Book Briefs: June 7, 1963

Baillie Answers The Half-Men

The Sense of the Presence of God, The Gifford Lectures, 1961–62, by John Baillie (Scribner’s, 1962, 269 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Paul K. Jewett, professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Before laying down his pen for the last time, Dr. Baillie, principal emeritus of New College and dean of the Faculty of Divinity at Edinburgh University, meticulously revised the manuscript for his Gifford Lectures. Though never delivered, they have been given full status by the Gifford Committee in recognition of their intrinsic merit, and published without further editing under the title The Sense of the Presence of God. Though there is no direct evidence that Dr. Baillie wrote under a sense of impending death, his work has about it the aura which often surrounds the last words of a learned and good man.

The primary purpose of his work is to submit to a critical analysis our knowledge of God and the certainty which attaches to that knowledge. Dr. Baillie’s thesis is that we can know God only by his self-revelation, but since it is we who know him, there is always the human element to be reckoned with in any judgment about what God has revealed. This diffraction of revealed truth by human thought, this finite reflection on the infinite, means there will always be antinomies in our theological statements which complement one another. (The author cites his brother Donald’s illustration of the two types of maps in an atlas, Circular and Mercator’s projection, on page 11.) Dr. Baillie does not seek, therefore, to ground the Christian view of God and the world on any arguments that would compel the theoretical reason to assent. The certainty which “pulsates through all our thinking” (Tillich) about God is of another order.

In elaborating and defending this position, Dr. Baillie is at considerable pains to answer the Analysists and Positivists who say that no one “has a right to any conviction unless he is able to define some possible evidence which, if it should emerge, he would accept in disproof of it, so obliging him to surrender it” (p. 25). Dr. Baillie does not refuse this challenge, but argues that the evidence on which the Christian relies and the failure of which would indeed compel the Christian to surrender his belief, is of a different order than that furnished by the senses. Since our bodily senses clearly do not inform us that there is no other kind of evidence than this, the reductive empiricist cannot affirm this negative proposition without denying his own premises.

The author proceeds to show what difficulty a thorough empiricist has in the realms of aesthetics and especially ethics. He quotes Lord Russell: “I for one find it intolerable to suppose that when I say ‘Cruelty is bad,’ I am merely saying, ‘I dislike cruelty,’ or something equally subjective” (p. 79). In the final chapter, entitled “Retrospect,” Dr. Baillie puts aside some of his dignified reserve and confesses to some righteous indignation: “… it is with the half-men who know nothing but the reductive naturalism in which it issues, that my present argument has been concerned; and I confess that in my heart of hearts my impatience with them knows no bounds” (p. 254).

In contrast to the Analysists, Dr. Baillie contends that the human spirit possesses sensitivities which go beyond the bodily senses. There is a sense of duty, of the holy, of the presence of God. While mediated to us through experience gained by bodily senses, these higher sensitivities open to us aspects of reality which cannot be perceived by the bodily senses (pp. 52, 53). Faith is born in us “through our deriving a profounder meaning in certain encountered events than is evident to our ordinary senses. Through the impact of these events, we find ourselves apprehending a reality which evidences itself as such by setting a restraining limit to the free expansion of our own desires, constraining us to a recognition of its sovereign claim.… That distinguished sociologist, the late Karl Mannheim, has taught us to speak of such highly significant encounters as ‘paradigmatic experiences’.… The faith of Israel in the prophetic period had its focus in the paradigmatic events of the Exodus or the paradigmatic constellation of events represented by the Exodus, the journey through the wilderness and the entry into the Promised Land. Christian faith finds its focus in the paradigmatic event of Christ’s Advent or in the paradigmatic constellation of His Advent, Passion, Cross, Resurrection and Exaltation, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost” (pp. 73, 75).

To follow the elaboration of this central argument through an analysis of Kant and the liberals would carry us beyond the scope of this review. The Bible, of course, plays a unique role in mediating this paradigmatic Christ event to us. Dr. Baillie frankly admits that theology has the task of discriminating between that aspect of biblical content which can be tested and sometimes refuted by the use of the scientific method, and the authentic message of revelation intertwined therewith (pp. 78, 79). His own use of the Scriptures reflects a conservative appropriation of higher critical results. John 17 contains “Christ’s own word” (p. 208), and the Matthean account of the Magi is sober history (p. 210).

Even those who have no Scripture, according to Dr. Baillie, have some knowledge of God. While acknowledging a great debt to Karl Barth, Dr. Baillie disagrees emphatically with his thesis that there is no knowledge of God save in Jesus Christ. There is, indeed, no salvation save in Christ, but Barth’s doctrine goes against the whole Bible (cf. pp. 177–200; 254–56). There is a natural theology; all men have some sense of the presence of God by his creation and providence. It is only by grace, however, which overcomes our sinful rebellion against divine revelation, that man can achieve that gratitude which is the dominant note of all Christian worship and the mainspring of Christian service.

