Book Briefs: September 1, 1958

Creation And Evolution

Creation and Evolution, by Jan Lever, translated from the Dutch by Peter G. Berkhout, (Grand Rapids International Publications, 1958, 244 pp., $3.95) is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor of the symposium, “Contemporary Evangelical Thought.”

The professor of zoology at Free University, Amsterdam, has given us one of the best surveys in our time of the sweep of scientific opinion on issues at the heart of the Creation-Evolution controversy. In an editorial elsewhere in this issue, the reviewer commends the positive sides of Dr. Lever’s work. Professor Lever is no mere observer of this modern debate. With an eye on the controlling importance of philosophy of science, he devotes to speculation much that is relayed as scientific fact. The theistic-naturalistic antithesis that once divided Christians and evolutionists, he notes, now has driven a cleavage within the ranks of scientists.

Dr. Lever is critical of Protestant fundamentalism for its handling of the central issues. He deplores the orthodox hostility, professedly on biblical ground (“after its kind”), to the inconstancy of species as biologically defined. Lever pleads, properly enough, for an approach, in genuinely biblical terms, to nature as a created order sustained by divine providence at every point and moment.

Evangelical scholars will join his lament because debatable and fallacious positions have been espoused in the name of biblical revelation (whereas actually drawn—as the dogma of the fixity of species—from the retiring science of the age). The primary question raised by Lever’s work is the relationship he postulates between revelation and science. How far, he asks, is the Bible of importance in thinking about origins? “Does Scripture give us only some general directions for our world-view, or does it give us standards whereby we should judge theories and hypotheses; or is it even possible that the Bible gives us data to which we should adhere in our scientific work?”

Lever’s reply eliminates any possibility of conflict between the Bible and science by his location of the boundary between revelation and the investigation of nature.

He emphasizes that the Bible is no textbook of science, presenting a systematic and technical formulation about the structure and behavior of nature (“The Bible is not a magic lantern which communicates to us exact scientific data in the form of tables, graphs and concepts,” pp. 20 f.; “The method and the conceptual apparatus which the Bible uses is not scientific,” p. 22).

More significantly, he rejects the orthodox Protestant reliance on Genesis, in any respect whatever, for concrete data by which the scientist may be expected to measure his conclusions (p. 15). Not only must the biblical text not be carried into scientific territory concerning “detail-questions” but the fundamentalist method, it is said, reads Scripture wrongly and fetters science unjustly (p. 18). The truth conveyed by Scripture moves on a different level, giving data about reality (e.g., the existence of a personal Creator) which no science can discover (p. 20). But the revealed realities are “irrevocably linked with those that can be investigated through natural science” (p. 21). In summary, “Genesis deals with that reality which we can investigate scientifically and mentions data which we cannot discover scientifically … The Bible usually tells us that something has happened, but not how it happened. The how sometimes lies in the terrain of science.… We can never derive from Scripture exact physical, astronomical and biological knowledge, and thus also not exact historical knowledge …” (p. 21). No affirmation of a strictly scientific nature is therefore to be made on the basis of revelation.

In the opinion of the reviewer, this exposition understates the relevance of revelation to the investigation of nature and the answerability of the scientist to revelation. It would seem rather that science (not scriptural revelation) is precluded by its character from giving us “exact” knowledge of nature—a point conceded by the current emphasis on statistical averages; and that, in some respects at least (our Lord’s resurrection on the third day), the Scripture purposes to give us precise information of which any comprehensive exposition of physics and history must take account. To remove the content of revelation wholly from the plane of nature and history would be destructive at once of general revelation, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Ps. 1:1–2—cf. Rom. 1:20), and also destructive of historical revelation.

When Lever reduces the truths of Genesis to the fact of God’s origination of the world, the meaningfulness of the creation and its immanent purposiveness (pp. 22 f.), he surrenders Genesis as an empirico-historical account of origins. The whole question of how and when is left barren of scriptural illumination. The Christian is unobliged, on the basis of his faith, “to pay homage to a definitely sharply circumscribed concrete opinion regarding the origin of groups of organisms” (p. 95). The texts, Lever insists, are not to be taken literally and translated into scientific language (p. 95). (Even with respect to “after their kind”?, we ask.) At times Lever seems to compromise his own approach. “The texts … teach us that it was God at whose command … and according to whose will the entity of life has been created and organisms have come into existence. He determined that they should exist and how (after their kind) they should come into existence.… We are not told at all how the organisms came into concrete existence, indeed not even which way.… In short, it says nothing about what we could call scientific data” (pp. 56 f.).

This abandonment of the biblical affirmation of literal grades of being has far-reaching implications. While Lever argues that “the mutability of species should have been accepted in order to combat with all the more justice unproved assertions of the evolutionists” (p. 139), the concession would seem to argue as well for the mutability of all creaturely life, including the human.

