This list and the extensive (and I do mean extensive!) writing behind this list (Henry's magnum opus: God, Revelation and Authority) would have been such a help to me in college at Carson-Newman. Phrases such as, “Inerrancy is heresy” and “Conservatives are Bible-olaters” were fairly common in my Religion classes. But it wasn’t my professors pointing to the so-called inconsistencies in the text, or variants between manuscripts that fooled me. The trap set for me was much more unassuming and inconspicuous at the time (and infinitely more damaging!). The attack I fell prey to was waged against the very nature of Scripture.
Dr. Don Olive distinguished between two schools of thought in one of my philosophy classes: 1) The Bible as revelation and, 2) The Bible as ‘the record of revelation’. The ‘special revelation of God’, said Dr. Olive, was Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone! The Bible was merely the record of this revelation. This presentation sounded very pious to my immature Christian ears and I bought it! I even mentioned it to Christian friends who I recognized were not making this ‘helpful distinction’ (Lord have mercy on me for saying false things!!).
This argument, or an argument of the more Barthian flare (Scripture as a window into the revelation of God, but not revelation itself) is much more devastating than a simple attack on the 'discontinuity' of the order of events in the life of Christ between Mark and Luke, or something similar. The previous argument cuts to the core of what Scripture is. Dr. Henry’s theses have become such a wonderful framework for helping me along in a true and God-honoring doctrine of Scripture. Here they are.
1. Revelation is a divinely initiated activity, God’s free communication by which he alone turns his personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of his reality.
2. Divine revelation is given for human benefit, offering us privileged communion with our Creator in the kingdom of God.
3. Divine revelation does not completely erase God’s transcendent mystery, inasmuch as God the Revealer transcends his own revelation.
4. The very fact of disclosure by the one living God assures the comprehensive unity of divine revelation.
5. Not only the occurrence of divine revelation, but also its very nature, content, and variety are exclusively God’s determination.
6. God’s revelation is uniquely personal both in content and form.
7. God reveals himself not only universally in the history of the cosmos and of the nations, but also redemptively within this external history in unique saving acts.
8. The climax of God’s special revelation is Jesus of Nazareth, the personal incarnation of God in the flesh; in Jesus Christ the source and content of revelation converge and coincide.
9. The mediating agent in all divine revelation is the Eternal Logos—preexistent, incarnate, and now glorified.
10. God’s revelation is rational communication conveyed in intelligible ideas and meaningful words, that is, in conceptual-verbal form.
11. The Bible is the reservoir and conduit of divine truth.
12. The Holy Spirit superintends the communication of divine revelation, first, by inspiring the prophetic-apostolic writings, and second, by illuminating and interpreting the scripturally given Word of God.
13. As bestower of spiritual life the Holy Spirit enables individuals to appropriate god’s revelation savingly, and thereby attests the redemptive power of the revealed truth of God in the personal experience of reborn sinners.
14. The church approximates the kingdom of God in miniature; as such she is to mirror to each successive generation the power and joy of the appropriated realities of divine revelation.
15. The self-manifesting God will unveil his glory in a crowing revelation of power and judgment; in this disclosure at the consummation of the ages, God will vindicate righteousness and justice, finally subdue and subordinate evil, and bring into being a new heaven and earth.
***Notice how he has set up these theses doctrinally: Aspects connected with the Father (1-7) the Son (8,9) the Bible (10, 11), the Holy Spirit (12, 13) the church (14) the consummation (15).
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2 comments:
Scott, am I right to observe that Henry does not, in these theses, defend the evangelical view that Scripture has both a divine and human aspect?
Also, do you think that the contemporary church is getting over Barthian neo-orthodoxy? Will it die with the boomers? Or is it still a major temptation for emerging generations?
Jared,
You're right on your first point. That would be a weakness of making these theses a 'full explanation' of Scripture. But I think Henry's desire wasn't so much to give a full doctrine of Scripture as it was to tie revelation to rational ideas-words as a true correspondence. I think it would have been helpful if he had added a, "Scripture is entirely man-made and entirely God-made (in the same way that Christ was fully man and fully God". But that wasn't his purpose. It could be a weakness though--good eye!
I'm not sure if anyone will ever get over Barthian neo-orthodoxy. The fact that we can reverence the Bible and at the same time pick out what we believe God is using as revelation at that time is just too attractive. For all practical purposes, it's what most non-Christians are doing anyway, Barth and his followers just gave it theological viability.
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