Another Dogma Falls

Is Original Sin in Scripture? by Herbert Haag (Sheed & Ward, 1969, 127 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Philip E. Hughes, professor of historical theology, Conwell School of Theology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

If original sin is not in Scripture then the Church has been making a lot of fuss about nothing for a very long time. Dr. Herbert Haag, however, who is professor of Old Testament in the University of Tubingen and also president of the Catholic Bible Association of Germany, has come to the conclusion that this doctrine is not to be found in the Bible. And thereby he brings himself under the Tridentine anathema! But apparently the cursings of the Council of Trent are no longer operative, or if they are, they are no longer feared (this book is published without the customary nihil obstat and imprimatur), though the recent Second Vatican Council held in Rome was supposed to endorse and complete what was begun at Trent. Over this issue Haag parts company with his fellow Roman Catholics Karl Rahner, who maintains the theological certainty of monogenism (the descent of all mankind from a single original couple), and Leo Scheffczyk, who holds that the historicity of redemption stands or falls with the historicity of Adam and of original sin. Haag, in fact, frankly declares that for many in the Roman church today “previously held ‘dogmas’ have ceased to be dogmas, to the great dismay of those who believe in the immutability of dogmas,” and that what is taking place is “not merely interpretation but correction of previous teaching.”

Reformed theology has been in agreement with the official teaching of Roman Catholicism that the sin of Adam had evil consequences for all his posterity (see Rom. 5:12 and 1 Cor. 15:22), but has never concurred with the explanation that the precise result of the fall was the loss of an extra or preternatural (that is, over and above what belonged to human nature) gift of original righteousness together with bodily immortality, so that man, losing this endowment, was left in a purely natural state; for this view is imposed on Scripture and opens the door to a potentially Pelagian situation. Certainly, the old argument between the creationists and the traducianists can well be laid to rest, since it is a blind alley that leads nowhere.

In Haag’s view, the inheritance of Adam’s sin means “that sin, after its entrance into the world, so spread that consequently all men are born into a sinful world and in this sinful world become themselves sinners.” Nonetheless, when it comes to a choice between evolutionary concepts and biblical affirmations, the former are preferred. Thus Bruce Vawter speaks in his introduction of “the Darwinian revolution that lies in the background of this book by Professor Haag,” and the new Dutch Catechism, which Haag commends, asserts that “the world is involved in an upward movement.”

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We would like to put to Dr. Haag the question: Is the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary in Scripture? Why does he not brand this dogma as “folklore” like the ideas he rejects? And, in the absence of biblical evidence, by what scientific considerations is he moved to hold that “the only human being who did not need rebirth was Mary the mother of Jesus,” and that, “by anticipation, she lived her entire life in the glory of Christ’s grace”? Such dogmatism contradicts the biblical teaching that the sole exception to the universality of human sinfulness is our Redeemer Jesus Christ.

Original sin, however mysterious its nature may be, tells us that the reality of sin is something far deeper than the mere outward commission of sinful deeds, and something more substantial than a “device,” as Haag calls it, whereby a man’s later actions are attributed to him from the time of his conception and birth. It tells us that there is an inner root of sinfulness which corrupts man’s true nature and from which his sinful deeds spring. Like a deadly poison, sin has penetrated to and infected the very center of man’s being: hence his need for the total experience of rebirth by which, through the grace of God in Christ Jesus, the restoration of his true manhood is effected.

Lay Off Charlie Brown!

The Parables of Peanuts, by Robert L. Short (Harper & Row, 1968, 328 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by J. D. Douglas, editor, “The Christian and Christianity Today,” London, England.

Four years ago in this journal I reviewed Mr. Short’s previous work, The Gospel According to Peanuts. Now its successor, by a piece of editorial whimsey, has been sent for like treatment across the Atlantic—perhaps because, as before, no American scholar would lightly undertake a review certain to be mercilessly scrutinized in the higher academic echelons.