Moving the line of revelation too far behind the spheres of nature and history (where neither scientific nor historical criticism can jeopardize the essence of revelation) is a characteristic of recent theologies that substitute personal encounter for scriptural communication. That is not Lever’s intention. But his position has the characteristics of a bridge between orthodoxy and contemporary science, and reacts to the latter in its own subtle way. Indeed, when he informs us that “Genesis concerns itself only with the divine message of creation, fall and salvation, cast in a mold which has no factually real significance” (p. 170), we wonder—carrying through this standpoint—whether the factually real significance of the Gospels may also be denied and yet the reality of redemption preserved?

CARL F. H. HENRY

Soul And Body

The Case For Spiritual Healing, by Don H. Gross (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1958, 263 pp., $3.95) is reviewed by Robert W. Young, minister of North Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh.

The recent 170th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., received a progress report from its committee on “The Relation of the Christian Faith to Health” which states, “We believe that however many the dangers in the practice of a ministry of healing, there is the greater danger of our limiting the power of God by our fear and timidity.…”

One can rejoice then in this new book by the Rev. Don Gross because it answers quite well the questions posed by Professor Wade H. Boggs, Jr., in his book “Faith Healing and the Christian Faith.”

A graduate physicist, Don Gross approaches the healing ministry from the viewpoint of science and theology, thus joining his talents in both fields. Bishop Austin Pardue of Pittsburgh, himself a leader in the field of spiritual healing, states, “Gross is aware of the dangers that accompany an overemphasis on the healing side of Christianity, but he is likewise aware of the equal dangers that have resulted from neglect of this all-important side of our ministry.” But who can imagine a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian “overemphasizing” this side of the truth we possess in Christ?

It was Luke the physician who wrote in his Gospel most fully of spiritual healing with cures of physical, mental and spiritual disease. As early as Psalm 103 we have the promise “Bless the Lord, O my soul; … who healeth all thy diseases; …” And Jesus told the 70 as he sent them forth, “… heal the sick … [in every town you enter] and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’ ” (Luke 10). After the Ascension and Pentecost the believers were empowered by the Spirit to preach, teach and heal (Acts 3, 4). We have preached and taught, but where is the healing?

So Dr. James Means as chief of staff, Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of clinical medicine at Harvard Medical School said, “I believe a patient should send for his minister when he gets sick just as he sends for his doctor.” Patients turn to the minister who in his preaching gives them hope for the whole personality which is body, mind and soul. Can we give this hope that resides in the living Christ? Dare we give less?

Don Gross says, “This book is written with a sense of the ground swell of popular interest in healing through spiritual means … Magazine articles and books are beginning to flow forth in profusion.… New advances are being made in relating the Church’s work to medical and psychological care. Our seminaries are increasingly offering clinical training and preparation for pastoral counselling.”

Dr. Percy Payne of England taught a course, “Spiritual Healing,” in the summer Institute of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. All this is an increasing challenge to the leaders of our churches. Whether we are ministers or laymen, the times demand that we come to grips with the ministry of healing.

“It is our hope that this book will help them to do so,” writes Rev. Mr. Gross. “The book is intended as more than a review of what is happening in spiritual healing. Its purpose is to put those events in a fuller theological background, so that both principles and the meaning of that healing will be more clearly seen. Its purpose is to help our churches to practice Christian healing” (p. vii).

“The way to avoid interference with medical healing is to encourage all who come for spiritual healing to continue medical care strictly in accordance with the doctor’s orders. Where possible, medical and spiritual care should be coordinated. But at the very least they should not interfere with one another. God is the God of order and harmony. His gifts always supplement one another” (p. 57).

ROBERT W. YOUNG

Same Starting Point

Four Existentialist Theologians, by Will Herberg (Doubleday & Co., 1958, 346 pp., $4.00) is reviewed by Cornelius Van Til, professor of Apologetics, Westminster Theological Seminary.

There is something very interesting about this book. Here a Roman Catholic, a Greek Orthodox, a Jewish and a Protestant theologian are brought together under one roof. And there is no argument that one can hear.

Well, you say, Will Herberg has pressed them into one cover without their knowledge. They would argue, even fight, if they were only given a chance.

I doubt it. Oh yes, they would disagree on some points. But they would all agree on the most basic point. They would agree that the orthodox Protestant idea of the Bible is quite wrong. That is, they hold it to be a capital mistake to think that man should look at all the facts of life in the light of Scripture.

But, you say, that is only negative. They might still be at odds with one another as to where to start from when they seek for the meaning of life.

No, I do not think so. For there is only one other point from which one can start. Oh, but, you say, here is Maritain. He is an essentialist. What else can he be since he is a Roman Catholic. And surely as a Roman Catholic his church must have something to say about his philosophy. And here are Buber and Tillich, both of them existentialists. Surely the Old Testament must have an influence on Buber’s philosophy and the New Testament on Tillich. And then there is Berdaev. He is also an existentialist. But surely his membership in the Greek Orthodox church must color his philosophy.

