Evangelical Certainties In Our Day
The Word for This Century, edited by Merrill C. Tenney (Oxford, 1960, 184 pp., $4), is reviewed by Dr. C. Adrian Heaton, President, California Baptist Theological Seminary.
“Evangelical Certainties in an Area of Conflict” is the subtitle of this lively volume. What certainties?
First, sin is a “willful revolt against the sovereign Holy God” says Carl Henry. Darwinism had laughed at the sense of sin. Freudianism dealt with “guilt feelings” rather than “guilt.” Liberalism almost completely lost the sense of sin, but “man’s iniquity forced the reappraisal of both secular and religious optimism” (p. 10). Biblical revelation, which true evangelicals take with complete seriousness, requires a depth concept of sin as a necessary part of an adequate doctrine of redemption and incentive to evangelism.
Second, the Bible at one and the same time points to the Living Word and is the God-breathed, authoritative interpretation of Christ, says Kenneth S. Kantzer. His chapter is not a rehash of clichés about the Bible but a treatment showing insight on the contemporary debate about revelation and authority. This chapter should be read along with Bernard Ramm’s new volume The Witness of the Holy Spirit, which is a fuller treatment of the same fresh insight.
Chapters on “The Person of Christ” and “Redemption by Christ” by Stuart C. Hackett and the late T. Leonard Lewis state other universally accepted evangelical certainties. Sanctification is treated by Billy Graham under the heading of “Christ in the Believer.” The chapter is largely sermonic in four points. First, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” Second, the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new. Third, self-denial, “if any man come after me, let him deny himself” (Luke 9:23). Fourth, “and be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).
Glenn W. Barker writes of “The Church of God” as both visible and invisible, the redeemed and the redeeming community. The Church is the new Israel, but not the complete fulfillment of the promises to Israel. Also she is the Body of Christ and the Possessor of the Holy Spirit. Some important questions are raised but hardly answered. For example, what is the proper order of ministry within the Church, and how is the unity of the Church to be expressed?
V. Raymond Edman contributes a chapter on Christian Ethics. His writing is devotional in nature. Especially helpful is his section on “The ethics of the Lord Jesus.”
The final certainty is “The Hope of the World,” by John F. Walvoord. “Christian hope is simply and completely faith in Christ,” says the author (p. 157). It includes bodily resurrection, the second coming of Christ, and the new heaven and new earth. Walvoord has much to say about the millennium. He seems to force the concept of the millennium into the Old and New Testament Scriptures wherever possible. He says (p. 174) “the Scriptures present the doctrine of the millennium as major theme of revelation.” While this will be debated by many, Walvoord surely writes consistently with this view.
The book is a splendid contribution to contemporary thought. Although it has some of the marks of spottiness growing out of its multiple authorship, and is somewhat weak in social ethics and in its view of the Church, it should have a wide reading and help people to understand some of the dynamic thought now going on among the graduates and staff of Wheaton College. This anniversary volume was edited carefully by Dr. Merrill C. Tenney, Dean of the Graduate School of Wheaton College. He affirms, “God has spoken His final word to men through the historical Christ, and because Christ still lives His truth is applicable to our age” (p. xv).
Confronted with the inadequacy of the “newer views” of modern scholars it is heartening to see the certainties of the orthodox Christian faith presented with such clarity and scholarly cogency. The writers adhere to the meaning and spirit of God’s Word and speak with refreshing relevancy to the times in which we live.
C. ADRIAN HEATON
Love Silhouetted
The Four Loves, by C. S. Lewis (Harcourt, Brace, 1960, 192 pp., $3.75). Reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby.
If I confess that this book has not, for me at least, the high merits of some of Lewis’ earlier ones, I hope it will not be supposed that it is by any means a second-rate book. Lewis is most at home, and most brilliant, on controversial issues—on those topics which we suppose we have long since settled and which he, like G. K. Chesterton and a few others, is able to bring before us again silhouetted as we have never seen them before. Except for his chapter on friendship, Lewis’ main discussion at least is in the traditional vein, and the value I discover in the present book is fully as much in the incidental and illustrative remarks as in the theme itself.
For instance, we learn once again of Lewis’ deep love for good walking and good talking and his antagonism to modern education, the “adjusted” child, and the notion of “togetherness.” And again we find Lewis taking sides with youth rather than age. He says he has been far more impressed with the bad manners of parents to children than the reverse. He analyzes with great sharpness the perversions of love, yet the reader is surprised to learn that these perversions are not precisely the ones he might expect.
As with most of Lewis’ books, this one will bear several readings. It is filled with provocative ideas on each of the four types of love discussed: Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity.
