e author treats
it, all the other doctrines are arranged. The familiar topic of
justification, of which Luther made so much, was thus given again the
central place. What the book really offered was something quite
different from this. It was a complete system of theology, but it
differed from the traditional systems of theology. These had followed
helplessly a logical scheme which begins with God as he is in himself
and apart from any knowledge which we have of him. They then slowly
proceeded to man and sin and redemption, one empirical object and two
concrete experiences which we may know something about. Ritschl reversed
the process. He aimed to begin with certain facts of life. Such facts
are sin and the consciousness of forgiveness, awareness of restoration
to the will and power of goodness, the gift of love and of a spirit
which can feel itself victorious even in the midst of ills in life,
confidence that this life is not all. These phrases, taken together,
would describe the consciousness of salvation. This consciousness of sin
and salvation is a fact in individual men. It has evidently been a fact
in the life of masses of men for many generations. The facts have thus a
psychology and a history from which reflection on the phenomenon of
faith must take its departure. There is no reason why, upon this basis,
and until it departs from the scientific methods which are given with
the nature of its object, theology should not be as truly a science as
is any other known among men.

This science starts with man, who in the object of many other sciences.
It confines itself to man in this one aspect of his relation to moral
life and to the transcendent meaning of the universe. It notes the fact
that men, when awakened, usually have the sense of not being in harmony
with the life of the universe or on the way to realisation of its
meaning. It notes the fact that many men have had the consciousness of
progressive restoration to that harmony. It inquires as to the process
of that restoration. It asks as to the power of it. It discovers that
that power is a personal one. Men have believed that this power has been
exerted over them, either in personal contact, or across the ages and
through generations of believers, by one Jesus, whom they call Saviour.
They have believed that it was God who through Jesus saved them. Jesus'
consciousness thus became to them a revelation of God. The thought leads
on to the consideration of that