Well, I do not deny that the religious affiliations of these men have some bearing on their total point of view. But we were speaking of the question of starting point. And there is only one basic starting point as an alternative to starting with Scripture. That alternative is to start with man himself.

Now there is a sense in which everybody must start with man. We cannot jump out of our skin. But there is an all-important difference as to how we start with man. It is quite proper, and in full accord with the orthodox Protestant view of Scripture, to start with man as being from the beginning of history confronted with God. Buber is quite right in saying that all of man’s relations are in the form of a dialogue.

God spoke with man from the beginning. Man’s proper attitude was a response of love and obedience. Thus man is the proximate or immediate while God is the ultimate or basic starting point.

But this is not the kind of starting point any one of these four men want. They assume that man can start with himself as though he were not a creature made in the image of God. They start with man as ultimate, as though he has light in himself apart from God.

The religious affiliations of these men therefore are really an afterthought. Of course, it may also be said that the very religion of the churches these men represent is what it is because, in large measure, if not entirely, they have built up their theology on the false starting point of human autonomy.

How does Buber on such a basis really expect to be able to think of all of human life as having the form of a dialogue? And how do the others on this basis expect to find true essence, true being and true freedom? Once man forsakes the only one who spoke to himself first, the triune God, and then spoke man into existence, he is reduced to speaking in a monologue. If he only could be so reduced. So far as his own efforts are concerned, his voice finds no response. But man, forsaking God, cannot escape God. When he tries to, when he seeks in essentialist or in existentialist form to construct a partner-in-speech other than God, he is still speaking with God. That is, he is then speaking against God. He is suppressing the truth. His search for the true essence, the true being, true freedom and true dialogue are all means by which the truth about himself, which he does not want to see, is suppressed.

It is certainly a time for great humility when we must see brilliant representatives of four great religious bodies assuming the correctness of that starting point on the basis of which profound insights may be discovered but on which ultimately the truth is repressed. Evangelical Protestants will do well to start their thinking from the Bible alone.

CORNELIUS VAN TIL

Operational Knowledge

Preface To Pastoral Theology, by Seward Hiltner (Abingdon Press, 1958, 240 pp., $4.00) is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, medical doctor in Danville, Illinois.

Theological understanding has not kept pace with the psychological and sociological insights that recent decades have made available to the minister. Pastoral theology is an operation-centered branch, in contrast to the logic-centered branches of theology. This operational knowledge must be placed in a theological context. These premises underlie Seward Hiltner’s Preface, a product of broad experience in the field of clinical pastoral training.

Such a theology must grow out of the basic study of human experience, where not only psychological and psychiatric, but also theological questions are asked, in the approach pioneered by Anton Boisen. Such a theology, Hiltner affirms, must be “grounded … in Jesus Christ as historical event and continuing saving reality in the lives of men.”

The operations of the pastor are largely included in three categories: shepherding, which is the concern of pastoral theology; communicating and organizing, for each of which the author proposes its own individual branch of theology.

Shepherding is subdivided into healing, sustaining, and guiding. This division rejects an older function of the pastor, that of discipline, on the ground that this duty is concerned more with the preservation of the church than with the healing of the individual.

For the analysis and illustration of these pastoral functions, Hiltner turns to the published cases of a mid-nineteenth century pastor, Ichabod Spencer. This pioneer in pastoral counseling was a Brooklyn Presbyterian minister who had a sense of urgency “to get a sincere and inward verdict for Jesus Christ.” In the three chapters on healing, sustaining, and guiding, the interviews of this evangelistically-minded pastor provide extensive, rich case material. Spencer’s procedures are criticized freely in the light of present-day ideas about counseling. The author takes exception to Spencer’s emphasis upon healing of the soul to the neglect of body and culture. If one holds consistently to the concept of total personality, Hiltner reasons, there can be no categorical division between secular and religious healing. But he does recognize the danger of winding up with “a humanism that has forgotten the awe and majesty and transcendence of God and the overwhelming and ultimate significance of Jesus Christ.”

Although the soul-saving efforts of Ichabod Spencer are here subjected to analysis and criticism as early examples of clinical pastoral counseling, his records still glow with zeal, earnestness and confidence in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, elements lamentably absent in most latter-day case reports. While Hiltner elaborates a theological context for pastoral theology, Ichabod Spencer exemplifies a warm-hearted evangelistic concern that is needed no less urgently by today’s students of pastoral counseling. This book does the movement a wholesome service by combining the two.

ORVILLE S. WALTERS

Genius At Work

Albert Schweitzer, by Jacques Feschotte (Beacon Press, 130 pp., $2.50) is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, chairman of Department of Philosophy at Butler University.