The book ends with a beautiful prayer of Henry Vaughan for the abiding presence of our most blessed and merciful Saviour.

PAUL K. JEWETT

For Better Pulpit

Expository Preaching Without Notes, by Charles W. Koller (Baker, 1962, 132 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Clarence S. Roddy, professor of homiletics, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Another book on preaching! Yes, another—and one worth reading, or rather bringing to the aid of your pulpit ministry. Dr. Koller, president emeritus of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary at Chicago, has given us a rather small book which is really “large.” The title of the book is a bit misleading, for the thrust of the book seems to be: adequate preparation for any type of sermon, of which the expository is the ideal. It is in fact a very concise, yet comprehensive course in homiletics.

Its contents range from “The Scriptural Conception of Preaching,” through methods of gathering material, through the important matter of structure and delivery (free from notes), to a filing system. Dr. Koller writes with clarity, brevity, and force. A goodly number of charts and examples enhance the effectiveness of the book. The chapters on “The Advantages of Preaching without Notes,” “The Analysis of the Scripture Passage,” and “The Structural Components of the Sermon” are strikingly helpful. The first chapter mentioned above I would state to be as fine a discussion of the subject as I have read in recent years.

Here is a refresher course in homiletics for the busy pastor and a good stimulus for the student—all in all a book that should make for better preaching!

CLARENCE S. RODDY

St. Paul’S Donne

John Donne: Preacher, by William R. Mueller (Princeton, 1962, 257 pp., $6), is reviewed by G. Hall Todd, pastor, Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The roster of deans of St. Paul’s, London, contains some of the mightiest names in the history of the English-speaking pulpit. One recalls some: the polished Puritan preacher John Tillotson, celebrated by a contemporary as the best preacher of his age, one who seemed to have brought preaching to perfection; Joseph Butler, author of the celebrated Analogy; Henry Longueville Mansel, “the keenest metaphysician of his time,” as William M. Sinclair pronounces him in his Memorials of St. Paul’s Cathedral (1909); Richard W. Church, whose sermons and essays gave him a high position in nineteenth-century literature; Henry Hart Milman, editor of an edition of Gibbon’s History and remembered every Palm Sunday by his hymn, “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty”; William Ralph Inge, described in the recent A History of St. Paul’s Cathedral by Mathews and Atkins as “a great scholar, a profound philosopher, and a figure of national and international fame”; and Walter R. Mathews, the venerable and erudite incumbent, indubitably one of the greatest, most intellectually keen and thoughtful preachers in the contemporary pulpit.

Modern literature is indebted to an earlier dean of St. Paul’s. Ernest Hemingway turned to a sermon by him for the title of perhaps his most famous novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. John Gunther, writing a panegyric for a son taken in youth by cancer, turned to the same preacher for “Death Be Not Proud.” That poetic homiletic source is John Donne, appointed dean of St. Paul’s in 1622.

Professor William R. Mueller of Goucher College has afforded us an able and careful analysis of Donne’s genius as a preacher. Canon Carpenter of Westminster Abbey, writing in the most recent history of St. Paul’s, declares that the life of Donne belongs more properly to the history of English literature than to the chronicles of St. Paul’s. He speaks of him as one who felt acutely the burden of his own finite existence, the anguish of doubt, yet the craving to live life fully and freely, and who gave voice to these intense inner feelings in his tempestuous poetry.

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

★ Luther’s Works, Volume 26: Lectures on Galatians, Chapters 1–4, tr. by J. Pelikan (Concordia, $6). Lectures often hailed as Luther’s Magna Charta of Christian liberty, on the epistle he lovingly called “my Katie von Bora.”

★ A Man Spoke, A World Listened, by Paul L. Maier (McGraw-Hill, $4.95). A son tells the life story of the late Walter A. Maier, whose voice on the Lutheran Hour for many years sent the Gospel around the world.

★ Christ and History, by George A. Buttrick (Abingdon, $3). A quite popular, provocative, somewhat existential and nwthical view of history, which the author “had to write” to counter current non-Christian views.

Mueller gives us a sketch of this dramatic figure, who like an Old Testament prophet histrionically arrayed himself in a shroud as he stood in his cathedral pulpit, and whose singular merit was detected by that theological dilettante whose contributions to our religion and culture far surpassed the quality of his life, King James I.

