Book Briefs: February 16, 1968

One To Disrupt The Status Quo

The Theology of Hope, by Jürgen Moltmann, translated by James W. Leitch, (Harper & Row, 1967, 342 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by David P. Scaer, assistant professor of systematic theology, Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois.

Only infrequently in a generation does a book appear that promises to disrupt the theological status quo and direct theology along a new course. In this case the “new” direction is a reaffirmation of the classical New Testament eschatological hope that the risen Christ will appear so that the dead may share in his resurrection. In these pages we find more than a simple biblicism. The author, professor of systematic theology at the University of Tübingen, was motivated to write by current theological thought that has reduced both history and eschatology to an eternal present. This idea, which is the mainspring of existential philosophy, is familiar to us through the works of Bultmann and to some extent Barth.

Far from being biblical, the depreciation of history, and also the future, with sole emphasis on the “now,” originates in the Hellenistic cyclical view of history and can be traced through Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, right into contemporary theology. It has also had a profound influence on the study of history, which has provided critical categories for studying the events of the New Testament and has laid down paths for plotting the future. This historical method, prominent in both this and the last centuries, follows the “whole” concept of the Greeks and does not allow for any new events that do not have parallels in earlier ones. Thus for Baur, miracles are a priori impossible and have no place in history. The existence principle of Heidegger, Bultmann’s mentor, is totally destructive of history, since the past functions primarily in understanding human existence.

With clear decisive strokes, Moltmann shows that for both Jews and Christians history is rooted in actual events and sets its sights on a real future in accordance with God’s promises. Christianity does not concentrate on the Hellenistic concept of God as an eternal presence but sees God going before his people, leading them to a goal. History is the framework for the promise that is the basis of hope. Hope is the other side of faith and more than anything else is the unique characteristic of Christianity. Although a cyclical view of history does not allow for a resurrection of Jesus, since it is not the repetition of a former event, Moltmann establishes it as the very basis of history. Past, present, and future are linked only when the crucified Jesus is identified with the risen Christ, who will complete all things with the final resurrection from the dead. Only a firm historical base surrounded by the promises of God secures a future marked by eschatological hope. This hope concerning God’s future in Christ lets the Christian live in a world full of possibilities. God’s future for the world can be found in his word but cannot be identified with it. This would be making the present eternal in the manner of Bultmann.

This work, a masterpiece both in theology and in language, has already become a milestone in European theology, providing a positive, corrective influence by showing that the Church’s real life lies not in the present but in the future, with the return of the resurrected Christ. Because of the past (the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus), the present (the preaching of the Gospel) is fraught with hope for the future (the return of Christ). Only Christianity can read history and understand the present in the light of an event that still lies in the future. This is the message of hope.

Doom Of Death-Of-God Theology

The Death of God Debate, edited by Jackson Lee Ice and John J. Carey (Westminster, 1967, 267 pp., $2.65 paper), is reviewed by J. Murray Marshall, pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Flushing, New York.

It was in the fall of 1965 that the “death of God” controversy erupted in both the secular and the religious press. Through what is called “a happy editorial accident,” articles appeared in close sequence in the New York Times, the Christian Scholar, Time, the Christian Century, and the New Yorker making the phrase “death of God” common and hurling the names of William Hamilton, Thomas J. J. Altizer, Gabriel Vahanian, and Paul van Buren into the thick of learned and not-so-learned controversy.

How goes the stir today, more than two years later? Some claim to see sure symptoms of decline and death; perhaps the smaller number of articles appearing in 1967 compared to 1966 bears this out. Others, among them the editors of this book, are sure that the death-of-God theology “is here to stay, whether we like it or not.” Hamilton himself sees that radical theology could go in any one of three directions: to the left, beyond “Christian atheism” to a “candid atheism without any of the Christian claims”; to the right, to the “birth or resurrection of God”; or on to a radical consideration of other items on the theological docket—Christology, the doctrines of man, the Church and the sacraments.

Meanwhile, Ice and Carey, both associate professors of religion at Florida State University, have brought us up to date on the debate. Primarily the book is a compilation of previously published articles representing various responses from the theological community and the public at large. Among new materials are excerpts from personal correspondence with Altizer and Hamilton that show the variety and intensity of reactions triggered in the debate, and a chapter by Altizer on the significance of the new theology. Of special interest is a series of thirty-two questions to Hamilton and his concise answers, which open up the specifics at issue.

