A Theological Feast

The Creative Theology of P. T. Forsyth, edited by Samuel J. Mikolaski (Eerdmans, 1969, 264 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, emeritus professor of ecclesiastical history, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

This is a selection from the writings of P. T. Forsyth, a vigorous British evangelical around the turn of the century. In an autobiographical account Forsyth tells how he turned from “a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace,” from a savant to a pastor and a preacher as he was corrected and humiliated by the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, he presents the Gospel of the Holy God in relation to sinners and God’s judgment-grace in the Cross.

The book is penetrating and stimulating in its profundity, and epigrammatic in its forceful phraseology. Occasionally, there are fine distinctions that seem to this reviewer to be dictated by the logic of the theologian more than by the language of the Word. Yet every evangelical will find the book refreshing and helpful.

In many of the issues Forsyth gets to the heart of the matter and lets peripheral concerns drop. For example he finds the evolutionary idea compatible with Christianity but only so long as it does not claim to be the supreme idea. A believer may be able to subsume evolution under Christ, but never Christ under evolution. Christ may not be relativized, nor reduced from his absolute value and final place in God’s revelation. “There is no such foe to Christianity in thought today as this idea is; and we can make no terms with it as long as it claims the throne.”

The Cross was an act of God. He came as the Son, for God does not suffer by deputy, or sacrifice by substitute. “He redeems in the Son with whom He is one.” “Atonement is substitutionary, else it is none.” “Sin is punished by suffering. And it was because of the world’s sin that Christ suffered.” “You cannot dwell too much on the blood of Christ so long as you are sure it was Christ’s blood, the Lamb of God carrying the sin of the world.” “By the atonement, therefore, is meant that action of Christ’s death which has prime regard to God’s holiness, has it for its first charge, and finds man’s reconciliation impossible except as that holiness is divinely satisfied once for all on the Cross.” “The Cross effects the reconciliation of man and God; it does not simply announce it, or simply prepare it.” “The propitiation is the redemption. The only satisfaction to a holy God is the absolute establishment of holiness, as Christ did it in all but the empirical way.” “The forgiving grace of God is the deepest, mightiest, most permanent and persistent power in the moral world.” “In the Lord’s Supper God’s forgiveness is not simply remembered by us, but offered us, carried home to us anew.” “The true supernatural forgiveness is a revolution not an evolution.” Moreover, “the great justification does not dispense with the daily forgiveness.”

Or, turning to devotions, “religion is above all things prayer.… The battle for religion is the battle for prayer.” “It is the Christ at prayer who lives in us, and we are conduits of the eternal Intercession.” If I am to choose between the Christ who bids me pray and a savant who tells me certain answers are physically or rationally impossible, I choose Christ. For while the savant knows much about nature and its action, Christ knew everything about the God of nature and his reality. Here we are to be regulated not by science but by God’s self-revelation.

By Forsyth’s pithy paragraphs the pastor’s mind will be stimulated and his worshiping people fed.

Portrait Of A Reformer

John Hus: A Biography, by Matthew Spinka (Princeton, 1968, 344 pp., $10), is reviewed by Robert T. Handy, professor of church history, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Matthew Spinka, Waldo Professor of Church History, emeritus, of the Hartford Seminary Foundation, has devoted much of his long and fruitful career in church historical scholarship to the study of John Hus (1372?–1415) and the Czech reform movement of which he was so important a part. Spinka has an enviable mastery of the primary sources and secondary authorities relating to the life and thought of the martyred reformer, many of whose ideas are today widely accepted in the Christian Churches, including the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church. Although the author of this fine biography knows his subject in exceedingly rich detail and writes a tight-knit account, he also is able to combine historical precision with dramatic power. Hence his interpretation of Hus’s life has many informative and engaging passages, climaxing in a completely absorbing account of the trial and execution.

Today the rhetoric of reform is heard everywhere; this chapter in the history of reform in the Church reveals how difficult genuine renewal is, and how misunderstood those who try to bring it can be as those who are threatened (or who think they are) respond in anger and hatred. Spinka describes briefly the broad reform movement that preceded Hus, that continued after him, and that contributed to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The details of Hus’s student life and early ministry and preaching at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague are told in a discerning way. For example, Spinka writes, “It is astonishing how aptly he cites Scriptural passages in elucidating and confirming his comments. He explains Scripture by Scripture, utilizing the whole Bible for the explication of the text he is dealing with.”

This is the story of a man’s life rather than an analysis of his thought—Spinka has previously written on John Hus’ Concept of the Church (Princeton, 1966). One chapter does deal with his principal Czech writings, and here the reader finds a good overview of Hus’s teachings.

He combats the external, mechanical piety of the time by opposing to it the piety of the heart and the spirit.… His reformatory endeavors remind one of similar attempts elsewhere to revive real piety, such as that of the Brethren of the Common Life and the regular canons of the Congregation of Windesheim in the Netherlands [p. 217].

The concluding chapters tell the story of Hus’s imprisonment, trial, and martyrdom, and something of his lasting impact on Czech history. The story of man’s search for a scapegoat has a terrible fascination about it; these arresting pages set one to thinking about other victims of man’s cruelty, before and since. This sensitive portrayal of a significant life and death provides one with the occasion to think again about the real nature of the Gospel in a time of crisis.

Everyone’S For Love

The Christian New Morality, by O. Sydney Barr (Oxford, 1969, 118 pp., $4), is reviewed by David H. Wallace, professor of biblical theology, American Baptist Seminary of the West, Covina, California.

Professor Barr’s book has two objectives, one obvious, the other tacit. First, he seeks to provide a biblical foundation for the new morality (read also “situation ethics”). Second, he endeavors to rescue this structure of morals from its more enthusiastic and glib apostles.

In five chapters Barr surveys the general New Testament support for the new morality. He readily equates love (agape) with the new morality and defines it to include its proper element of judgment and servant vocation. Its counterfeit is self-indulgence, which is contrary to the New Testament sense of agape. Jesus Christ is seen as the true author of situation ethics, for agape stands at the vital center of his words and deeds of obedience to the Father. Next, Paul is appealed to as an apostolic spokesman for the new morality, for First Corinthians 13 is his highest expression of its guiding principle. Relevant parts of the Fourth Gospel are reviewed, for here is the noblest statement in all Scripture of the character of agape. The closing chapter takes up a few typical examples of application of the love ethic to today’s problem situations.

I find much to commend in this book. But then, who wants to oppose love? I must register a few reservations just for the record. First, this chatty little tome sounds like one side of a dialogue of the deaf between the legalists and the new-morality champions. It is standard operating procedure to set up a phony example of what one contends against, and then demolish it with a few deft strokes. Among thoughtful ethical theorists today there are probably very few straight-line, flat-out “legalists.” Second, on page 19 the author falls into a hoary trap when he asks, “What would Jesus have said about this?” At the outset this asks the wrong question, if only because our space-time context is sharply different from that of Jesus. Moreover, the question sounds suspiciously loaded so that Jesus would answer in words much like those of Joseph Fletcher. The proper question, of course, is a good bit more sophisticated than this leads the casual reader to believe. Third, the book, perhaps unconsciously, appears to have staked out an exclusive claim on agape as though this idea had lain fallow for centuries waiting to be unearthed by the situationists, in whose party Jesus held a charter membership. (For example, see the italics on page 25.) Fourth, nothing is said about the presence of language in the New Testament, even on Jesus’ lips, which has the ring of rules, commands, and Haustafeln. To these words Professor Barr may have given less than adequate attention.

Although this is an easily read statement of New Testament data offered in support of the new morality, it cannot be appealed to for final settlement of the heavy, technical questions of exegesis and moral theology. A handy bibliography is appended that fairly invites the reader to further study. The list includes two volumes by Paul Ramsey.