CLYDE S. KILBY
Modern Presupposition
Mysticism and the Modern Mind, edited by Alfred P. Stiernotte (The Liberal Arts Press, 1959, 206 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Robert D. Knudsen, Instructor in Philosophy, Westminster Theological Seminary.
This book is a loosely organized collection of essays which seek to point out the relevance of mysticism to contemporary intellectual movements. An occasional essay shows insight and is helpful; but for the most part the writing is second-rate and uninteresting.
It might be admitted that certain contemporary movements approach what can be loosely called “mysticism.” But what this book designates as mysticism is so broad as to become almost meaningless. Even though one might agree to call certain tendencies mystical, he is left in considerable doubt as to precisely what can be gained by pointing them out.
One thing the book clearly shows, however, is how closely mysticism is wedded in the minds of the various authors with liberal religion. There is a typical mystical depreciation of the word revelation. Dogma becomes the expression of a general, ineffable religious experience. One looks in vain for the biblical view of man’s sinfulness or for the biblical message of redemption in Christ Jesus.
If one desires to read an enthusiastic attempt of some mystics to relate their mysticism to the contemporary scene, he might read this book. If he desires to read a succinct and penetrating exposition of what mysticism is, he should turn elsewhere.
ROBERT D. KNUDSON
Christian Missions
Earth’s Remotest End, by J. C. Pollock (Macmillan, 1960, 336 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Sherwood Eliot Wirt, Editor of Decision.
The former editor of The Churchman, Anglican evangelical journal, and his wife report the fascinating results of their 33,000-mile adventure to Christian mission stations from Nepal to Japan, by way of Ceylon, Indonesia, and way points.
An able journalist, Pollock succeeds in getting to the root of world evangelization in many lands, as the profile of Christian missions in transition is clearly exposed through his adroit questioning. Interviews with Nehru, U Nu, Akbar Haqq, and others make the issues clear. The foreword is by Billy Graham.
SHERWOOD ELIOT WIRT
Zen’S Voidness
The Practice of Zen, by Chang Chen-Chi (Harper, 1959, 199 pp., $4), is reviewed by Edward John Carnell, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Fuller Theological Seminary.
In commenting on this cursory but competent statement of Zen Buddhism, I am tempted to deal with its plethora of unproved assumptions about the nature of mind and ultimate reality. Instead, I shall content myself with observing that the Zen way of salvation is reserved for an intellectual aristocracy. No consolation is offered to the masses in the Orient who must labor 16 hours a day for enough to eat.
One of the signs of the Messiah in Christianity is that he would preach the Gospel to the poor. The poor have no status in a sinful society, and neither have they the leisure or the endowment necessary to accept the disciplines of Buddhism. Zen transcends the miseries of life by a contemplation of Voidness. It escapes the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, but at the same time it surrenders the hope of the Resurrection. A Christian would observe that the cure, in this case, is worse than the disease.
EDWARD JOHN CARNELL
Faith At A University
Faith and Learning, by Alexander Miller (Associated Press, 1960, 218 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Cornelius Jaarsma, Professor of Education, Calvin College.
Dr. Miller is engaged in a unique experiment as professor of religion in Special Programs in the Humanities at Stanford University, California. The experiment, now about 10 years and without much publicity, is aimed at demonstrating how the truths of the Christian faith can be integrated in the humanities program of a modern university without permitting theological doctrine to stifle free investigation in the general field of learning. Dr. Miller thinks we can work toward what he calls an integral university where the community of faith and the community of learning are in constant communication, being enlightened by one another, and without one imposing its findings on the other.
It is stimulating to hear him as he comes to grips with the modern university problem. He speaks of its growing secularism, its lack of a genuine sense of direction, and the fact that it is a victim of pressures from without. Having been liberated from theological and ecclesiastical controls, men of higher learning have sought liberal education in a curriculum without presuppositional thinking, without faith. Indoctrination of a most vicious sort has been the result.
The author holds out hope for the modern university if it will incorporate a genuine presentation and study of Christian (not merely religious) truth as an integral part of the curriculum. The presuppositions of Christian thinking must receive consideration together with other sources of study. The community of faith and the community of learning should communicate with one another in mutual appreciation. The Christian college has a contribution to make if higher learning is its great enterprise in a community of faith rather than personal piety and ecclesiastical loyalty. The latter are not to be excluded, but they are the focal point of the church in the development of the Christian faith.
In Dr. Miller’s book there is no consideration of religious education in general. He is opposed to a department of religion in a university or college. He believes God has made and is making himself known, not in “the inerrancy of any written record or of any oral word” but in “truth mediated in history and community, and appropriated in love.” Revealed truth must be communicated in the community of learning.
