THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
BIOGRAPHY AND GLOSSARY

Da Vinci, Leonardo:

(1452-1519)

Daille, Jean (Dallaeus):

(1594-1670) French protestant; preached on Philippians and Colossians.

Dale, Robert W.:

(1829-1895) British Congregational preacher; served in one church for 36 years; involved in political issues.

Dallaeus:

See Daille, Jean (Dallaeus)

Damascus:

See John of Damascus

Damian, Peter:

(1007-1072) Benedictine Roman Catholic reformer.

Danforth, Samuel:

(1626-1674) Pastor in Connecticut for 24 years; helped John Eliot.

DARBYITES:

See Darby, John Nelson

Darby, John Nelson:

(1800-1882) Irish minister; early leader of Plymouth Brethren (or Darbyites); popularized dispensationalism; influential in restoring simple Christian practice and faith with conversion, immersion, pre-millennialism, and every Christian a minister. Wrote On the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ.

Dargan, Edwin Charles:

US Southern Baptist taught homiletics and biblical theology at Southern Baptist Seminary; wrote History of Preaching.

Darwin, Charles Robert:

(1809-1882) held to evolution in biology.

DARWINISM:

See Social Darwinism

DASEIN:

German word for "presence" or "existence"; a term of existential psychology; popularized by Heidegger. See The False Dasein

Davenport, John:

(1597-1670) Anglican preacher who became Congregational; preached sensational revival sermons; a founder of New Haven Colony.

Davidson, Andrew Bruce:

(1831-1902) father of higher criticism in Scotland.

Davidson, John:

(1549-1603) Scottish preacher; attracted large crowds; persecuted for his evangelical faith.

Davies, Samuel:

(1724-1761) Succeeded Jonathan Edwards as President of Princeton.

Davies, Thomas R.:

(1790-1859) Welsh Baptist preached five times a week for 47 years.

Dawson, William J.:

(1854-1928) Wesleyan preacher and poet; became Congregational

de Beauvoir:

see Beauvoir.

de Burgh:

see Burgh.

de Chardin:

see Teilhard.

de La Mettrie, Julien Jean Offray:

See La Mettrie

de Unamuno:

see Unamuno

DECISION:

See Freedom of choice or decision

DECISIONS OF PRINCIPLE:

(Hare) *

DEDUCTIVE REASONING:

Reasoning from the general to the particular. Analytical method developed by Aristotle.

DEFINITE:

See Definite descriptions

DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS:

Russell *

DEFINIST ETHICS:

* Also called Descriptivist ethics

DEISM:

God set the world in motion, but has been absent from it ever since. In the 1700s it meant that natural theology alone can answer all the questions of life.

DEIST:

A person who holds to Deism

Delitzsch, Franz:

(1813-1890) German Lutheran OT commentator.

DEMOCRACY:

*

Democritus:

Combined the sensualism of Protagoras and the rationalism of the pre-Socratics; perceptions yield opinions; reason gives knowlege of reality; reality consists in an infinite number of material atom-forms having primary qualities (form, inertia, etc.) and rearranging themselves in an infinite space; reason must abstract knowledge of them from the secondary qualities of perception (color, taste, etc.); reason is itself a product of matter in motion; mind-atoms are "hit" by images (small copies) of objects, giving rise to perceptions from which scientific knowledge must be abstracted.

DEMYTHOLOGIZATION:

See Bultmann, Rudolf; Gogarten, Friedrich

Denney, James:

(1856-1917) Scottish theologian preacher author.

DEONTOLOGICAL:

See Deontological agapism and Deontological intuitionism

DEONTOLOGICAL AGAPISM:

*

DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICAL THEORY:

(c 460-c 370 BC) Concerned with moral obligation (the right) rather than ends or consequences. Moral obligation relates to duty, the ought, rightness, or appropriateness. Moral obligation has priority over moral value.

DEONTOLOGICAL INTUITIONISM:

*

DEONTOLOGY:

See Deontological ethical theory; Act deontology; and Rule deontology

DEPTH:

See Depth psychology

DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY:

Any of the psychologies deriving from Freudian psychoanalysis.