Book Briefs

The Early Church, by Henry Chadwick (Eerdmans, 1969, 304 pp., $6.95). The U. S. edition of a volume first published in England in the “Pelican History of the Church” series.

Wanderers, Slaves and Kings, by Manford George Gutzke (Regal, 1969, 168 pp., paperback, $.95). Studies in the Old Testament from Adam to Solomon applying to modern life the practical lessons of living by faith.

Interpreting Luther’s Legacy, edited by Fred W. Meuser and Stanley Schneider (Augsburg, 1969, 189 pp., $3.50). Thirteen essays on Luther’s thought, written by faculty members of the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary.

The Promise of Kierkegaard, by Kenneth Hamilton (Lippincott, 1969, 116 pp., paperback, $1.50). This volume and The Promise of Bultmann by Norman Perrin are two recent additions to the “Promise of Theology” series, which seeks to introduce the reader to the life and work of various contemporary theologians.

Help! I’m in College!, by Roy Gesch (Concordia, 1969, 136 pp., paperback, $1.95). Thirty prayers that college students might offer in the midst of the variety of problems they face.

The Gospel According to Mark, by Richard Wolff (Tyndale, 1969, 137 pp., paperback, $1.95). Helpful popular commentary on the second Gospel.

A Scientist and His Faith, by Gordon L. Glegg (Zondervan, 1969, 59 pp., paperback, $1.50). A scientist tells why he has found no conflict between science and his Christian faith.

War and Moral Discourse, by Ralph B. Potter (John Knox, 1969, 123 pp., paperback, $2.45). Examines the problem of assessing the rightness and wrongness of war and conducting war. Discusses pacifism, the just war, and the holy crusade.

Behold He Cometh, by Herman Hoeksema (Kregel, 1969, 725 pp., $9.95). A thorough exposition of the Book of Revelation from an amillennial point of view.

Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, by William L. Lane (Eerdmans, 1969, 91 pp., paperback, $1.25). A Scripture Union Bible Study book.

The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies, by Marshall D. Johnson (Cambridge, 1969, 310 pp., $12.50). This scholarly work seeks to show that the genealogies are not merely appendices to the biblical narrative but are closely related to their context in language, structure, and theology. Sees the genealogies in the Gospels as illustrations of the conviction that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hope of Israel.

In the Bible there is a certain tension between descriptions of God. On the one hand, he is called the Holy One, the utterly mysterious Being who dwells apart from the contingencies of human existence in unapproachable light or thick clouds. The nature and purposes of this transcendent Lord of all creation, whose praises are sung in the latter half of Isaiah’s prophecies, are unaffected by the activities of men. The whole earth is under his governing power; before him “the nations are as a drop of a bucket.” But on the other hand, this same prophet describes Yahweh as a gentle shepherd who carries his lambs in his arms (40:11) or as the faithful Saviour who was “afflicted” in all the afflictions of his people (63:9). The majestic Lord of the universe calls his faithful followers “servants,” not “princes,” and puts his approval on the servant who is “smitten” as one in whose sufferings the will of this almighty Yahweh is performed. The Bible presents God as one who is “high and lifted up,” whose thoughts are not our thoughts; yet also as one who “takes pity” upon his people, whose heart is “filled with compassion,” who can be moved by the repentance of the inhabitants of Nineveh and “change his mind” about destroying them. He is one who is eternal, omnipotent, utterly blessed, at whose right hand are “joys evermore.” Yet he is said to be most truly revealed in the particular historical life of a man who suffered weakness, humiliation, and rejection—one called a “man of sorrows.” There is then in the Christian doctrine of God a certain tension between God as absolutely transcendent and God as he is seen in Jesus, or in more formal terms, between the sovereignty and the suffering of God.

In classic Christian theology, however, the tension between the divine absoluteness and the divine suffering was soon muted and the theme of divine impassibility given precedence. This development was influenced by the idea of immutability in the Platonic notion of Eternal Essences, as well as in Aristotle’s concept of the Prime Mover, and reached its fullest expression in Thomas Aquinas.

The entire cluster of attributes that Thomas ascribes to Being Itself, such as infinity, eternity, simplicity, have in common the future of exemption from modification. In fact, it is just this imperviousness to change that defines the divine perfection for Thomas: to be perfect is to lack nothing, i.e., to have no potentiality that is not actualized. Thus only a being who is Pure Act could be perfect. But what is pure actuality cannot change or move or enter into relation with any other being, for such modification would imply some potency. Consequently, if God has no potentiality, he cannot be affected by the world, nor can he respond to it. (Cf. the “Unmoved Mover” of Aristotle, which is Thomas’s model.) There is no possibility that God would modify his actions in response to his creatures. In short, the God of Thomas cannot enter into a genuine convenant relation with his people, such as the biblical faith requires.

Thus where Thomas is closest to the Greek notion of divine perfection as immutability, he is furthest from the biblical witness to God’s compassionate, thoroughly responsive love.

I

If we are to accept fully the consequences of the fact that the Omnipotent Creator was moved by love to enter our history as a man and by his death redeem our history, then we must face the question of how it is possible for the sovereign God to be afflicted with all our afflictions.

One contemporary theologian who has seriously attempted to work out the meaning of divine suffering is Nicholas Berdyaev. He is led in this direction by the conviction that only a God who suffers with man in the world is believable. A God who is truly sovereign over all things, including evil, is “incredible” in the face of the horror that evil spawns. For Berdyaev, the central theological problem is theodicy, and he is not at all impressed with the traditional descriptions of evil as man’s abuse of freedom, since freedom is traditionally traced back to God. On that view, Berdyaev argues, freedom is a “fatal gift” that leads men to perdition. To escape this conclusion, Berdyaev claims that freedom is not created by God at all but is rooted in the eternal “abyss” of non-being from which God created the world. God the Creator, therefore, cannot be held responsible for this uncreated freedom that gives rise to evil. This freedom stands over against God and engages him in unresolvable conflict. God thus shares in our tragic struggle with non-being as our “fellow-sufferer” (The Destiny of Man, Harper Torchbooks, 1960).

For Berdyaev the Cross is an expression of the greatest kind of tragedy, for it is a conflict not between good and evil but between different kinds of goods. In the relation of God’s sovereignty to his creatures, the possibility of “pure tragedy” arises inasmuch as God is torn between two values: if he is to honor human freedom he cannot compel man in a certain direction; but his love prompts him to do so for man’s own sake. Thus God is confronted with the tragic conflict between his love for man and his concern to preserve human freedom. If he is to honor the creative vocation to which he has called man, he cannot control or predetermine man’s actions. Man must be given the freedom even to curse his Maker. Consequently, God must exercise an “infinite toleration of evil.”

This account of the divine suffering strikes a responsive chord within us. We appreciate a certain “romantic” value in a doctrine of God in which he is our companion in infirmity, rather than the almighty Governor who is beyond all infirmities. But there is a basic ambiguity here that Berdyaev does not resolve. Does God suffer because he wills to honor man’s freedom and thus “endures” the evil that springs from that freedom; or does God suffer because he has no choice, because he is unable to conquer the dark side of freedom? That is, does God suffer by nature or by grace? If by nature, then God is incapable of assuring the ultimate victory of his purposes, for he would always be subject to the uncontrollable contradictions of “free” human actions. In that case he would not be genuinely “sovereign.” Nor could the sufferings of the God-man really impart any higher significance to the suffering in the world, as Berdyaev claims, for they would be of the same order as ours, that is, the inevitable defeat of the creative force at the hands of abysmal chaos.