Alas, Dr. Miller is likewise far removed from an objective norm for truth in thinking and living. Only as the Bible has its rightful place as the light in which we see light will higher learning have chart and compass for its curriculum in bringing about fruitful communication of faith and learning. Only a Christian university can constitute a truly integral university.
CORNELIUS JAARSMA
Today’S Challenge
Toward Tomorrow by Martin H. Scharlemann (Concordia, 1960, 160 pages, $1.95), is reviewed by Faris D. Whitesell, Professor of Practical Theology, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Director of graduate studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Dr. Scharlemann presents 11 papers and essays in this book. They deal with the general subjects of welfare, human relations, theological essays, and miscellaneous.
Believing that “the full life of the Church embraces three ‘w’s’: worship, witness, and welfare” (p. 17), the author produces plenty of Scripture to prove that the Church is responsible for human welfare. He reviews the history of welfare in the Lutheran Church and concludes that “our church in its organizational structure never assumed responsibility for a welfare institution” (p. 59), but much has been done by individual pastors, congregations, and synods. He insists that the time has come “to start insisting that welfare work is a part of the total life of each congregation and that it is just as important as education and worship” (p. 63).
All of the essays conform to conservative theological thinking and are stimulating and helpful. The chapter on the biblical view of sex is well done and proves the adequacy of the Christian view. The most stimulating chapter to the reviewer was the one on creative scholarship in our profession, an essay presented to a synodical professors’ conference. He claims that creative scholarship requires freedom of expression, leisure, appreciation and encouragement, and an adequate income. The personal qualifications for such scholarship are self-discipline, sacrifice, courage, and curiosity.
FARIS D. WHITESELL
Eschatology
Jesus and the Future Life, by William Strawson (Westminster Press, 1960, 250 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Edgar W. Boss, Dean of the College of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.
This study in biblical theology combines brevity, clarity, and thoroughness with knowledge of the problems involved and the literature of the field. However, in a study designed to meet “the needs and questions of ordinary men” (preface, xi), it takes for granted considerable knowledge of present day critical studies.
So far as accepting the results of modern criticism is concerned, the author stands in a moderating position. He takes the words of Jesus seriously and feels that the Gospels reliably reflect those words. However, he is not as restrained as could be wished by those who are suspicious of the results of criticism (see pp. 64 and 152).
The author knows the problems involved in an honest attempt to understand Jesus in his first century setting and to interpret that Jesus to the twentieth century. So often, however, an author making this attempt resolves the difficulties by giving way to a mood which does not take Jesus seriously when he speaks of things otherworldly. Because of a supernaturalistic world view, Dr. Strawson takes the concept of the future life quite in stride, and finds that “raising the dead may be no more remarkable than cleansing a leper” (p. 87). Consequently he takes such a concept as “heaven” quite sincerely, although he cannot subscribe to an “outmoded view of a localized heaven” (p. 36). He grants that the reality of the future life is not susceptible to proof, but he must reckon with the fact that “Jesus believed in a future life” (p. 233) and the witness of the “living Word of God” is not for any Christian a “second-rate” ground of certainty (p. 236).
It is at the point of his conclusions concerning the destiny of the lost that the author’s statements become most controversial. He repudiates Restorationism (which is becoming increasingly more popular), but does espouse Annihilationism (see p. 155).
This is a book which belongs in any library on synoptic theology. Both the ordinary man and the scholar can profit from the study. The ordinary man will find it reverent and sensible, and the scholar will find that it deals adequately with the issues.
EDGAR W. BOSS
The Spirit In Nature
The Holy Spirit and Modern Thought, by Lindsay Dewar (Harper, 1959, 214 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Systematic Theology, California Baptist Theological Seminary.
Dewar’s basic intention is to present the reader with new ideas of the working of the Holy Spirit in the natural realm, and to work out a principle or two whereby we can differentiate the supernatural from the natural workings of the Spirit. As preliminary to developing his theses (an attempt to correlate the psychology of both Rhine and Jung with the work of the Spirit), Dewar gives us a summary of the biblical and the historical materials.
The two characteristics of this book with which I find myself in substantial agreement are: (1) the necessity of making the biblical and historical coverage before expressing one’s self; and (2) the necessity of a penetrating investigation of the so-called “natural workings” of the Holy Spirit.
