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. Döderlein, 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. It means that historians recognize the peculiar importance of those beliefs which are constitutive of church agreement; and it finds some support from the philosophical and political associations of ancient "dogma." Also Roman Catholic writers could accept the definition in so far as their own church's authoritative teachings are concerned. But can a _historian_ separate the opinions which rose to authority in the church from the other opinions which succumbed? Or the accepted modifications of a theory from those which were rejected? Again, can we substitute church authority for that which is always the background of "dogma" as interpreted from inside--divine authority?[22] Or, again, can we say definitely which doctrines _are_ "enforced" in Protestant communions and so _are_ "dogmas"? It has even been asserted by A. Schweizer (_Christliche Glaubenslehre nach prot. Grundsätzen_, 1863-1872) that Protestantism ought not to speak of dogmas at all, except as things of its imperfect past.[23] And historically it seems plain that--since the age of Protestant scholasticism--there has been nothing in Protestant church life to which the name "dogma" can be assigned, without dropping a good deal of its original connotation. Dogma is no longer[24] held to be of immediate divine authority. Hence Catholic, and scientific or historical, definitions of dogma are on different planes. They never properly meet.[25]