Another alternative to the doctrine of divine impassibility is proposed by Charles Hartshorne in The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (Yale, 1948). For Hartshorne, the claim that God is able to effect change in others but is wholly unaffected by change himself is the scandal of traditional theology. A God whose goodness is bound up with his static impassivity can at best exhibit a disinterested benevolence toward his creatures; but this is far short of the responsive, participative, sympathetic love that Hartshorne feels is central to the God of religion. The possibility of genuine love in God necessitates his “sym-pathizing” with his creatures—not merely imaginatively recognizing their condition, but actually participating with them in their sufferings, taking their sorrows into his very being and allowing those sorrows to qualify and modify his being. If God is to be genuinely responsive to his creatures, his being must be open to their influence.

God “orders” the world, therefore, by taking into his own being all the currents of experience, our sorrows and joys together. The totality of experience in the world constitutes God’s concrete nature. In this role God is the supreme Patient, instead of the supreme Agent, as in traditional views of sovereignty. However, this is not another brand of pantheism, for God is also “more than” the world in his abstract (or “primordial”) nature. In this role God “sets before” the world certain ideals, such as goodness. These abstract values constitute God’s absolute perfection. The actual realization of those abstract values, however, depends entirely upon the actions of his creatures, which are usually inadequate to achieve the realization of value set before them as a possibility.

This failure on the part of the creatures to actualize a measure of possible good means that God is deprived of good. God suffers inasmuch as he is able to envision the full range of possibilities for the achievement of good and yet realizes that his creatures often fall short of attaining those possibilities. In the separation between vision and fulfillment, between the two “poles” of his being, God is divided, yearning. While appreciative of all value that is achieved, God is still painfully aware of how much more could have been achieved. God is marked by the tragedy of “unfulfilled desire” (Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism, Willett, 1941, p. 294). Thus, because God is dependent upon men for the realization of his purposes, he can never guarantee the triumph of His will.

In both these attempts to account for the divine suffering, God’s power is limited. For Berdyaev, there is a recalcitrant domain of freedom over which God has no ultimate control. For Hartshorne, God is by nature subject to the failings of his “creatures.” Is either of these accounts a true reflection of the faith of those who worship the God of the Bible? Is not a great part of our trust in God grounded in the conviction that God is Lord of our history, directing all things toward the triumphant fullfillment of his eternal purposes? But what is the basis of that hope? Where has God’s redeeming power been revealed?

II

The central claim of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that through his being lifted up on the cross he has the power to “draw” all men unto himself and into fellowship with God (John 12:32). According to the theology of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’ death was not a bitter defeat of God’s purposes. Rather, his suffering was itself a kind of triumph; his very weakness was the vehicle through which the all-conquering power of divine love was manifested. That claim raises an important question: How can Jesus’ sufferings be understood as the revelation of God’s sovereign power?

Inasmuch as the question is taken to mean, “How does the death of Jesus accomplish the will of God in the redemption of men?” the answer will involve the “objective” side of the atonement, i.e., what has been done for man in the death of Christ that makes it possible for God to deliver man from the power of sin, quite apart from man’s co-operation.

If, however, the question is taken to mean, “What kind of power does Jesus’ suffering exert upon man?,” then our attention is shifted from the problem of how it is possible for God to forgive man to what is involved in man’s receiving that forgiveness. This is the “subjective” side of the atonement, i.e., what God does in man; and it is here that I wish to focus attention. Perhaps it will help to formulate our question this way: “How does the death of Jesus affect the man who responds to the Gospel?”

At first glance, Jesus’ life does not seem very powerful; the circle of people who were affected by him seems pitifully small. “He came unto his own and his own received him not” (John 1:11). And in the hour of his rejection by men, Jesus prayed for his enemies to the God who had also, in that moment, abandoned him.

What would attract men to such a tragic figure? What power could move them to call him “Lord”? One answer is that such love and faith have a magnificent power of their own—the power to draw men into the way of perfect obedience to God in which Jesus himself walked. By contemplating the total submission of Jesus to the will of God, men are “inspired” to “imitate” him by giving themselves in obedience to the divine will and to the service of others.

But this answer is not wholly satisfactory, for the power of Jesus is not merely that of an exemplary display of what is good and right in human relations. It is not enough that God’s love for men be revealed to them in a particularly impressive way; man’s natural resistance to that love must be overcome. That is, man’s broken relationship with God must be “healed.”

The problem is that the restoration of man to spiritual “health” (“salvation”) cannot be achieved by any human action, however noble, for what is wrong with man is that his very nature is corrupted. We might put it this way. All man’s actions proceed from that matrix of values, attitudes, motives, and allegiances which we call “character” and the Bible calls “the heart.” It is here that man is afflicted with self-worship, which results in his being alienated from other men and from God. Man cannot change his character, for all his acts, words, and thoughts by which he might effect such a change have their origin in his character. What man needs then is a “radical” (i.e., at the roots) change—nothing less than a new “heart” that is placed within him by a power beyond himself.

It is just this power that is manifested in the sufferings of Christ, and man is renewed by that power when he re-enacts Christ’s sufferings in his own life. To be identified with Christ, to acknowledge him as Lord, is to be identified with his crucifixion. This means that one must die to himself in a “hard and bitter agony,” as T. S. Eliot has it in the “Journey of the Magi.” One must relinquish his own ambitions and interests so that he may be raised to a “new life,” lived in conscious obedience to the God whom Jesus called Father (cf. Rom. 6:1–11).

Such a drastic change in orientation and allegiance is beyond human possibility, but it is revealed as a divine gift through Jesus Christ. The power of restoring man’s broken relationship with God is mediated through the sufferings of Christ and displayed as the power of a new life in his resurrection. To experience this renewing power of God by having a personal share in Christ’s death (by renouncing self-interest) and in his resurrection (by receiving a life centered on the interests of divine love) is to gain insight into the relation between God’s sovereign power and his incarnate sufferings.

If it is in Christ that the ultimate purposes of the Creator God for his creation are realized, then the primary mode in which God exercises his providential power upon men is the persuasive (in contrast to coercive) call of suffering love. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). God chose to make his appeal to men through the man Christ Jesus. Consequently, he ran the risk of being rejected, even as was Jesus, and thus of suffering. God has left his call to man open to rebuff.

Although he is sovereign, God has chosen to limit his power over men so that the integrity of their freedom may be preserved. Thus he allows himself to be rejected, even as he seeks to elicit men’s trust by offering himself as their servant. In each man who rejects Jesus Christ, God’s purposes are frustrated; God suffers.

However, this gracious suffering of God does not mean that he has abdicated his transcendent sovereignty (despite some recent rumors to that effect). God works among us through the quiet persuasion of the love of Christ; but this does not mean that he is absent nor that he is stymied by the powers of evil in the world nor that he is dependent upon our achievements in order to realize his purposes. While God respects man’s freedom, he does not place it above his own honor or glory. While he seeks to win men through the persuasive power of love, he is not bound by man’s response alone. For his intention that all creation should confess Jesus Christ as Lord shall be realized, even if it must be through the power of a judgment that “suffers” no resistance. The cross speaks not only of love but also of judgment; not only of suffering endurance of evil, but also of victory over the power of evil.

The mystery of the sovereign God who suffers, yet is not defeated, can perhaps be only pictured and not explained, as in the Apocalypse (chapter 5), where a wounded Lamb sits on the throne of everlasting power and authority. The Redeemer is also the Ruler; the Suffering Servant is our Sovereign.

THREE GREY FEATHERS

Is there in silenced song

A louder, clearer song to sing?

Do three grey spinners

Weave from three grey feathers

Songs for night?

Longer lasting songs Than these

This dawn-enamoured bird

His last day sang?

RUTHE T. SPINNANGER

Assuming that ultimate truth is to be found in religion, is Christianity the one true religion? Or is it simply first among equals? In the West an affirmative answer to the second question, if the first is denied, is usually not seriously disputed. Attention is drawn to the higher culture, enlightenment on both moral and intellectual levels, extensive progress particularly in science and technology, high standards of living even for the lower classes, widespread humanitarianism, and a general superiority in many other areas, all of which would claim to be largely the fruit of the Christian religion or the concomitant of it.