Certain impressions emerge. First this can hardly be called a movement, a word that implies a degree of unity about ideas and goals. Clearly, there is no unanimity among the principals, even on basic definitions. Second, radical theologians offer a studied disavowal of traditional theology, yet still claim a right to be called “Christian” and profess allegiance to Jesus. They are “still strangely tied to the Christian tradition”; Hamilton even says, “I am not yet ready to give up sola scriptura.” Here is a mystery of the new theology.

What shows up with ever increasing clarity is that the new radical theology is the tragic end result of the modern theological method, which has discarded as invalid a revealed theology. With no revealed theology, there is no real knowledge of God. Altizer says, “Perhaps the greatest obstacle thus far confronting the theologian has been the almost innate conviction that the subject of theology is given.… Underlying this loyalty [to theological tradition] is the conviction that the Christian faith stands or falls with the eternal existence and continuing activity of God.”

Precisely! Without this, theology is meaningless. And take away a revealed theology and there is no longer a means of knowing the eternal God. The radical theologians of the mid-sixties are begotten of theological and philosophical ancestors who undermined the traditional idea of a revealed theology. Man has presumed to establish himself first as judge of the Scriptures, and now as the judge of God himself! Without a revealed theology, the debate (and the despair) will go on, and on, and on.

Is Belief In God Rational?

God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God, by Alvin Plantinga (Cornell University Press, 1967, 277 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by William Young, associate professor of philosophy, University of Rhode Island, Kingston.

This closely reasoned work investigates the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments for the existence of God, then proceeds to consider the problem of evil, verificationism, the paradox of omnipotence, and an ontological disproof of God’s existence, then finally explores the analogies and connections of the question of the existence of God with that of other minds. The conclusion is that “belief in other minds and belief in God are in the same epistemological boat; hence if either is rational, so is the other.”

Only one form of cosmological argument is discussed, the argument from contingency as developed in Aquinas’s third way. After an elaborate examination of the assumptions involved, the author pronounces the argument inconclusive. One assumption he accepts is that “if there is no necessary being, then it is possible that no contingent being exists.” If he also grants the necessity that some being, necessary or contingent, exists—an assumption no less plausible than the other—then it clearly follows that a necessary being exists. This, to be sure, would be not a cosmological but rather an ontological proof, of a type not considered in the two chapters on the ontological argument. Plantinga examines common objections to the ontological argument and finds they do not provide a general refutation. The argument itself, however, is also judged unsuccessful in the form in which it is presented. The teleological proof has some force in providing evidence for the claim that the universe was designed, but it fails to establish the existence of a single designer and creator.

In answering the objection raised by the natural atheologian from the problem of evil, Plantinga endorses the freewill defense, a position that appears to have unacceptable consequences for a believer in God’s sovereign and efficacious grace. If God cannot determine free creatures to do only what is right, then he could not have preserved the elect angels in their original integrity, nor can he preserve believers infallibly in a state of grace without infringing on their freedom. But if the doctrines of grace are accepted, it becomes clear that there can be no a priori limitation on God’s power to determine rational creatures to do only what is right.

The issues involved in the discussion of the problem of other minds are too intricate to be dealt with here. I am not convinced that a strong enough case is made for the argument from analogy to warrant the construction of even so modest an apologetic proposal as is made in this book. Yet it must be stressed that the book is a model of philosophical argument. It will attract philosophically trained readers, who are the intended audience for this presentation of theism.

Reading For Perspective

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

• Religion Across Cultures, by Eugene A. Nida (Harper & Row, $4.95). The American Bible Society’s noted linguist takes a fresh look at the psychological and dynamic factors related to effective communication in diverse cultures.

• A Second Touch, by Keith Miller (Word, $3.50). Those who profited from Miller’s The Taste of New Wine will like its sequel: an extremely personal and disturbingly candid approach to honest and creative Christian living.

• Baker’s Pictorial Introduction to the Bible, by William S. Deal (Baker, $7.95). This non-technical, high-school-level evangelical work will help students to understand the recipients, purpose, date, authorship, and important people and themes of every book of the Bible.

Wrong Assumptions On Vietnam

Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience, by Robert McAfee Brown, Abraham J. Heschel, and Michael Novak (Association, 1967, 127 pp., $.95 paper), and The Viet Nam War: Christian Perspectives, edited by Michael P. Hamilton (Eerdmans, 1967, 140 pp., $3.50 cloth, $1.65 paper), are reviewed by Edward L. R. Elson, minister, The National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C.; member of the team appointed by President Johnson to observe the elections in South Vietnam.

Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience contains position papers of the January 31-February 1, 1967, Washington conference sponsored by “Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam.” Essentially the book is an indictment of American guilt for the predicament of Vietnam and an urgent plea that the United States stop using force to carry out its political and social objectives there. The authors say the struggle is only a “civil war,” that what the United States government terms “Communist aggression” from the North is non-existent, and that the Vietcong have voluntary patriotic support (the United States government concludes there is no “voluntary popular support whatever”—only support derived from threat and terror). The serious concern in this book is focused on ending the fighting, not on how it is to be ended, or the post-bellum shape of things in the Pacific.

Michael Novak provides a historical synopsis and analysis based on the rejection of any idea of a world Communist threat to freedom or to the system of governments oriented toward United States leadership and strength. He says:

Therefore, we are to consider “Communism and modified capitalism” as two rival strategies for dealing with this revolutionary age, where the real issues are hunger, poverty, economic and racial injustice.

Novak ignores the vast amount of information available to the United States government about the world Communist apparatus and its intentions in the Pacific. His presuppositions are at variance with the literature available from the State Department and the briefings held periodically by Foreign Service officers in Washington. The bibliography of this book is limited so that it only confirms the authors’ presuppositions; it conspicuously omits any reference to the factual publications of the United States government.

The authors of this book seem still to be living in the 1950s and over-reacting to McCarthyism. There remains yet, according to informed persons, a sane understanding of the present threat of Communism. True, the Communist thrust in the world is broken into nationalistic expressions and is less politically monolithic than it used to be. Yet whether monolithic or fragmented, the Communism emanating from both China and Russia clearly represents imperialistic perils as dangerous to a democratic society, as any that have appeared in recent history.

In his “Appeal to the Churches and Synagogues,” Robert McAfee Brown contends that both the individual Christian and the corporate church have the responsibility to be informed, to speak, and to act. “If ever there was ‘ecumenical’ issue, i.e., an issue affecting the whole of the oikoumene (the inhabited world), it is Vietnam. In the face of the immensity of that issue, individual speech alone is frivolous if not immoral.”

Brown properly suggests that Vietnam is a turning point in modern history, though many people will not agree with his idea of how history ought to turn at this point. He asserts that moral anguish arises out of the “immorality of the warfare”: (1) civilian casualties (though he does not point out that making soldiers look like civilians and shielding military units behind civilians is a tactic of the Vietcong), the kind of weapons, and the treatment of prisoners; (2) the inconsistency between our stated aims and their actual consequences; (3) the discrepancy between “what we are told by our Government and what we discover is actually taking place.”

The task of the Church, according to Brown, is to create a climate for a negotiated peace now rather than later and especially to encourage policy-makers not merely to give lip service to negotiation but to refashion policy. Brown does not seem to understand that, as Korea revealed, negotiation is for the Communists one of the methods of waging continued war and maneuvering for military advantage, while in our view negotiation is the method of establishing peaceful relations.

The second book, The Vietnam War: Christian Perspectives, contains sermons and addresses delivered in the Washington Episcopal Cathedral and two additional papers, one by Martin Luther King and the other by Eugene Carson Blake. A wide range of opinion, analysis, tourist observation, and sentimentalism, as well as hard substantive thinking, appears here. In my opinion, the statement by R. Paul Ramsey is the most tenable position in this composite volume.

These two books merit careful examination. Since each has several authors, the reader must for each paper assess the validity of the writer’s presuppositions before reaching his own conclusions.

A Freudian Breeze

The Church in the Way, by James E. Dittes (Scribner, 1967, 350 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Stephen E. Smallman, pastor, McLean Presbyterian Church, McLean, Virginia.

There is a fresh breeze from New England. James E. Dittes, professor of psychology of religion at Yale Divinity School, is convinced of the validity and vitality of the institutional parish church. He has written this book to encourage established and prospective ministers faced with the frustrations of the parish ministry.

Answering the common criticisms that the Church is irrelevant, unreal, and preoccupied with administrative details to the detriment of its spiritual mission, Dittes finds a positive value in these seemingly negative aspects; he shows that the obstacles the Church faces may provide the occasion for a significant ministry. Rather than seek relevance by abandoning the Church as we now know it, we must learn that by participating in its struggle for meaning, we give guidance to a world that is struggling for meaning itself. Dittes emphasizes this thought in his first chapter, “The Relevance of Being Irrelevant.”

Parishioners’ “resistance” (in the Freudian sense of the term) should not frustrate the minister, the author says; on the contrary, he should take heart that his ministry is causing some reaction. Dittes recommends that the minister arm himself with insights provided by psychotherapy. To help him, Dittes has written what amounts to a textbook on resistance in psychotherapy, with illustrations from church life. He calls this an application of the psychology of religion to pastoral theology. This in itself is nothing new, but resistance has not been so carefully examined in this context before. In a day when the Church’s role is seen largely as sociological, the author feels a new word should be spoken for the psychological point of view.

