"Permeated and controlled by a certain principle": Gisle's Organicism

The title page of student notes on Gisle's Dogmatik, fittingly adorned with flowers.

A common structural devise in the nineteenth century is the concept of organicism. The word "organic" is generally used today to describe something growing, alive, and natural, as in the 'organic' sciences, i.e. the study of carbon-based compounds. Indeed, the nineteenth century theologians and philosophers often found the concept of an 'organic' relationship a helpful tool for articulated various abstract realities, a move that recedes into scholasticism.

There is some debate about the roots and connotations of scholasticism on the level of being and ontology. An article from 2023 entitled "Trinity or Organicism?" Bruce Pass considers the heavily-laden context of German idealism as the birthplace of organicit language, which tends to be pantheist in nature, i.e. conflating and mixing God and the world, a tendency taken from the famous philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. As such, Pass's take seems too eager to associate organicism solely with the thought of idealist F.W.J. Schelling, at least in the case of its influence on Herman Bavinck. In reality, the organicist concept was used impeccably broadly to describe a natural relationship between elements in a complex organism, like a tree with its roots, branches, and leaves. Hans Martensen describes it perfectly:

It is true only of lifeless, mechanical things (e.g., a ring or a chain), that the whole cannot be had without having all the parts. In living, organic objects, it is very possible to have the whole without having all the parts. But eternal life, and the things that belong to eternal life must, as all will allow, be considered as subject to the laws of life. (§23)

Importantly, Martensen was no pantheist, holding strongly to the Creator/creation distinction:

"And yet there is an infinite distinction between the eternal, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, and the finite, limited human creature who is dust and ashes,-a chasm which seems incapable of being filled. Christianity solves this problem by its gospel of the Incarnation of God in Christ." (§)

Furthermore, organicism as a structural device generally revolved around certain principles that knit the system together: a regulative principle (a heuristic or retional concept that functions as a control), a material principle (content; a posteriori), and a constitutive principle (e.g. a priori; something properly basic to a system; a priori). This is seen functioning most notably in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, but is also seen in Herman Bavinck's Trinitarianism.

Gisle Johnson, too, was an organicist in his view of the relationship of spiritual elements, describing it as a reality where "the parts appear everywhere in their essential inner connection with the whole as an organism permeated and controlled by a certain principle" (§5), which he says in the context of describing how the process of systematic theology unfolds (cf. Sw. §36.). Gisle uses the organic motif frequently, where faith is the constitutive principle, Scripture is the regulative principle (here, norma normans; not to be confused with the Reformed regulative principle), and the truth content taught by the church is the material principle (cf. also Trosliv; Kristelige Ethik, introduction & ch. 1). He also applies this to human society in God's image (§25, §36, §39); of the doctrine of justification , or "justification of faith as the organic root of the Christian concept of doctrine (the material principle)" (Sw. §3); of the connection between soul and body (§23, 93, Sw. §41); of the relationship between self-consciousness and the rest of the faculties of thought (§26); between hereditary and actual sin and its effects on human nature (§29, 32, 35, 37, Sw. §44); between creation and man (Sw. §41); the relationship between revelation, God, and verbal revelation (Sw. §101); between faith and habit (§59); faith in general (§60, 61); the new, regenerated life in the Spirit (§70, 73); the relation between the church and Christ as head (§86, 95, 105); and, interestingly, the unity between Law & Gospel.

This latter device provides a fascinating case study in Gisle's implementation of a broad category of dogmatics & philosophy to a paradigm of his confessionally-Lutheran thought. In §110 Gisle digresses into a discussion of the gospel itself, which he defines as "a good and joyful message from God about grace and salvation in Christ." For Gisle, the revelation of God's grace in the gospel is holistic & plenary, encompassing calling, regeneration, and renewal; yet, it also requires a secondary element or formal principle, "a revelation of the eternal demand of the holy will of God on mankind." This is the Law: citing Galatians 3:24, a classic prooftext, he notes that the law leads the sinner to grace; yet he also notes that its function does not cease with conversion, but encompasses regeneration and renewal as a guidelines for the Christian life, the so-called "third use of the law," citing confessional material along with the Latin phrase Tertius legis divinæ usus. The Law is thus not opposed to the gospel in itself: the Law, after all, is the manifestation of God's holy will, just as the gospel is a manifestation of His will in grace. No, the two serve different functions, but are related as an "organic unity":

A positive revelation of the law, an objective presentation of God’s holy will, which in its absolute perection, purity, and clarity are capable of both awakening and normalizing and correcting the conscience, are thus essentially equally necessary for the natural man and for the regenerate and therefore also an essential moment in the objective revelation of truth necessary for the salvation of the world. As such, this revelation is essentially the organic unity of law and gospel. (§110)

So Gisle is able to accomplish two things: 1. the adoption of the Lutheran paradigm of Law & Gospel for his soteriology, and 2. the implementation of organic langauge to help clarify an otherwise difficult relationship emerging from the Pauline epistles. Furthermore, although Bavinck will use this organicist language in his consideration of the relationship between God & the world, the human soul and the body, etc., Gisle seems to be doing something unique in relation to salvation, extending it into the realm of faith and the Christian life.