The first question is both topical and crucial; yet merely to pose it so bluntly will give offense to many in the Church today.

At one time the exclusive truthfulness of Christianity was taken for granted in Europe. One of the mainsprings of the Crusades was an open acknowledgment of this, and the Roman Catholic Church still claims supremacy not only among religions in general but also in the specifically Christian, sphere. Her cry in the ecumenical movement that is now taking place is for the “separated brethren” to return to the “Mother Church,” for “only through the Catholic Church of Christ, the universal aid to salvation, can the means of salvation be reached in all their fullness” (Council Speeches of Vatican II, p. 11).

Protestants, too, as a matter of historical fact, have had no doubt about the exclusive character of their faith; and the motive behind the evangelistic drives of the last four hundred years has been to carry out the divine commission of winning souls by the proclamation of the Gospel. To be Christian was to be exclusive and intolerant on the religious level (not bigoted, but unable to accept the teachings of other faiths because of incompatibility with their own), and Protestants held as tenaciously as the Catholics to the unquestioned assumption that “outside the Church there is no salvation,” though their interpretation of it differed somewhat (Westminster Confession of Faith, XXV, 2).

But today there is a new spirit abroad. For example, the American historian H. J. Muller, in The Uses of the Past, speaking of the “religious prejudice, the exclusiveness that has distinguished Western civilization from all others except Islam,” says:

Despite the growth of tolerance most Christians still assume that theirs is the only true religion and that their Christian duty is to convert the rest of the World. The rest of the World, which happens to include the great majority of mankind, still resents this assumption; and in the light of religious history it does look like an arrogant assumption [p. 45].

A little later he says that there is “too little appreciation of the significance and the value of cultural diversity. One result is that almost all Western nations are plagued by the problem of cultural minorities, intensified by racial, religious and even linguistic prejudice.” One hardly needs a penetrating mind to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion or even to agree with it in part. Yet it begs the whole question of the truth of religion and of Christianity in particular. The fact that religion (Muller does not distinguish among the many forms) has beyond doubt exacerbated and on occasions created social crises both for good and for ill, racial tensions, and even international difficulties is no good reason why we should attempt to eviscerate our faith in the interests of a temporary peace; for peace bought at the price of truth that Christianity claims to bring could never be anything but transient. Whether we like it or not we live in a world in which truth ultimately matters, and without it we face anarchy, chaos, death, and destruction. Men like Muller, who describes himself as a liberal humanist, would do well to note the words of R. Brow:

Whatever the strongest critics of religion rightly have to say, Jesus Christ said more strongly (cf. Matt. 23). He calls man to be man, to live vigorously in the world, and all forms of science, culture, art, literature and social righteousness have flourished wherever he has been known and the Bible obeyed [Religion: Origins and Ideas, p. 122],

Yet in our conformist, tolerant, and inclusivist age, our question does not often receive a direct answer even in the Church, though it is answered by implication. The ecumenical fervor has tended to blur important doctrinal distinctions once evident in the different denominations, thus facilitating closer cooperation on the surface. It has also led to adoption of an inclusivist policy that embraces other religions, apparently on the basis of equality, as evidenced by a service that took place in Westminster Abbey some time ago. Many rejoice to see Hindu and Christian worshiping together and regard it as a sign of progress, tolerance, mutual love, and respect. Others seem to view it as an example of what has been called “the vice of insensibility” and lean toward the opinion of the Rev. Thomas Shepard of Harvard—“Tis Satan’s policy to plead for an indefinite and boundless toleration.” Those of us who claim to be biblically oriented and committed to the Gospel of love, unwilling to share these outbursts of enthusiasm for what may well turn out to be an eclectic religion, may find ourselves charged with sub-Christian conduct.

Clarifying The Issues

It is of paramount importance, then, to try to appraise the situation and to clarify issues that have become clouded in recent years. We cannot be content with hurling a text at the heads of those who feel that to fulfill its proper role Christianity must be denuded of all claims to supremacy; rather, we will attempt to understand the foundation of its unequivocal assertion.

First, the charge laid at the door of those who are called “traditionalists” or “conservatives” must be carefully examined. One point immediately presents itself. If the Christian religion is true, the accusation of intolerance and arrogance cannot be substantiated. For Christians who accept the Bible as God’s revelation, the teaching epitomized in Acts 4:12 (“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved”) is fundamental truth, and so they have no option but to proclaim it as such. In doing this they are not in the grip of bad motives such as a desire to flaunt their superiority or to demonstrate their supremacy. They feel compelled to preach this aspect of the Gospel revealed to them for two main reasons: first, because they are commanded to do so by God; and second, because they have a sincere compassion for those who they believe are lost souls in desperate need of being reconciled to God. (In other words, they simply seek to fulfill the law of God as summarized by Jesus: see Matthew 22:37–40.) From the human standpoint, the only way in which this can be achieved is by the proclamation of the word of the Cross. As James Denney once said, “If God has really done something on which the salvation of the world depends … then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies or explains it away.” The orthodox Christian then may be mistaken in his understanding of the essence of the Gospel, though it is difficult to see how; but his motives are pure and worthy of the Christ he seeks to set forth as the Saviour of all men.

Appealing To Revelation

We must now look at biblical teaching to discover the pervasive attitude toward other religions. In doing this Christians believe they are appealing to revelation, a procedure that is not to be lightly dismissed as common among devotees of various faiths. For, as Emil Brunner says:

The facts of the history of religion … show us that the common assumption that the Christian claim to revelation is opposed by a variety of similar claims of equal value is wholly untenable. The amazing thing is the exact opposite, namely that the claim of a revelation (by a Revealer) possessing universal validity in the history of religion is rare. The claim of revelation made by the Christian faith is in its radicalism as solitary as its content [Revelation and Reason, chap. 15].

The need to appeal to revelation at all must appear obvious to any who recognize that the Infinite God, if there is a God, must be beyond the reach of man (cf. Job 11:7; 23:3; 1 Cor. 2:11). If those who deny any form of natural revelation go too far, at least we can appreciate Chalmers’s point when he said, “Apart from Christ I find that I have no hold of God at all.”

The Old Testament position seems perfectly clear. There the Jews are presented as the chosen race of God, designated to be a channel of grace, truth, and light to the world. Their call and election (see Deut. 8:6 ff.; Ps. 147:19, 20) involved, as Isaiah said in speaking about the Servant of the Lord, opening “the eyes that are blind, [bringing] out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Isa. 42:7). The law was to go out from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa. 2:3). It was in Abraham that the nations were to be blessed (Gen. 12:3). In the words of John (4:22), “salvation is from the Jews” (cf. Isa. 2:3).

Because the chosen people largely failed to carry out their covenant obligations, they were severely punished. But the Bible makes it quite evident that God nonetheless achieved his purpose through the true Israel, the faithful elect remnant (cf. 1 Kings 19:18; Rom. 3:3; 9:6, 11), and of course ultimately through Christ himself, born of a Jew. The Redeemer came from Zion, as was promised (Isa. 59:20; cf. Rom. 11:26).

Old Testament Separatism

Throughout the Old Testament and especially in the Pentateuch, the Jews were taught to avoid imitating or adopting the religious customs of the heathen peoples whose lands they occupied (see, for example, Deuteronomy 6). The first commandment is absolute and final in its demands that the covenant people remain faithful to God and give allegiance to him alone. Foreign religions were anathema because of their tendency to lead the Israelites away from the one true God. The danger of religious and moral contamination was considered so great as to warrant the annihilation (cf. Joshua 10:8) of various tribes that had exceeded the bounds of wickedness. Intermarriage was forbidden, and refusal to heed warnings threatened the guilty with dire vengeance (cf. Joshua 23:11 ff.; Deut. 29:16 ff.; Ezra 9:10). Trifling with false religions involved a bend toward idolatry, which was regarded as an abomination. For basically it brought (in the words of St. Paul), for those who did not know God, bondage to beings that by nature are no gods (cf. Isa. 44). The soteriological impotence of idolatry was contrasted sharply with the affirmation that the “salvation of the righteous is from the Lord,” a recurring Old Testament refrain (cf. Ps. 37:39 and the story of Elijah in First Kings 18). The refusal of the Jews to have truck with idols in their later days is underlined by the Romans’ surprise, during their occupation of Palestine, at the absence of images, to which they themselves were so accustomed.