But that is just the weakness of the book—the author sees the Church through the eyes of a Freudian psychologist rather than a theologian. Granted, he says that his purpose is to provide a psychological understanding of the Church’s role; but can there be any true understanding of that role without even a mention of the work of the Holy Spirit? Dittes also does not mention the mission of the Church: to preach the Gospel of God’s saving grace. It could be argued that he took these for granted; but it is more likely that he looked upon them as “religious symbols” of another age. Such symbols change in meaning and relevance, he says, but the modern minister should not abandon them since “they still betray the awesome and gripping power which religious symbols hold.” Resistance to such forms he calls “response to religiosity,” and he says this should be exploited for its psychotherapeutic value. Such a humanistic approach to the Church necessarily weakens any subsqeuent discussion.

Yet, bearing in mind this basic deficiency, the reader will find that The Church in the Way offers some valuable help for the parish ministry. No pastor should ignore the values of psychotherapy in his dealings with people, and this fresh treatment of the factor of resistance is welcome.

Sartre And The Absurd

Sartre: The Theology of the Absurd, by Régis Jolivet, translated from the French by Wesley C. Piersol (Newman Press, 1967, 111 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James W. Sire, associate professor of English, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln.

Régis Jolivet, now honorary professor at the Catholic University of Lyons, has written over a dozen books on medieval philosophy and on extentialism. The present volume brings these two subjects together, for the analysis that Jolivet gives Sartre’s work is primarily informed by scholastic categories.

Although Jolivet examines Sartre’s ontology, atheism, ethics, and Marxism, his short book is not designed to be a rapid survey of Sartre’s thoughts. For, though he treats Sartre’s Marxism superficially, he focuses precisely on the ontology and atheism of Being and Nothingness. He likewise gives a skillful analysis of the problems inherent in Sartrian ethics. Jolivet is primarily concerned to illuminate (and to controvert) what he calls the “theology of the absurd.” Hence he examines Sartre’s arguments for the non-existence of God and the impossibility of creation, finding, in short, that Sartre is either inconsistent or begs the question. Concerning the paradox at the heart of Sartre’s system, Jolivet remarks:

Unfortunately, W. C. Piersol’s English version of Jolivet’s work is seriously marred either by bad translation or by poor proofreading. Not only is the English rough and awkward; it is also inaccurate in important places. Where, for example, Jolivet has written, “Human-reality, as such, is therefore not explained by matter.…” (my translation, Piersol has, “Human-reality, as such, is explained by matter.…” Again, where Jolivet, in talking about Kant’s concept of being, has written “substance or noumenon” (my translation), Piersol’s version reads “substance of noumenon,’ thus totally confusing Kant’s idea.

It is easy to agree in general with Jolivet that there are serious inconsistencies in Sartre’s ontology and—more certainly—that Sartrian “theology” and ethics are incompatible with scholastic theology or Protestant thought. But unless one reads the French version, it is not so easy to be sure of the cogency of crucial aspects of Jolivet’s critique. The style of his English translator is not clear; the text of his publisher is not reliable. In any case, this work is not for the novice in philosophy.

The Continuing Morality Debate

Storm Over Ethics, by John C. Bennett et al. (United Church Press, 1967, 183 pp., $1.95), and The New Morality, edited by William Dunphy (Herder and Herder, 1967, 192 pp., $4.95), are reviewed by James A. Nelson, pastor, Trinity Baptist Church, Santa Barbara, California.

Each of these volumes takes part in the contemporary debate over situational ethics and in general is critical of this “new morality.”

Storm Over Ethics consists of papers by seven able and informed men who are at home in philosophy and theology and who present various points of disagreement with Joseph Fletcher’s Situation Ethics. Theologically, they are men of liberal stripe. In the last chapter of the book, Fletcher states his case and briefly attempts to refute his critics.

Fletcher’s antagonists consider such matters as the relation of situation ethics to previous ethical systems, the place of personal responsibility within the framework of freedom, and the true nature of agape love, which is the touchstone of situation ethics. At times they become completely practical as they point to human frailty in a torrid emotional situation.

The New Morality is a series of essays by faculty members of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto. Their writing is lucid, their observations and applications keen; but since they write chiefly from the perspective of the Roman Catholic fathers and theologians, this volume is less useful for Protestants.