Descartes, Rene:

(1596-1650) philosopher and mathematician; "I think therefore I am"; goal of knowledge is certainty; certainty derives from intuition and deduction; certainty requires systematic doubt (methodological skepticism); this systematic doubt leads to indubitably clear and necessary first principles from which all necessary and genuine knowledge can be deduced (e.g., the science of geometry). The Cartesian method invokes four rules as guides in moving from opinion to science: Never accept anything as true unless it is clearly and inescapably so; Analyze or reduce a problem to resovable parts; Organize particulars into general knowledge; Check for completeness and negative cases. Reality for man is two substances: matter (i.e., extension in space and time); and mind (unextended thinking spirit mirroring the material world). God is absolute substance, uncreated, unmoved, and perfect creator of matter and human minds. As the inner world of consciousness, mind is free and motivated by God. As the outer world of space, matter constitutes the mechanism of the world machine set in motion by God, who is first cause, and is continued in motion according to inherent and necessary laws of nature (determinism).

DESCRIPTION:

(Russell) * Knowledge by description

DESCRIPTIONS:

See Definite descriptions

DESCRIPTIVE:

See Descriptive metaphysics and Descriptive statements, generalizations, etc.

DESCRIPTIVIST ETHICS:

*

DESCRIPTIVE GENERALIZATIONS:

See Descriptive statements, generalizations, etc.

DESCRIPTIVE STATEMENTS:

See Descriptive statements, generalizations, etc.

DESCRIPTIVE STATEMENTS, GENERALIZATIONS, ETC.:

*

DESCRIPTIVE METAPHYSICS:

Strawson *

DESCRIPTIVIST:

See Descriptivist ethics

DESCRIPTIVIST ETHICS:

*

DESIGN ARGUMENT:

See Design argument for God

DESIGN ARGUMENT FOR GOD:

*

DETERMINATION:

See Self-determination

DETERMINISM:

Everything that happens has a cause. For every event in the universe, there is a set of conditions such that if the conditions were repeated, the event would be repeated. All events are lawful because they are predictable. Also see Cause; Hard determinism; Soft determinism; and Historical determinism

DeVitry, Jacques:

(1180-1240) French Roman Catholic who preached in favor of the Crusades.

Dewey, John:

(1859-1952) professor at Chicago and Columbia; philosopher and educational theorist; pragmatist; designed progressive education; strong evolutionist; critical of traditional religion; humanist; emphasized science, intelligence and education. Wrote 1. A Common Faith, 2. The Quest for Certainty, 3. How We Think, 4. Reconstruction in Philosophy, 5. Human Nature and Conduct, and 6. Art as Experience. Don't confuse him with Melville Dewey who devised the Dewey Decimal system of library classification.

DeWolf, L. Harold:

(1905-1986) Methodist theologian at Boston University and Wesley theologian Seminary; advocated use of reason in religion.

d'Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, Baron:

See Holbach, Paul

DIALECTIC:

In Socrates and Plato's day it meant the art of seeking truth through conversation. For Aristotle, it meant the "process of criticism wherein lies the path to the principles of all inquiries." In Hegel, it meant the essence of the process of reality.

DIALECTICAL:

See Dialectical materialism and Dialectical method

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM:

*

DIALECTICAL METHOD:

(Socrates) *

Dibelius, Martin:

(1883-1947) German NT scholar; helped to found the form criticism school of study.

Dibelius, Otto:

(1880-1967) German Evangelical Church; against Nazi dictatorship; emphasized "a theology of the cross."

Dickinson, Jonathan:

First president of Princeton. After graduating from the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later known as Yale), Dickinson studied theology and became minister of the Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, NJ. He served this church all his life, ministering to his flock as pastor, lawyer, physician, and, in later years, instructor of young men preparing for professional careers.

Dickson, David:

(1583-1663) Scottish expositor; opposed by the established church.

Didon, Henri Gabriel:

(1840-1900) French Dominican.