So much then for the Old Testament, where the position seems very clear. In principle and largely in practice, the Jews were exclusive in their religion. As J. G. Machen wrote, “The people of Israel, according to the Old Testament, was the chosen people of God; the notion of a covenant between God and His chosen people was absolutely central in all ages of the Jewish Church” (The Origin of Paul’s Religion, p. 11). To a believer, tolerance of another faith would have seemed a contradiction that necessitated rejection of his nation’s calling. He clung firmly to the belief that God would eventually vindicate his people, and despite much trial and tribulation he awaited the coming of the Deliverer, the Messiah. We know that his faith was not in vain. The truth of Israel’s religion involved the repudiation of all others (cf. Jewish persecution of Christians), for God himself, speaking through Isaiah, had said, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (45:22). (It should be noted that the attribute of jealousy that offends many superficial thinkers today serves to underline the essential monotheism of the Old Testament. The God who could not say, “I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to graven images” [Isa. 42:8], would not be worthy of the biblical revelation.)

When we turn to the New Testament we find nothing to soften the view already established. First, the claims of Christ himself provide incontrovertible evidence that our faith is unique and without rival. Jesus, on whose witness to himself God set his seal by raising him from the dead, said that he was the bread of life (John 6:35), the light of the world (8:12), the door of the sheep (10:7, 9), the good shepherd (10:11, 14), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the true vine (15:1), and the way, the truth, and the life (14:6). This language is unambiguous; yet in case there should be any doubt Jesus makes statements like the following: “All who came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:8–10).

There is little need to stress Jesus’ own view of himself and his mission further, though a great deal more evidence could be adduced. The position is clear, and all who accept Christ as Lord will not be of two minds about so-called rival religions, for they know that Christ alone, as Peter discovered long ago (see John 6:68), has the words of eternal life. The contemporaries of Jesus, whether friendly or hostile, consciously or unconsciously underlined his uniqueness.

The Apostolic Witness

As we should expect, the apostolic witness also supports all we have so far found. Paul is at pains in his epistle to the Romans to show that all men, both Jew and Gentile, with or without the law, have sinned (3:23; 11:32), so that all might find salvation through faith in Christ. God’s condemnation and utter rejection of the false religions fabricated in the perverted imaginations of sinful men is graphically portrayed in Romans 1. And even if the Gospels do intimate that those who have never heard the message of life will be beaten with few stripes, never is it suggested that their spurious worship should be tolerated, let alone considered on a par or seriously competitive with the Christian faith. Paul sounds the death knell on such ideas when he says, “So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20; cf. 2 Thess. 1:8).

The New Testament with its insistence on truth, light, understanding, and revelation simply underlines that salvation is through faith in Christ alone. “This is the work of God,” says Jesus, “that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29); and there is not an iota of evidence that such belief is optional or offers a choice. While it remains gloriously true that whoever comes to Christ will never be cast out, all men are under obligation to close with him, for “he who does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18). Jesus confirms this when he says that “no man comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). There are no alternative ways, and the idea that all religions and systems of philosophical or moral belief lead to the same thing in the end is scouted absolutely. The Christian faith demands all or nothing. One is either for God or against him (cf. Matt. 12:30).

Why The Incarnation?

Looking at the question from another point of view, it is extremely difficult to see why the incarnation of Christ ever occurred at all, if its ultimate purpose was not to effect the salvation of his people (cf. John 10:14–18). To accept the notion that the world’s religions are all more or less useful ways of achieving the same object—that is, universal salvation, or at least salvation for all religious people—is to make a mockery of the core of the New Testament message. On this hypothesis God sent Christ into the world without adequate reason. Indeed, the implication is that his death on the cross achieved nothing that would not have been achieved anyway. The New Testament doctrine of the atonement in all its aspects is superfluous, on this assumption. And why the apostles should have been so at pains to teach it is a complete mystery. In this view it would seem that the New Testament writers, instead of confining themselves to the exposition of moral precepts, have taken up undue space formulating doctrine that can have no possible relevance to anyone. A genuinely biblical understanding of the incarnation and the atonement rejects once and for all every suggestion of inclusivism. If the veracity of these central doctrines is established and accepted, then Christianity stands distinct and supreme as the only true religion.

Similar reference can be made to the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. Writes G. W. Bromiley:

The fact that Christian life begins with this sovereign act of the Spirit also has important implications: (1) It destroys comparative religion at the root. (2) It rules out the Pelagian heresy that believes that self-salvation is possible.… Only when the Christian sees that he is grounded in God’s work by Word and Spirit can he be sure that he is a Christian, that Christianity is authentic, and that it is exclusive and unique [“The Holy Spirit,” in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, August 30, 1968, p. 24 u].

If it can be shown, as surely it can, that the Holy Spirit plays a vital and indispensable role in salvation, then it is equally demonstrable that one of his primary functions is to point to Christ (cf. John 16:14). It is perhaps worth adding at this juncture that the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is confined to the Christian religion alone.

Some think the resurrection solves the whole question of “which religion?” on its own, since it virtually proves the divinity of Christ. Most Christians feel that the evidence for it is overwhelming, though few, I imagine, were brought to faith merely by satisfying themselves that this is so. In these days when even church members deny Jesus’ bodily resurrection, its value as a starting point in an apologetic against other faiths must be questioned. One of Christ’s own disciples was skeptical enough to claim he would not believe until he had put his fingers in the nailprints and thrust his hand into the wounded side of his Master. It is noteworthy, however, that when he was eventually confronted with Christ he seemed to find it unnecessary to do this, presumably because he realized that his skepticism had been unreasonable. This is also implied by Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29).

The moral of this would appear to be that if people are to be convinced by him, Jesus must be presented in all his New Testament fullness. It is when he is known as a person, and not simply as the end product of evidences, that the resurrection can be believed as the logical—in fact, inevitable—conclusion of his life. Death, we feel, could not hold him (Acts 2:24). If this is so, we can hardly escape the inference that modern deniers of the resurrection are broadcasting the poverty of their knowledge of the Christ of the New Testament rather than their inability on intellectual grounds to accept a particular doctrine.

There is one final point of deep theological significance that again sets Christianity apart from all else. If man was originally created in the image of God but through sin that image has become sadly distorted, the only way it can be restored, according to the Bible, is in Christ, who himself as the God-Man reflects the divine glory (Heb. 1:3; Phil. 1:5–11; Col. 1:15–20).

In the last analysis the whole body of New Testament theology, undergirded by the Old Testament, asserts the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the Christian religion. For Christ to be placed on a par with Confucius or Buddha the Bible must be radically metamorphosed, indeed mutilated.

Salvation Through Christ Alone

It is no part of our task to seek to gauge who or how many will eventually be saved. The Bible lays it down that all men will be judged according to their light and their works. What is stressed is that if anyone is saved, it is through Christ and him alone. When Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith,” he was in deadly earnest. And that he understood his statement to mean salvation could be gained in no other way is shown by the passion with which he pursued his missionary course, overcoming incredible obstacles and suffering untold miseries. We need to adopt the same stance today; but the spirit of unbelief is abroad, undercutting the best intentions of some and leading others into open infidelity. Despite this, we have the glorious promise that the time will come when an innumerable throng of men and women from every nation will be saved to give honor to the Lamb of God, who achieved their salvation.

