ted. Questions about church authority are henceforth
questions about the pope's authority. What he calls heresy, under the
sanction of excommunication or that more formal excommunication known as
anathema, is heresy. What he finds it necessary to condemn even in
milder terms as bad doctrine is infallibily condemned; that is certain,
Roman Catholic theologians tell us, though not yet _de fide_.

Finally we have to glance at a new list of definitions which perhaps in
some cases seek more or less to formulate modern Protestant ideas, but
which in general represent rather the world of disinterested historical
scholarship. That world of the learned offers us non-dogmatic
definitions, drawn up from the outside; definitions which do not share
the root assumptions either of Catholicism or of post-Reformation
Protestant orthodoxy. It might have been best to surrender the term
"dogma" to the dogmatists; but few scholars have consented to do so.

1. We may brush aside the view[18] for which J. C. Doderlein, J. A. A.
Tittmann, and more recently C. F. A. Kahnis are quoted. According to
this definition, "dogma" means the opinion of some individual theologian
of distinction. That might be a conceivable development of usage. It has
been said that persons who dislike authority often show great devotion
to "authorities"; and the word dogma might make a similar transition.
But, in its case, such a usage would constitute a violent break with the
past.

2. Though there is no formal definition in the passage, it is worth
recording that, towards the end of his _Chief End of Revelation_ (1881),
A. B. Bruce sharply contrasts "dogmas of theology" with "doctrines of
faith."[19] While he manifests no wholesale dislike to doctrine, such as
is seen in the Broad Church school, Bruce inverts the Catholic estimate.
Dogma stands lowest, not highest. It seems hardly better than a _caput
mortuum_, out of relation to the original faith or the original facts
that are held to have given it birth. There is more than a touch of
Matthew Arnold in this; though, while Arnold held nothing in religious
experience beyond morality to be objectively genuine, Bruce believed in
God's "gracious" purpose.[20]

3. Much more like Chrismann's view is the "generally accepted position"
among Protestant scholars, as its leading representative to-day, F.
Loofs, has called it;[21] the doctrine enforced within any one church
community is dogma. This definition is significant. I