This could have been a great book had the bibliographical coverage been more thorough. No reference is made in the Old Testament surveys to the Old Testament theologies of such men as Vriezen, Jacob, Knight, Köhler, or Rowley. In the historical section there is a fateful omission of Letters Concerning the Holy Spirit, by Athanasius, which represents a great turning point in the Church’s understanding of the Holy Spirit. Dewar’s treatment of Luther and Cabin is very unsympathetic. He nowhere cites Prentor’s Spiritus Creator which is devoted entirely to Luther’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Dewar simply cannot stand Calvin, and the odium theologicum mars virtually every reference to Calvin. Dewar is not aware of the meticulously written dissertation of Krusche (Das Wirken des Heiligen Geist nach Calvin) which, to my opinion, virtually contradicts every point Dewar makes against Calvin. Nor does he profit from Warfield’s brilliant essay on “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” which spells out so much of Calvin’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In Dewar’s concern for the natural operations of the Holy Spirit, he could have enriched his exposition by reading Kuyper’s great masterpiece, The Work of the Holy Spirit. There is also an extensive reformed literature on common grace which also explores the area of the natural operations of the Holy Spirit.
Some of us are not happy with the virtual canonization of the Anglican doctrine of baptismal regeneration, let alone Dewar’s odd defense of it by recourse to clinical psychology. Rhine’s psychological investigations are accepted as true even though presently they are not in good standing with most psychologists. Contrary to Dewar, there are psychologists who have made a study of Rhine and find his methodology very questionable (e. g., Rogasin).
The most suggestive and also the most controversial part of the book is Dewar’s attempt to correlate the work of the Spirit with modern psychiatry. He makes the bold claim that the work of the psychiatrist is the clearest analogy we have to the working of the Holy Spirit. I demur at two points: (1) Is this not basically a truism of long theological standing that all healing is but the beneficial working of God’s “secondary causes”? Are we really saying anything more significant when we attribute psychiatric healing to the Holy Spirit, than when we attribute the healing following a surgical operation to Him? (2) Is this the kind of correlation we should seek in our doctrine of the Holy Spirit? I would feel easier if Dewar had built a more sturdy bridge from exegetical foundations to dogmatic expositions, and then on to psychological and psychiatric interpretations.
BERNARD RAMM
Surgeon And Christian
Dr. Kelly of Hopkins, by Audrey W. Davis (Johns Hopkins Press, 1959, 242 pp., $5), is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, Psychiatrist, University of Illinois.
A celebrated painting by Sargent hanging in the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University portrays the men most responsible for the excellence and fame of its School of Medicine. “The Four Physicians” were Osler, Welch, Halsted, and Howard A. Kelly. The youngest of the group, Kelly went to Hopkins when he was 31, soon gaining a surgical reputation as “the most rapid and brilliant operator in America.” Only when he was almost 80 did he discontinue operating. When he died in 1943 at the age of 85, he was the last of the Four Physicians.
Dr. Kelly was generally known as a fundamentalist. Reared in a deeply religious home, he made an early commitment to Christ. The evening of his graduation from medical school he wrote in his diary, “I dedicate myself—my time—my capabilities—my ambition—everything to Him. Blessed Lord, sanctify me to Thy uses. Give me no worldly success which may not lead me nearer to my Saviour.” He began the day with an hour of Bible study and prayer and closed it the same way. At odd times during the day he was accustomed to read his Greek New Testament. His biographer writes of him, “… Because his heart belonged to Jesus Christ, wherever he went and in whatever he did a sweet savor of Christ abounded.”
Born into a wealthy family, Dr. Kelly was installed upon graduation in a fine office and home in Philadelphia, but he was attracted to the poor millhands of Kensington and divided his time with an office there. His interest gradually focused upon gynecological surgery, and it was in this field that he eventually became one of the most eminent authorities. In 1889, after nomination by Osler, he left Philadelphia to join the pioneer group that later brought fame to Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Throughout his 60-year career in medicine, and most of all after gaining world-wide prominence in his field, Dr. Kelly maintained a simple Christian witness. On his lapel he wore a button bearing a question mark. When asked its significance, he would reply that the emblem referred to the most important question in life, “What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He?” This was often the occasion for further conversation concerning the Christian life. On one occasion he discussed eternal life with Bernard Shaw.
Dr. Kelly’s insatiable curiosity as a naturalist made him an authority on herpetology, which was a lifelong interest. In his major field, he published nearly 600 medical articles and books. He assembled an enormous library, parts of which he eventually donated to establish notable collections elsewhere in mycology and lichenology.
Dr. Kelly’s biographer was his secretarial assistant during his last 20 years, and to her he left the diaries and notebooks which he kept throughout his life. What the biography lacks in literary luster is balanced by documentary detail.
ORVILLE S. WALTERS
