issue, (b) The theologian will have greater insight into the meaning and consequences of the elements of the dogma if in fact he participates in the religious life which those elements are understood to represent (or present).

Note that the situation vis-à-vis geometry is not so different. (1′) The metamathematician has no commitment to the truth of this or that axiom system. (2′.a) It is hard to see why the geometer would spend much time doing geometry if he did not think that in some way it was useful or ‘true’. Of course, he might do it simply as a logical exercise or as an example of axiomatization. But (2′.b) anyone who has done mathematics (as against merely talking about it or studying it) knows that what goes into the basic machinery (page 506) is strongly influenced by what results are felt to be important or desired. In other words, although the process of mathematical reasoning goes logically in one direction, it goes the other way psychologically. Thus, the geometer seeks to formalise what he already knows or suspects intuitively. Euclidean geometry therefore begins (psychologically) with a commitment, a credo, the object of which is not the axioms themselves, but that which the axioms will produce if the formalization is successful.

^{page 515 note 1} In the event that this conclusion seems to conflict with what was said earlier about formalisability as a warrant for truth claims, I should point out that the ‘open-ness’ of mathematics and theology does not imply a kind of subjectivity or idiosyncraticity. The data, for the mathematician, do not include his hunches, guesses, and intuitions. He may, of course, add or withdraw axioms to or from the system so long as the system continues to satisfy the three metamathematical criteria discussed above. His perception of his own activity in doing so, and the judgment of the truth-status of the new axioms will depend sharply on the philosophical views of the judge: the formalist will see it one way, the set-theoretic realist (the Platonist) quite a different way. But the non-formal although very important ways by which a mathematician finds new theorems to prove (for example) can never, ex hypothesi, be a part of the formal process itself.

Similarly, although a theological system must remain open to the possibility of revelation, it does not follow that the theologian himself is the recipient of that revelation. As defined, the dogma—hence the theologian's data—is constituted by the official teaching, the received doctrine, of a church, a religious community. The theologian, in quite a different role, may have an impact on what his community receives and teaches, but his own theologising—if it is really dogmatic—cannot include as part of its data the theologian's own ‘brain-born ideas’ as James called them, whether or not they are represented as new ‘special revelation’.