Dietrich, Viet:

(1506-1549) German Lutheran secretary to Luther.

DIMENSIONAL:

See Dimensional beyondness

DIMENSIONAL BEYONDNESS:

A concept used by Kierkegaard to convey the idea of transcendence. Transcendence is thought of not as spatial distance, but as God's being in a different dimension altogether, or in a different realm of reality, from that in which we exist.

Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria:

(d 454) against Nestorianism; supported Eutyches; he was victorious at the Robber Council of Ephesus (449) but deposed at Council of Chalcedon in 451; champion of monophysites.

DIVIDED:

See Divided line

DIVIDED LINE:

(Plato) *

Dixon, Amzi Clarence:

(1854-1925) US Baptist edited The Fundamentals.

Dodd, Charles Harold:

(1884-1973) British Congregational pastor and NT professor at Oxford, Manchester and Cambridge; known for concept of realized eschatology.

Doddridge, Phillip:

(1702-1751) British Non-conformist pastor; wrote The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.

Dodds, Harold W.:

President of Princeton from 1933-57

Dominic:

(1170-1221) Founded Dominican order; used open-air preaching.

Donne, John:

(1573-1631) British preacher; dean of St. Paul's; mystic.

Dooyeweerd, Herman:

(1894-1977) Dutch Reformed philosopher; wrote New Critique of Theoretical Thought.

Dorner, Isaak August:

(1809-1884) German theologian; taught at Tübingen, Kiel, Konigsberg, Bonn, Gottingen, and Berlin; Christ's incarnation was gradual and progressive.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich:

(1821-1881) existentialist Russian; wrote 1. Brothers Karamazov, 2. Crime and Punishment, 3. House of the Dead, and 4. The Idiot.

DOUBLE-ASPECT:

See Double-aspect theory of mind

DOUBLE-ASPECT THEORY OF MIND:

The theory that both the body and the mind are manifestations of a more fundamental reality.

Doyle, James W.:

(1786-1834) Irish Roman Catholic preacher who defended Roman Catholic doctrine.

DUALISM:

All things are forms of two substances. Pythagoras said that the world arises from a limitation of the unlimited. Plato said that the world consists in Matter and the Ideas. Other forms of dualism contrasted Evil and Good as two eternal entities. See Epistemological dualism

DuBosc, Pierre:

(1623-1692) French Reformed preacher; favored by Louis XIV.

DuMoulin, Pierre:

(1568-1658) French protestant preacher.

Duns Scotus, John:

(c 1266-1308) Franciscan scholastic; taught at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne; against Thomas Aquinas; faith is primarily a matter of will, not of reason, therefore cannot be established by rational proofs. Wrote 1. Opus Oxoniense and 2. Questiones Quodlibetales. Said that the knowledge of God cannot come from reason, but must be accepted on the basis of the authority of the Church. "A thing may at the same time be true in philosophy and false in theology." Influential in creating doctrine of Immaculate Conception. Protestants later coined the word "dunce" in reference to him.

Durham, James:

(1622-1658) Scottish preacher; taught at Glasgow University

Durkheim, Emile:

(1858-1917) professor at Bordeaux and Paris; held social origins of religion; wrote Elementary Forms of the Religious Life; sociological positivist; truth and falsehood are determined by the society not by what an individual thinks; even the laws of logic are a result of sociology; primitive religion not based on animism but on totemism.

DUTY:

*

Dwight, Timothy:

(1752-1817) US Congregational pastor, theologian and educator; conservative Calvinist; influenced Second Great Awakening; converted Lyman Beecher; President of Yale; wrote Theology Explained and Defended.

Dykes, J. Oswald:

(1835-1912) Scotland Free church preacher.

DYNAMIC:

See Dynamic theory of physical reality and Emotivism

DYNAMIC ETHICS:

See Emotivism *

DYNAMIC THEORY OF PHYSICAL REALITY:

Forerunner of modern wave theories. Descartes said matter is extension and vortices. Vogt said matter is modulation or vortices of ether, or ether and the disturbances of ether; there is no empty space.

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