Professor Gilbert Highet of Columbia in his The Powers of Poetry (p. 141) holds that Donne’s poems are best understood as the prelude to the wisdom of his meditations and sermons. His sermons in themselves are rich in the poetry of their phrasing. It is somewhat difficult to dissociate the poet from the preacher in Donne.

Mueller recounts some of the details of Donne’s biography. Wealth and culture were in his background. He was a recent though ardent Protestant, his family connections having been staunchly Roman Catholic and his granduncle none other than Sir Thomas More. As was true of America’s Albert Barnes and many another illustrious pulpit figure, his early associations were in law. Donne’s call to the Gospel remains a matter of controversy. Izaak Walton, his earliest biographer, is careful to relate that his voracious reading of religious literature had begun in his nineteenth year. Mueller affirms that Donne’s was an honest response to his call, adding that few other clergymen have been so aware of the precise nature of their vocation. There is an anticipation of Bushnell in Donne’s accent on the fact that it is God’s will that every man should embrace his calling and walk therein. By the same token he argues that the man who chooses to do nothing in this world will do nothing in the next—adding that he who withdraws from his calling commits spiritual suicide.

Mueller gives an able and meticulous study of Donne’s abilities and charms in the pulpit. Richard Busby, among others, pronounced him a second Chrysostom; yet it must always be remembered that there are no “seconds,” no replicas in human personality. There are resemblances, but no exact reproductions. God breaks the mold once he has produced an individual.

Mueller finds the secret of Donne’s power in his “astounding control of language, his mastery of rhythm and change of pace, of tone, and of the concrete drawing of a scene,” the aptness of his analogies, the richness of his imagery. “Donne,” affirms the author, “is always an exciting writer.” There was his skill in analyzing sin, and there was the impressiveness of his delivery, which prompted a contemporary man of letters to exclaim that he preached like an angel from a cloud and carried his auditors to heaven in holy rapture. There was “his profound understanding of the working of man’s mind and heart”: “In all the whole history of preaching few men have known so much about the ways of mankind as Donne.” Above all there were his keen, perceptive interpretations of Scripture texts and his singular capacity to relate the great and deep themes of Christian faith to the daily lives of the congregation, causing hearers to feel involved with the issues discussed.

All his sermons are marked by careful, scholarly preparation. Despite conspicuous gifts and seldom equaled powers, Donne was not exempt from criticism. Sidney Dark in his Five Deans is probably not amiss in saying that Donne is not one of the saints. One of his most extravagant eulogists told how his critics “hummed against him with face most sour.” He was the target for the threadbare, banal accusation that much of his preaching was a bit too intellectual to reach the heart of the common man.

Opinions have long varied about Donne as a preacher. T. S. Eliot asseverates that the sermons, which have undergone an unexpected recrudescence in our time, will disappear as suddenly as they have appeared. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, prone to disparage Donne’s poetry, gives his unqualified endorsement to the sermons.

More of us will concur with Mueller that Donne’s eloquence in his preaching is for all time. What Andrew Lang remarked of Donne as a poet could be spoken with equal significance of him as a preacher: “He is a poet by flashes which are very brilliant with strange coloured fires.”

This book will be a very valuable guide to the study of Donne, from the standpoint of both homiletics and English literature.

G. HALL TODD

Good At The Last

The Sermon on the Mount, by James Wood (Geoffrey Bles, Ltd., 1963, 128 pp., 10s. 6d.), is reviewed by P. W. Petty, deputy warden, St. Ninian’s Training Centre, Crieff, Scotland.

Non-kinking electric flex is a great blessing; you can get the power where you want it without having to disentangle anything. There is power in the closing chapters of this book, but there are various kinks along the way. This is a pity because there is so much information and sound discussion all through it.

The different ways in which the Sermon has been understood are listed, perhaps too meticulously; the traditions behind it are discussed; the possible influence of the Qumran community is considered and dismissed as insignificant. Then comes a treatment of what the Sermon is about, and it is here that the thread of the discourse gets kinked. Everything is discussed and usually thoroughly—somewhere. The difficulty is to see just where we are going and where we have got. Maybe if the chapter on the Kingdom and eschatology had been brought forward, it could have provided a clue—for the writer sees in the ethics of the Sermon a present challenge of the Kingdom as present, and he sees that challenge as obedience to Christ, to the Christ with whom the Kingdom came in a new way.

The latter chapters on the practical application of the Sermon are lucid, helpful, and persuasive, and include some realistic suggestions on the nuclear threat which are a gratifying change from the usual passionate denunciation or despairing acceptance.

