Preface.

shows how all abuse therein is to be avoided. This is what moved me, during the time I have taught at this university, to treat polemical theology original: polemicam; the branch of theology concerned with the defense of doctrine against external or internal opposition alongside other branches of theology and to guide my students in it. From these efforts, the present work, which now comes to the light of day, finally emerged.

To provide some account of this, one should know that polemical theology original: theologiam polemicam is usually taught at universities in several different ways. Some combine it directly with dogmatic theology original: theologia dogmatica; the systematic study of the established doctrines of the faith. This approach is not to be rejected, as the specific theses or dogmas often receive significant clarity when viewed through their opposing contrasts. However, a complete treatment of both fields in a single lecture series original: collegio would be too extensive; consequently, something would have to be neglected in one or the other, if not in both at once.

Others are accustomed not only to treat polemical theology as a separate subject, but indeed to focus entirely on controversies with specific parties—such as the Socinians a group that denied the Trinity and the deity of Christ, Arminians followers of Jacobus Arminius who held different views on predestination than strict Calvinists, Roman Catholics, the Reformed referring to the Calvinist tradition, and others. It was from this method that the famous Johann Adam Scherzer’s A prominent 17th-century Lutheran theologian at the University of Leipzig. Anti-Socinian Lectures original: collegium Anti-Socinianum and other similar writings emerged. This approach has the advantage that, in this manner, every subject can be handled all the better and more thor-