Has God Said?: Scripture, the Word of God, and the Crisis of Theological Authority: 5 (Evangelical Theological Society Monograph) - Softcover

Morrison, John Douglas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597525812 ISBN 13: 9781597525817

Publisher: Pickwick Publications, 2006

Synopsis

Has God said? Has God actually spoken, declared himself and his purposes to us? Historically the Christian faith has affirmed God's redemptive, revelatory speaking as historical, contentful, redemptive, centrally in Jesus Christ and, under Christ and by the Spirit, in the text of Holy Scripture. But in the past three centuries developments in Western culture have created a crisis in relation to historical, divine authority. The modern reintroduction of destructive dualisms, cosmological and epistemological, via Descartes, Newton, Spinoza, and Kant have injured not only the physical sciences (e.g, positivism) but Christian theology as well. The resulting "eclipse of God" has permeated Western culture. In terms of the Christian understanding of revelation, it has meant the separation of God from historical action, the rejection of God's actual self-declaration, and especially in textual form, Holy Scripture. After critical analysis of these dualistic developments, this book presents the problematic effects in both Protestant (Schleiermacher, Bultmann, Tillich) and Roman Catholic (Rahner, Dulles) theology. The thought and influence of Karl Barth on the nature of Scripture is examined and distinguished from most "Barthian approaches" The effects of dualistic "Barthian" thought on contemporary evangelical views of Scripture (Pinnock, Fackre, Bloesch) are also critically analyzed and responses made (Helm, Wolterstorff, Packer). The final chapter is a christocentric, multileveled reformulation of the classical Scripture Principle, via Einstein, Torrance, and Calvin, that reaffirms the church's historical "identity thesis" that Holy Scripture is the written Word of God, a crucial aspect of God's larger redemptive-revelatory purpose in Christ.

About this title

About the Author

John Douglas Morrison is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Liberty University and Liberty Theological Seminary. His first book, Knowledge of the Self-Revealing God in the Thought of Thomas Forsyth Torrance, has received much recognition both in Europe and North America. In addition, he has written numerous articles on the church fathers, Calvin, Kierkegaard, Barth, and various developments in Roman Catholic thought.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1597525812
• ISBN 13: 9781597525817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320