P. W. PETTY

Wide On The Range

Dictionary of the Bible (James Hastings, ed.), revised edition by Frederick C. Grant and H. H. Rowley (Scribner’s, 1963, 1059 pp., $15), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

In much the same length as the original, the revised edition of this famous one-volume work updates the essays by the labor of some 150 scholars directed by Frederick C. Grant, formerly professor of biblical theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York City, and H. H. Rowley, emeritus professor of Hebrew, University of Manchester, England. The result is a useful reference tool, albeit of considerable theological diversity in view of the wide range of conviction represented by the participants. Some influential scholars (W. F. Albright, for example) are missing among the contributors, and participating evangelical scholars are greatly outnumbered. But the panorama of modern scholarship supplies a wealth of information about contemporary theological and biblical perspectives.

There are rewarding essays, such as Floyd V. Filson’s “Resurrection.” James Barr’s article on “Atonement” approves sacrificial expiation but balks at propitiation. The article on the “Anger of God” is carried over from the first edition; while it avoids dissolving divine wrath in grace, it asserts that God’s wrath is “a real Divine attribute, complementary, not antithetic to the Divine mercy.” W. Förster supports the genuineness of First Peter but rejects that of Second Peter; the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel is left in doubt and the authorship of the Revelation unsure.

Dr. Grant’s article on “Scripture” is less than adequate. H. F. D. Sparks’s essay on the Old Testament canon favors a late date and questions the historical reliability of the Pentateuch. Bruce M. Metzger’s essay on the canon of the New Testament holds that the New Testament books were distinguished by inherent merit and gradually acquired their authoritative significance. Dr. Metzger’s article on inspiration, while deviating in some respects from B. B. Warfield’s position, is nonetheless refreshingly higher than those of many other contributors.

Many articles are still predicated on the archaic J-E-P-D premise of Wellhausen (so John Bright, “Abraham”). S. H. Hooke’s revision of Genesis reflects the Scandinavian revolt against the documentary hypothesis, but allows the influence of Babylonian mythology to dominate Genesis 1–11. “The inspiration of the biblical narrators is seen in the fashioning of the floating mass of legend and folklore and historical reminiscences into an expression of their Divinely given apprehension of religious truth.…”

CARL F. H. HENRY

Sermonic

Triumphant in Trouble, by Paul S. Rees (Revell, 1962, 144 pp., $3), is reviewed by Ray Summers, professor of New Testament, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

The subtitle of this book is definitive: Studies in First Peter. The total work can best be described as a “devotional commentary” on First Peter. It is divided into five chapters: (1) An Epistle Under the Microscope (a most inappropriate title), (2) The Obligations of Privilege (a so-called “over-view” sketching the content of the epistle), (3) Behavior That Wins Through, Part I, (4) Behavior That Wins Through, Part II, (5) Alerted Against Danger.

The work is clearly the outgrowth of an extensive preaching and lecturing ministry. The thesis is that First Peter furnishes the Christian with positive arms for meeting every trial of life and every test of faith. The approach is more “sermonic” than expository. From the viewpoint of exegesis and exposition the volume adds nothing to the field ably represented by Cross, Cranfield, Barclay, Beare, and the exhaustive commentary by Selwyn. The author is acquainted with these works but makes little use of them.

The great value of the book is to be found in the sermons and/or lectures in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Here Christian behavior as the only way of life is set out for believers as “Pilgrims,” “Citizens,” “Servants,” “Married Partners,” and “Sufferers.” Strong warnings are voiced in the last chapter against the perils of complacency, consternation, covetousness, conceit, and compromise. Illustrations from literature, life, hymns, and so on add to the effectiveness of the treatment.

RAY SUMMERS

Correction Precluded

The Spirit of Holiness, by Everett Lewis Cattell (Eerdmans, 1963, 103 pp., $3), is reviewed by Peter Van Tuinen, minister, Trinity Christian Reformed Church, Artesia, California.

The author of this practical treatise on the “surrendered” life undertakes the worthy task of correcting some of the excesses he has observed in the Holiness movement as he “tried to live the sanctified life.” His greatest contribution is to point out and illustrate the need of self-discipline in the Christian life.

The book reflects the inner contradictions found in much “Holiness” literature. We receive cleansing and purity of heart when we surrender our wills to God (p. 13), yet it is “jealousy, bitterness … and the like” which stand in the way of such surrender (p. 22). In other words, we can have the cleansing of the Spirit as soon as we present to the Spirit a cleansed life for him to occupy. The Spirit controls the sanctified life (p. 51)—so completely, in fact, that “He becomes our intelligence, our heart, our will, our very life” (p. 59)—yet in that life feelings arise which “must be subjected to rigid discipline” (p. 45), and we are in constant danger of “crossing the line” back into the carnal life (pp. 39 ff.).