This book consists of a short and intimate account of Schweitzer’s life plus two articles by Schweitzer himself; first, “Childhood Recollections,” and, second, “Ethics in the Evolution of Human Thought.”

Feschotte’s material gives a clear impression of a genius at hard work in music, theology, and medicine. Some of its pages are in the finest style of French literary portraiture. It is, however, somewhat marred by constant adulation, for Feschotte does not hesitate to identify Schweitzer as “the most famous of living men” (p. 12).

Schweitzer’s own recollections refer, among other childhood experiences, to a statue in Colmar of a Negro, which early fixed Africa in his mind. His article on ethics makes veneration of life the basic principle of conduct. Killing is the one thing most to be avoided. One wonders whether Schweitzer uses disinfectants and insect spray in his hospital, for Feschotte says that he “steers an inoffensive insect out of harm’s way” (p. 97).

While we can agree with his condemnation of bull fighting, even he realizes that some killing is unavoidable. A farmer cannot preserve all the animals in his flocks. To nurse a wounded bird back to health, one must kill insects or fish. Thus, says Schweitzer, we are forced into guilt. And if veneration of life applies to all living things, as he says it does, one would have to conclude that even a vegetarian is forced into guilt.

This absurd conclusion raises doubts as to the wisdom of Schweitzer’s ethics. Remarkable man that he is, his principles are not beyond question.

GORDON H. CLARK

Classical Homilies

Luther’s Works. Vol. 22: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 1–4, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and translated by Martin H. Bertram (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1957, xi, 558 pp.) is reviewed by Harold J. Grimm, Department of History, Ohio State University.

Volume 22 of Luther’s Works is the fourth one published in the 55-volume American edition of the writings of the Reformer. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, this edition consists of two main parts. The one, being published by the Concordia Publishing House and comprising 30 volumes, contains Luther’s exegetical writings, sermons, and lectures. The other, being published by the Muhlenberg Press and comprising 24 volumes, contains writings connected with and illustrating Luther’s career as a reformer. It is the intention of the publishers to complete this monumental task by 1970.

The volume under consideration marks the beginning of the publication of Luther’s exposition of the gospel of St. John, which he valued almost as highly as the epistles of St. Paul. He had an opportunity to preach on the gospel of St. John when, in May, 1537, his friend Johannes Bugenhagen, the parish pastor in Wittenberg, was called to Denmark to aid in organizing the Reformation in that country at the invitation of King Christian III. As was usually the case, Luther substituted as preacher during Bugenhagen’s absence from Wittenberg. Although Bugenhagen was expected back by October of the same year, he did not return until July, 1539.

Luther preached for Bugenhagen during his entire absence, despite the fact that he was almost overwhelmed with other responsibilities and was frequently very ill. In July, 1537, he began the series of sermons preached on Saturdays. He continued to preach two months after Bugenhagen’s return, probably because he wished to complete the sermons on the third chapter. In 1540 he preached four sermons on the fourth chapter. Thus the sermons on the first four chapters, contained in this volume, were delivered over a period of more than three years.

The 53 sermons here translated into English were originally transcribed by Georg Rohrer and two other friends of Luther. The Reformer’s well-known assistant, Johannes Aurifaber, later collated these three sets of notes. Although the notes on the first two chapters were published in the Eisleben edition of Luther’s works, those on chapters three and four were not published until the middle of the nineteenth century. The translation in this volume is based primarily on the text in the Weimar edition.

Luther’s sermons, or discourses, reflect his thorough acquaintance with the Bible and biblical literature and also his ability to present theological doctrines in such a simple and forthright manner that all his hearers could understand him. His greatest concern always was to make clear the Word of God and to apply it to the spiritual needs of his parishioners. For this reason he gave little attention to homiletics. Speaking from the heart, he preached the Gospel in terms of love and affection and the law with paternal firmness.

Martin H. Bertram, the translator, has succeeded in capturing the spirit as well as the thought of Luther’s sermons in a lively, idiomatic English. The volume contains useful biblical and subject indexes.

HAROLD J. GRIMM

Warm Devotion

The Lord’s Prayer, by Henry Bast (The Church Press, Grand Rapids, 1957, $1.50) is reviewed by Paul R. Pulliam, minister of First United Presbyterian Church, Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Bast is minister of Temple Time, a radio broadcast of the Reformed Church in America, and professor at Western Seminary, Holland, Michigan. This small volume of 71 pages was first prepared as a series of messages for Temple Time. This series proved to be very popular and many requested that it be published. Dr. Bast considers why we should pray, to whom we should pray, and then addresses himself to each of the six petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. Thorough, careful exposition, a simple readability of style, and warm devotion make this one of the most rewarding books I have read recently. It will be equally useful to pastor and layman.

PAUL R. PULLIAM

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