In the present situation we do well to recognize that the most insidious enemy of the faith on which both we and the world depend for reconciliation with God is not so much specific religions as their prevailing spirit. There are three principal dangers of which we must be wary. First, as the inevitable juxtaposition, confrontation, and interaction of cultures and religions take place in our rapidly shrinking world, the tendency toward syncretism will increase. This is the fusion of the elements of each into a common belief. Some religions, such as Hinduism, readily assimilate and borrow from others without materially altering their basic position. This is not so with Christianity, where to add is to impregnate with cancer (cf. Mark 7) and to subtract is to dismember (cf. Unitarianism).

Eclecticism is another peril with similar effect. The eclectic thinks he can sift all systems and select any parts that please him. He fails to realize, however, that Christian doctrine is like the robe of Christ—without seam and woven from top to bottom (John 19:23). To take away a part is to emasculate the whole and render it impotent.

Third, there is universalism, which is rearing its ugly head in no uncertain manner today. It is an obvious tendency in some systems of belief. But salvation on biblical principles is essentially particularistic. If it were not so there would be little point in preaching the Gospel. Universalism cuts the nerve of evangelism. It is death masquerading in the name of love.

Only Two Religions

Behind all these tendencies and indeed all spurious versions of Christianity there is an attempt, conscious or unconscious, to minimize the grace of God. As someone has said, basically there are only two religions in the world: salvation by works and salvation by grace. Now grace is the feature of the religion of Christ that sets it apart from all religions that find their center of reference in man rather than in God. It is this characteristic that emphasizes its divine origin, qualifies it to meet the needs of men, and makes it self-authenticating. It is essential to grasp the point that Christianity does not compete with other creeds; it confronts them with truth at its most exclusive in Christ: It never attempts to prolong them nor to extend their sphere of influence. It undeniably has common elements with other beliefs, but its distinguishing features are located where it diverges from them. As Dr. Camfield wrote:

Its consciousness of a universal mission and a universal validity does not arise from a sense of mere superiority to other religions, but of a fundamental and decisive otherness in relation to them. It arises from the sense that God has come, that something final and all-decisive has happened … not on a conviction of the superiority of its thought-content to anything that can be discovered elsewhere, but purely on the nature of the divine event to which it witnesses … a great divine event which is essentially “once for all” and non-repeatable, an event on which the salvation of the world depends [quoted by H. R. Mackintosh in Types of Modern Theology, p. 197].

Or in the words of L. W. Grenstead:

Christianity holds no brief whatever for false gods. The vague modern idea, which has even infected a good deal of our missionary work, that there is much truth in all religions and that the task is to bring out and strengthen this indigenous approach to God rather than preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, is no part of the authentic Christian tradition [Psychology and God, p. 60].

History surely shows that if Christ is denied his biblical exclusiveness, worship and service of God sink into idolatry and superstition. The fact is, as R. E. Speer remarked, that “Calvary closes the issue of comparative religion.” There may be attractive aspects of the world’s religions capable of enhancing a nation’s morals and bringing a degree of psychological comfort. But Christianity and Christianity alone can save on all levels; and it is this fact that proves to all the genuinely poor in spirit that it is the one true faith that must be propagated for the well-being of men in this world and the next.

In light of this the Christian has no option but to present his faith as intolerant and exclusive in its very essence; to present it as being otherwise is the work of the devil. Christians who accept a biblical orientation, far from allowing themselves to be moved by the superficial accusations so often leveled at them, will perceive that in this matter they are dealing with life and death. By the grace of God they will choose life (cf. Deut. 30:19), for “he who has the Son has life; and he who has not the Son has not life.” The conviction of every Christian who is true to his calling is similar to that of John in the early days of the Church: “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

The achievement of maturity requires time, but time alone does not produce maturity. Occasionally maturity outruns time, which may occasion the remark, “He is exceptionally mature for his age.” Or maturity may lag behind, as when one scolds an adolescent by asking, “Why don’t you act your age?” Indeed, we may despair of maturity ever catching up with time, as when we say of an adult, “He will never grow up.” So the graph of maturity does not bear a straight-line relationship to time. The curve may rise sharp and steep in the precociously mature, or it may level off in a sustained plateau that remains far below expectation in the adult who remains immature.

“When” has two possible meanings. As an adverb, it may signify time, as in the common questions “When do we eat?” and “When can I drive the car?” As a conjunction, “when” may stand for the fulfillment of certain conditions: “You may eat when you have washed your hands,” or “You may drive when you have earned your license.”

Since time is not the most important criterion of maturity, we turn to some of the conditions that may be signified by the question “When?”

The most obvious condition of maturity is the acquiring of knowledge. There is a lot one must learn before he can be called mature. We may say in excusing the misadventures of a child, “He doesn’t know any better.” Most children learn rapidly, and we hold or should hold them responsible in proportion to their knowledge. The learning process ought to continue throughout life, so maturing should be an ongoing process. Unless one keeps on learning, the process of maturing is likely to level off. There is an essential intellectual component of maturity.

But knowledge is not enough. We can all think of persons who despite their learning do not exhibit maturity. Profound learning does not necessarily prevent a person from carrying temper tantrums into adult life from childhood. Emotional arousal may sometimes overwhelm and supersede intellectual elements in the control of behavior, leading to conduct that is more characteristic of childhood than of adult life. In the grip of fear or anger, persons may behave in ways that are later embarrassing, even though they “know better.” Bringing the unruly emotions under control is an essential part of growing up. There is thus also an emotional component of maturity.

Even when knowledge and emotional control have been mastered, maturity may still be out of sight. The egocentricity of childhood may appear in adult life in the form of self-preferment, ruthless competition, or even antisocial conduct. Psychiatry has borrowed from mythology the term narcissism to designate inordinate selfishness or self-love. Such a person may ignore or violate the rules of courtesy, fairness, and even the law of the land to favor himself or his own interests. We have all heard of the coldly calculating sociopath who is intellectually keen and emotionally controlled, but whose ethic is wholly self-centered. When an egocentric person trespasses on the rights of others, we condemn his conduct and urge that he live up to an ethic that takes equal account of his fellow men.

A person may be emotionally stable and intellectually competent, but if he violates the rules of courtesy and the rights of others, his ethical system is defective and he must be considered in some degree lacking in maturity. Hence ethical development, as well as intellectual and emotional development, is a necessary condition of maturity.

The Ethical Component

Up to this point the conditions of maturity may be called psychological, because psychology has devoted much study to learning and emotional control. However, the recognition that there is an ethical component of maturity makes it necessary for psychology, with its rigid restriction to the empirical, to acknowledge its incompetence and drop out. Since ethics always asserts that one kind of conduct is better than another, an ultimate basis for comparison is implied. Therefore, ethical choices are basically theological, since they imply loyalty to God or to some principle that stands in the place of God as an ultimate referent.

The point may be illustrated by the old story of two men concluding a business transaction. The one asks, “Shall I give you a receipt?” The other replies, “No, God is our witness.” “Do you believe in God?” asks the first man. “Yes,” answers the second, “don’t you?” “No.” “Then give me a receipt.”

The intellectual and emotional components of maturity can be developed by effort, such as self-discipline, devotion to learning, and the cultivation of habit. But theological questions demand commitment. To live is to act, and to act one must make assumptions about the origin, meaning, and end of life. Every decision has ethical implications and is therefore in some sense a theological commitment, for it expresses the judgment that one value is better than another.

Acceptance of the idea that an adequate ethic is one of the conditions of maturity necessitates a choice among competing ethical or theological systems. Freud affirmed his faith in naturalism, choosing to believe that in spite of present deficiencies, science will eventually have answers to all our questions. This view, which gained its momentum during the scientific revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has wide acceptance in our time.