Both volumes seem to lack a firm, authoritative foundation. In presenting their case for an ethical system that has norms and absolute values, the writers neglect some of the most important matters. The right of the sovereign God to establish absolutes is hardly acknowledged. Nor is much said about his knowledge of what is best for the man he created. The place of the Bible as the revealed Word of God is rarely mentioned. One senses the influence of humanism throughout the two volumes, and at times there are hints of universalism. The writers, with the possible exception of some in The New Morality, generally bypass the authority of Jesus Christ and his clear moral statements. Perhaps, then, the greatest disappointment in these volumes comes not from what is said but from what is left unsaid.

However, one who stands in the stream of historic, evangelical Christianity would undoubtedly do well to be acquainted with the case against situation ethics advanced by men who stand on the banks of that stream.

Lights And Shadows

Letters to an American Lady, by C. S. Lewis, edited and with a preface by Clyde S. Kilby (Eerdmans, 1967, 121 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Joan Kerns Ostling, writer-editor, United States Information Agency, Washington, D. C.

Shadows account for half the beauty in the world, C. S. Lewis wrote, and it is the shadows that characterize the correspondence in this book. The reader will find here neither the erudite debater nor the brilliant satirist; he will discover, instead, unwitting testimony for the patient faith and generous life of the private man who was this century’s most famous Christian apologist.

The letters, written between 1950 and 1963 to an American woman Lewis never met, contain evidence of the famous Lewis style and wit (“I’ve been made a Professor at Cambridge, which will mean less work and therefore of course … more pay.”); the familiar Lewis impatience with journalism, bureaucracy, snobbery, and superficiality; the sharp Lewis mind threading into theology (“It is the actual presence, not the sensation of the presence, of the Holy Ghost which begets Christ in us”) and human psychology (“I loathe ‘sensitive’ people who are ‘easily hurt’ by the way, don’t you? They are a social pest. Vanity is the real trouble”).

But as Clyde S. Kilby points out in the preface, the obvious thrust of the letters is spiritual encouragement and guidance. Here is the Lewis who, without publicity, gave away two-thirds of his income; the Lewis who considered it his Christian responsibility to answer every letter the dreaded and heavily burdened postman brought to his door; the Lewis who sympathized with others’ physical ailments while struggling with his own. Here also is the poignancy of Lewis’s raw grief at the loss of his beloved wife, Joy, and then his own victory at the end when he faced death as “waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time,” ready to leave the world of “drowsy half-waking” to “come up into the real world, the real waking.”

Lewis readers will treasure these letters for the glimpse they offer into the personal witness of the man. The original letters now form part of the Lewis collection at Wheaton College.

Paperbacks

Nairobi to Berkeley, edited by Paul S. Rees (Word Books, 1968, 176 pp., $.95). Essays by Christian writers assessing critical sectors of the broken world to which the Church must minister. Paul Rees leads off with an appeal for an awakened Christian conscience that accepts involvement and responsibility.

A Case for Virginity, by Gary Garrett (R.I.D., 1967, 108 pp.). Arguments for virginity from a non-religious perspective.

Christian Nurture, by Horace Bushnell (Yale, 1967, 351 pp., $2.45). A reprint of the 1888 book in which Bushnell advances the thesis “that the child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise.”

Hath God Said?, by Uuras Saarnivaara (Osterhus, 1967, 293 pp., $3.50). Second-rate make-up but useful content dealing with problems of criticism and “difficult passages” in the Bible—from an evangelical perspective.

How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious, edited by Fritz Ridenour (Gospel Light, 1967, 162 pp., $.69). A lively rendition of the message of the Book of Romans for teen-agers; its communicable style and clever cartoons make it as up to date as the boog-a-loo.

St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, edited by Elizabeth Frances Rogers (Yale University, 1967, 276 pp., $1.95). Well-chosen letters give the reader a personal glimpse into the heart and mind of the “man for all seasons.”

Heredity: A Study in Science and the Bible, by William J. Tinkle (St. Thomas, 1967, 180 pp.). A Ph.D. discusses discoveries in genetics, takes issue with the theory of evolution, and relates his observations to the biblical view of man.

They Dared to Be Different, by Anna Talbott McPherson (Moody, 1967, 192 pp., $.59). Inspiring tales from the lives of eighteen great churchmen and women, including Moody, Spurgeon, Knox, Wesley, Mueller, and Crosby.

Sunday Night at the Movies, by G. William Jones (John Knox, 1967, 127 pp., $1.95). An eloquent plea for the use of selected films as contemporary parables by which viewers may be led into discussion of basic issues of life. Although such an approach may help to make people aware of their problems and needs, it will serve little purpose unless it culminates in the proclamation of the revealed Gospel of Christ.

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