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RPM, Volume 14, Number 19, May 6 to May 12, 20126

The Dogmatic Spirit

By B.B. Warfield

Dr. Benjamin B Warfield graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, in 1871 and after a period ofstudy abroad at Edinburgh and Heidelberg entered Princeton Theological Seminary and was graduated with the class of

1876. Following a years study at Leipzig, Germany, and a short pastorate in Baltimore he was appointed instructor in NewTestament Language and Literature in Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh and a year later elected professor. In1886 he was called to succeed Archibald Alexander Hodge as professor of Systematic Theology in Princeton Theological

Seminary a position which he occupied with great distinction until his death in 1921.

Dr. Warfield won early recognition as a scholar, teacher and author. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the

college of New Jersey in 1880; that of Doctor of Laws from both the College of New Jersey and Davidson college in 1892;that of Doctor of Letters from Lafayette College in 1911; and that of Sacrae Theologiae Doctor from the University of Utrechtin 1913. He was editor of the Presbyterian and Reformed Review from 1890-1903 and until the time of his death, the chief

contributor to the Princeton Theological Review. Originally published in The Presbyterian Journal, Oct. 11, 1894, p. 648. Itis in the public domain and may be freely copied and distributed.

What is called the dogmatic spirit is not popular among men. It is characterized by an authoritative method of presenting truth; by anunwillingness to modify truth to fit it to current conceptions; by an insistence on what seem to many minor points; and above all by

(what lies at the root of most of its other peculiarities) a habit of thinking in a system, and a consequent habit of estimating the relativeimportance of the separate items of truth by their logical relation to the body of truth, rather than by their apparent independent value.Such a habit of mind seems to be the only appropriate attitude toward a body of truth given by revelation, and committed to men only to

embrace, cherish, preserve, and propagate. It seems to be, moreover, the attitude toward the body of revealed truth commended to

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