Another view places man rather than nature at the center, and makes a declaration of faith in his inborn capacity for self-enhancement and actualization. Even though both naturalism and humanism deny the objective reality of God, they are theological in the sense that they establish an alternative principle in the place of God.

The Judeo-Christian faith asserts that both naturalism and humanism present truncated views of man. With Augustine, Christians declare that human personality bears a built-in capacity for apprehending the transcendent, that man is made for God and is restless until he finds rest in God. This faith is supported by a massive weight of human testimony from every century which asserts that communion with God as person may be as real as with any human being.

Psychology has long been reluctant to acknowledge any limitations in its handling of the data of human existence. When confronted by the testimony of religious experience, the psychologist must either admit his ignorance of it or deny that it is based upon objective reality. Many psychologists have chosen to deny rather than concede that religious experience is beyond the grasp of their science. Feuerbach, Freud, and many others have said flatly that religion is nothing but illusion. “Nothing but” declarations are examples of what logicians call the fallacy of reduction.

The psychologist’s denial of validity recalls the legend of the mountaineer who is said to have exclaimed on seeing a giraffe for the first time, “There ain’t no such animal!, “assuming that his own constricted experience embraced the whole of reality. Reductionism is a fallacy because one can validly deny only if he possesses total knowledge; denying the reality of the divine-human encounter is really only an argument from ignorance. The psychologist who declares the experience unreal cuts himself off from an aspect of reality that has always been open to acquaintance by personal experience.

Transcendental Reality

Man may deny his need of God and otherwise rationalize his anxiety, but he cannot escape the overwhelming evidence for transcendental reality. Our “little systems” elevating nature or man may be brave, but they are seen to be shallow and inadequately based credos when competing, as they must, with the mature Judeo-Christian doctrines of God and man.

If there is indeed a transcendental component of reality, as Christian faith and a great weight of human testimony declare, then spiritual awareness must be included in any complete portrait of maturity. Sensitivity to divine reality is something more than intellectual understanding, although the person’s knowledge of existence is enlarged by such an awareness. It is something more than emotional stimulation, for the emotions may be subordinated and brought into subjection by aligning the self with a spiritually discerned truth. It is more than ethical choice, although profound ethical consequences may follow a commitment by faith to the Lordship of Christ.

Since the reality of the divine has proved in human history to be such an important aspect of existence, the ability to perceive this reality must be included, along with intellectual, emotional, and ethical elements, in the inventory of qualities that make up maturity. The person who fails to develop a sensitivity to spiritual reality is deficient both intellectually and emotionally, since he is unable to know or to feel the reality of the divine. However well adjusted he may be to his cultural milieu he has a maturity deficit.

The Whole Person

The question, “Maturity: When?” is now partly answered. One is mature, not after a certain lapse of time, but when certain intellectual, emotional, ethical, and spiritual conditions have been met. But personality is not divisible into parts. If we speak of a person as mature or immature in this or that aspect of his personality, we employ an artificial subdivision. Even the present four-part analysis of maturity is artificial. The self functions as a whole, whether we describe its activities as intellectual, emotional, or volitional. Since maturity is a property of the whole person, deficiency in any aspect bespeaks some degree of immaturity.

It is currently fashionable to talk about maturity. The layman, as well as the psychologist, pronounces rather freely upon the maturity of his fellows. Psychology may be entitled to generalize concerning knowledge and emotional stability as conditions of maturity, but it has no credentials for offering guidance in the less tangible areas of ethics and spiritual awareness. Psychology itself is too young, has too much theory, too many competing systems, too many conflicting spokesmen, too little consensus, too restricted a perspective, to formulate alone a balanced definition of maturity. Those who have had deep spiritual perception must also be consulted.

The Apostle Paul had penetrating insight into the process of spiritual maturation. “That we may no longer be children,” he wrote, “we are to grow up in every way … to mature manhood.” Paul recognized, as we do, that maturity has many components. Various facets of personality must undergo development before one can claim to have reached maturity. Growth in knowledge is development in relation to our world. Growth in emotional control represents development in understanding and managing ourselves. Ethical growth requires development in our attitude toward other persons. Paul added to these the most important component of all, development in relationship to God, an ingredient often missing from contemporary definitions of maturity.

When Paul spoke of maturity he used the Greek word teleios, which signifies the final state in a progressive process. Teleios is sometimes translated “perfect,” as when Jesus refers to the perfection of God. “You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” can only mean being filled with the kind of love that comes from God. Paul singles out love as the most important ingredient of maturity when he writes in his Colossian letter, “Above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Thus, the teleios-maturity of Paul and the teleios-perfection of Jesus both point to the possession of agape, divine love, as the consummation of all other achievements. Agape is the “bond of perfectness,” the binder-together of both perfection and maturity.

This unifying ingredient of maturity, the capacity to bestow unearned and undeserved love upon others, finds little understanding in psychology. Freud pronounced the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself “unpsychological” and “impossible to fullfill.” He declared that nothing is so completely at variance with human nature; men are savage beasts. Freud, unacquainted with divine grace and unwilling to explore religion at first hand, generalized from his acquaintance with unregenerate man. He saw only one side.

There is a sense in which Freud’s contention is true, that loving the unlovable is unpsychological. It is both contrary to man’s natural inclination and beyond the reach of his unaided ability. But Paul knew something about man that Freud never learned—what divine love can accomplish in human personality. “You,” he wrote to the Colossians, “who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds [describing unregenerate man], he has now reconciled, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.” So does Paul describe the action of divine grace upon human nature.

Reconciliation with God introduces man to the “more excellent way” of love and sets him on the long path to true maturity. The egocentricity of natural man gives way to the agape of God, which is “poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” Without this infusion of divine grace we can muster neither the inclination nor the ability to accomplish what Freud declared impossible.

Individual Responsibility

One condition remains before we can give a full answer to the question, “when?” As a complement to divine grace, Paul’s imperatives imply that man has an important measure of responsibility for his own development. He admonishes, “Put to death … what is earthly in you … immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness.… Put them all away.… Put on … compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience.” Then comes the ultimate ingredient of maturity: “Above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

We now return to our title question: “Maturity: When?” Those conditions to be fulfilled include growth in knowledge, emotional control, ethical sensitivity, spiritual awareness, and, most important of all, the unifying constituent that binds them all together, agape, divine love.

Is maturity a real destination? How much love is required? We open ourselves to the divine agape, we add the full strength of our human effort, and still find ourselves frustrated by inadequacy and failure to achieve teleios-perfection. The more saintly the person, it seems, the more sensitive he is to his own shortcomings, and the more modest his claim to holiness. When does maturity come?

There is no terminus in this life. The reach for maturity is a dynamic process that may continue as long as we live. Teleios-perfection is always in the future, for the destination is an ultimate one. Some degree of teleios-maturity is for all of us as pilgrims in the way. We should be more mature today than we were yesterday, and we should reach higher levels tomorrow as we grow in grace. In the lofty language of Paul, “all of us, reflecting the splendor of the Lord in our unveiled faces, are being changed into likeness to Him, from one degree of splendor to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18, Goodspeed).

In 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading and the use of the Lord’s Prayer in the public schools violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. In delivering the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Clark explained that “the breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent and, in the words of Madison, ‘it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.’ ” The particular “breach of neutrality” that had alarmed the members of the court was the daily reading of ten verses from the Bible, followed by the unison recital of the Lord’s Prayer, at Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania.