These and other inconsistencies are bound up with Cattell’s use of Scripture. The fact and significance of regeneration is ignored to the point of denial (p. 24). Romans 5:5, in the passage in which Paul insists on the inseparability of justification and sanctification, is cited as showing the need of a second crisis (p. 21). Similar misconstruction is built on Colossians 3:3 (pp. 26 ff.). These two texts and their misconstruction are basic to his main argument.

The author, who is president of Malone College (Society of Friends) in Canton, Ohio, set out to correct the weaknesses in the Holiness movement. What he has achieved is to demonstrate that these weaknesses do not yield to correction within the context of Holiness doctrine.

PETER VAN TUINEN

Lost And Found

The Historical Jesus, by Heinz Zahrnt (Harper & Row, 1963, 159 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James Daane, editorial associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Heinz Zahrnt is the theological editor of Sonntagsblatt, Germany’s leading Protestant newspaper. With deft and decisive strokes he sketches what happened to the “historical Jesus” at the hands of the historical critical method. The panorama moves from the picture of Jesus as ethical teacher and example, to Schweitzer’s eschatological Jesus, to the Jesus who is the highest achievement in the history of religions, to the portrait of Jesus drawn by the school of “form criticism,” and lastly to the Jesus of the kerygma theology. In the latter nothing remains of the Jesus of history, and we are left with nought but Jesus as portrayed by the faith of the original believing community. This for Zahrnt is too much—or rather, too little. He insists that Christianity is a historical religion, or it is nothing—at least nothing distinctive or unique. He also insists that as a historical religion it is not exempt from investigation by the historical critical method. Insisting that a mere Easter-Christ is not enough, he sets about to rediscover the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Faith in Jesus as the Christ must rest finally, says Zahrnt, in the real Jesus of Nazareth. It is not the authority of Jesus which is the ground of faith. “No one still thinks of starting with the affirmation that Jesus was the ‘Messiah’ or the ‘Son of God’ and of using it as a framework for thought and belief in setting out the mission and message of Jesus.”

Nor can faith rest on the Gospel’s assertion of his authority; this is itself a christological interpretation, says Zahrnt. The historical reality behind such interpretations is the “directness” of the sovereign presence of Jesus and of his works and words. He quotes Günther Bornkamm with approval: “This directness, if anything, is part of the picture of the historical Jesus.” The messianic truth about Jesus does not lie in his messianic claims or consciousness, but “in his words and deeds and in the un-mediatedness of his historic appearance.” Thus while Jesus made no messianic claims for himself, we do have a “Christology in the making.”

Did the death of Jesus mean the end of the truth that the kingdom of God is near? Easter is said to be the answer. Although the Easter Event is not accessible to historical investigation, such investigation can show the limits in which faith must make its decision. In spite of contradictions the witness of an actual resurrection rings through the New Testament stories. To faith, Easter reveals what Jesus also was—the Christ, the reality of God in our world. “With Easter, Jesus enters the proclamation of the community and himself becomes its content.” Thus there is kerygma in the history, and history in the kerygma.

Does this rediscover the historical Jesus? Zahrnt asserts that neither the “virgin birth” nor the term “Son of God,” describes Jesus; on the contrary the latter term must be so understood that it in no way affects the wholly historical character of Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God “through his special attitude within history”; “he alone allows God really to be his Father.” Again, “Jesus is the believer.”

From this it is clear that the cost of finding the “historical Jesus” by means of the historical critical method is the loss of Jesus as “God of very God.”

There would seem to be something wrong with this historical critical method: first it reduces Jesus to a man, then it loses him altogether (Schweitzer’s “one unknown”), and then when rediscovered, he is only a unique man. But if so—if the reality of Jesus “involves nothing ‘suprahistorical,’ ‘supranatural,’ or even unnatural”—what is all the “historical-critical” fuss about? I for one refuse to worship a mere man who acts and talks as though he were God. Of such I have seen too many. And I thought Germany had, too.

JAMES DAANE

Book Briefs

The Miracle of Dialogue, by Reuel L. Howe (Seabury, 1963, 154 pp., $3.50). Although one can honestly take issue with some of the theology that on occasion breaks through, the book is a highly provocative analysis of the role of dialogue in interpersonal relationships.

The Harvest of Medieval Theology, by Heiko Augustinus Oberman (Harvard University Press, 1963, 495 pp., $9.25). A detailed analysis of the thought of Gabriel Biel (d. 1495), who, as a disciple and interpreter of the nominalism of William of Occam, had considerable influence on Martin Luther, on the Counter-Reformation, and on the Council of Trent.

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