On the basis of this historic decision, probably most of us concluded that the high court had permanently banned the Scriptures from the public-school classrooms. But this is not what has happened, at least not in Pennsylvania. For at present the Bible is being studied in the senior high schools in this state as part of an experimental public-school course in religious literature. The literature studied includes the Old and New Testaments, the Apocryphal writings, the Rabbinic writings, and the Koran. In the 1967–68 academic year, this elective course was tested in thirty-one high schools with 751 students participating. In 1968–69 the project was expanded to include 1,300 pupils in forty-four schools. Looking to the future, David W. Miller, an English adviser for the state’s Department of Public Instruction, reports that the literature course will be made available to public schools throughout the state of Pennsylvania when the necessary volume of teaching materials can be printed.

What does this mean? Should orthodox Christians rejoice now that the Bible is “back” in these public schools? And how is it now possible to study the Scriptures in the schools without committing a “breach of neutrality,” when earlier the Supreme Court ruled that the mere reading of ten Bible verses at the beginning of the school day transgressed the Constitution?

The law under which this course of study was prepared provides that:

Courses in the literature of the Bible and other religious writings may be introduced and studied as regular courses in the literature branch of education by all pupils in the secondary public schools. Such courses shall be elective only and not required of any student [Pennsylvania Central Assembly Act No. 442].

In explaining the course Miller says: “It’s really a discussion course, taught by English teachers and treated as a literature course, like Shakespeare. The teachers are not in a position to explain the meaning of religion, and you can’t take a course like this and impose answers. The pupils come to their own conclusions.”

In other words, the approach to the Bible in this course is assumed to be “objective” and “factual,” without any attempt by the teacher to provide authoritative answers to questions with religious import. The assumption is that teachers, using state-prepared materials, will be able to guide their students in a nonpartisan study of the Bible and other religious literature. The reasoning seems to be that the reading of the Bible at the opening of the school day infringed upon the constitutional rights of unbelievers because it involved the teaching of religion (with the Bible given an implied authority), but that this new course transgresses no one’s right because it is a study about religion (with the Bible having no authority). Mr. Justice Clark, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court in 1963, expressed the same point of view:

It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a program of secular education, may not be effected consistent with the First Amendment.

Thus, according to this point of view, the Bible with authority has no place in the schools, but the Bible minus its claims to divine authority is welcome in the classroom.

The orthodox Christian, however, questions whether it is possible for man to be objective in studying the Word of God. He believes that men have pre-theoretical commitments for and against God and his Word and that an attempt to study the Bible apart from its authoritative claims—that is, as a mere fact of literary and historical culture—involves a serious distortion of the nature of Scripture.

But is it not possible that in practice the teachers of this course and the authors of the syllabus have achieved a degree of impartiality? Regrettably, the available evidence is hardly reassuring.

The teachers were required to attend a special summer institute at the Pennsylvania State University and hear lectures by Dr. Luther H. Harshbarger, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University; Dr. Lou Silberman, professor of religious studies, Vanderbilt University; Dr. Karifried Froelich, professor of New Testament and church history, Drew University; Dr. Abdel El-Biali, assistant to the director of the Islamic Center, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Samuel Sandmel, Distinguished Services Professor of Bible and Hellenistic Literature, Hebrew Union College; Dr. Henry Sams, head of the Department of English at Pennsylvania State University; and Mr. Robert Hogan, executive secretary of the National Council of Teachers of English. What makes this list of lecturers revealing is the apparent omission from it of any major exponent of the historic Protestant view of Scripture as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the other great Protestant creeds. Thus the question arises: Did the teachers who attended the institute hear a scholarly presentation of the orthodox view of Scripture? If not, then there is good reason to conclude that their training for the project was not impartial.

More serious is the point of view expressed in the Student’s Guide to Religious Literature of the West, the syllabus for the course. Although the position taken in the student’s guide is clouded by what Reuben E. Gross, a Jewish writer, has called double-talk “redoubled into quadruple talk,” it is rather clear that the basic interpretation of the Bible is naturalistic. Gross, commenting on what seems to have been an earlier version of the syllabus, states:

Imagine my utter disappointment … when upon reading the text I found merely the old hat of Higher Criticism and an imaginative, free-lance rewriting of Jewish history. This might be pardonable if the course were candidly offered as a critical, anti-religious view of religion [The Jewish Observer, October, 1968, p. 9].

The anti-supernaturalism of the syllabus is to be seen primarily in its substantial dependence upon the documentary hypothesis of Graf-Wellhausen, both for determining the arrangement of the subject matter and for interpreting the text of the Bible. Although the authors acknowledge, upon occasion, the existence of the orthodox view of the inspiration of Scripture, they approach the text from the point of view of the higher critics. Consider, for example, their treatment of Genesis 1:1–3:24. In two comparatively short sentences they state that “some people” disagree with the documentary theory and “believe that only one account of creation is presented in Genesis.” But then three pages are devoted to the exposition of the higher-critical view of Genesis 1–3, and at least six of the nine discussion questions that follow seem to assume the truth of the Graf-Wellhausen theory.

The naturalistic bias of the writers of the syllabus is also evident in the late dating of the Old Testament books and the handling of the origins of the Bible. On the latter point, they blandly tell the student that “the literature you will be reading is an expression of the internal experience of each of these three communities (Jewish, Christian and Islamic).” In the context of this statement there is no hint that Scripture is the objective speech of God delivered by holy men who were moved by the Holy Spirit. Instead we hear only of “the communities which produced the literature”—as though the Bible were the product of human culture and the religious genius of Western man.

It is true that the writers of the student’s guide follow the biblical narrative in presenting God as entering into history and speaking directly to men. But they interpret this divine action in mythical terms. The presence of God virtually equals myth in their thought, as seen in the following quotation:

In the story of the Passover, as in the Joshua story, we become very much aware of the role of God as a central actor. Indeed, the presence of God to the experience of the other actors in the stories is a fundamental understanding in all the classical literature of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For this reason it becomes appropriate early in our reading to introduce the role which myth plays in religious thought.

And lest there still be doubt, they subsequently state that “the presence of God in the story as a dominant actor makes the account a myth.…”

Since it would not do to call the Bible a pious fraud, the authors justify their use of “myth” by explaining that they are giving the term a positive meaning and are not referring to “a story that’s not so.” But each of the four possible “positive” meanings of myth they offer is ambiguous enough to include “a story that’s not so,” with the likely result that the uninformed high-school student will conclude that the Bible is made up of half-truths.

In the last century, Archibald Alexander Hodge, the well-known Princeton Seminary theologian, warned that the neutrality of the public-school system is a dangerous myth:

The atheistic doctrine is gaining currency … that an education provided by the common government for the children of diverse religious parties should be entirely emptied of all religious character. The Protestants object to the government schools being used for the purpose of inculcating the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and Romanists object to the use of the Protestant version of the Bible and to the inculcation of the peculiar doctrines of the Protestant churches. The Jews protest against the schools being used to inculcate Christianity in any form, and the atheists protest against any teaching that implies the existence and moral government of God.… If every party in the State has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing.… [Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, p. 280].

Thus Hodge foresaw the complete secularization of the public schools and the possibility that they would become “the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of atheism the world has ever seen.” The secondary-school course now being offered in Pennsylvania as a study in the religious literature of the West is one piece of evidence that Hodge’s prophecy may be fulfilled in our time.

No one, of course, would maintain that the Student’s Guide to Religious Literature of the West is openly atheistic. Rather, it is a poorly camouflaged presentation of doctrines that are, in essence, Unitarian and modernistic—a study slanted toward anti-biblical naturalism. We can only fear for the effect of this sectarian teaching on high-school students who think they are being given an objective account of religion in the West.

Among the troublesome questions that must be faced by fair-minded persons are these:

1. Why is reading the Bible without comment at Abington High School a transgression of the First Amendment, but studying it as myth and legend a permissible activity?

2. Were the Pennsylvania legislators aware when they passed Act No. 422 that this law would be used to further sectarian religious interests?

3. Is it possible that the “breach of neutrality” of which Justice Clark warned has now come in a disguised form and threatens to “become a raging torrent”?