Someone wrote to say my earlier comments had “enigmatized” him, which might suggest I had handled it right. A crazy assignment calls for crazy handling. Just how many times removed from reality are you when called on to assess another man’s interpretation of a third man’s elusive and unique ministry? It’s like chasing the shadow of a shadow. The reviewer is a two-time loser: if he calls something asinine, the author can call himhumorless, or lacking in theological discernment, or can retort that the actors in this form of “art-parable” are only children, and that this is how children behave. The author is sitting pretty, and can’t lose.

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Except when he over-reaches himself. And this is what Short has done (I think a second book generally was a mistake). He quotes Schulz’s comment about his strip: “There is lots of meaning, but I can’t explain it.” He doesn’t need to—Mr. Short can. The latter says: “We should never finally try to judge the meaning of a work of art on the basis of the artist’s intention,” because “who knows what these intentions are?” Short does, or so it would seem, for he displays little sense of the limitations of his project. Even more than with the earlier book, he gives the impression of taking out of a cartoon something which its creator had not put in, and which no ordinary reader would comprehend without the sort of help Philip gave the Ethiopian eunuch.

Take page 156. After a perfectly enjoyable cartoon, Short contrives an identification of Snoopy with God and the Red Baron with the devil, propped up by a quotation from “Eph. 6:12, NEB” (that “NEB” angle here is the sheerest oneupmanship).

Or page 297. For those having difficulty in plumbing the depths of Pigpen, all that is necessary is to equate him with “church.” Then they can often “expect the cartoon to make complete theological sense.”

Short’s determination to press home a point is often his undoing, as on page 242, where “Look and see if there is any sorrow like Charlie Brown’s” is not a happy parallel (it is Short’s again, of course, not Schulz’s).

On numerous cartoonless pages he does a power of moralizing on his own account, aided by his favorite sources, Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard (some fifty quotations each), and with less demanding references to works such as Moby Dick, Zorba the Greek, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and The Great Wall of China. On page 206 we meet a mind-boggling word: “For as soon as Peter ran out of faith and stopped, he sank like the Rock he was.” Had this not come amid some tedious sermonizing we should have hailed it gleefully as the sort of thing this book could have been doing with more of.

Short says “the word ‘art’ is never mentioned in the Bible,” but this is too loose a statement to exclude the techné of Acts 17:29. On page 229 Thoreau gets the credit for an idea of the sixteenth-century John Knox. On page 117 a profound passage of Pascal is rendered unnecessarily more difficult by the transposition of a line.

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“The last thing we want to do in this book,” says the author, “is to decrease one jot of the sheer enjoyment and entertainment value that comes to anyone from Peanuts.” Some ordinary readers like myself will regard this disclaimer with skepticism, and will hope that Mr. Short will lay off Charlie Brown in future. We like him as he is.

There are in this book about 250 cartoon strips; he who prefers Schulz to Short will find that, at two cents a strip, it is a good bargain. An even better one will be Schulz’s long-awaited book on Robert L. Short.

Packed With Information

Judges, by Arthur E. Cundall, and Ruth, by Leon Morris (Inter-Varsity, 1968, 318 pp., $3.95), are reviewed by Clyde T. Francisco, John R. Sampey professor of Old Testament interpretation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

A striking similarity of approach is evident in these two additions (in one volume) to the “Tyndale Old Testament Commentary.” Both commentators show a wide acquaintance with their fields of study, and they treat the problems of the books with thoroughness. There is an openness to the evidence but a decided emphasis upon the basic integrity of Scripture. Just as Cundall will say, “Yet the witness of the Old Testament is accurate,” Morris will quote G. A. F. Knight approvingly, “Our author is careful to be accurate with his historical facts.” However, their characteristic respect for the Old Testament as the word of God does not demand a belief in the inerrancy of the received text. Both writers acknowledge that there might have been mistakes in the copying of manuscripts through the centuries, though they are very reluctant to admit the possibility of textual emendation.

It is quite remarkable that in such brief studies the commentators should take up the problems of individual verses. Far too many authors use the limitation of space as an excuse for avoiding difficult questions. Yet these writers attempt to meet every perplexity, usually with thoroughness, if not always with positive results.

Both writers sometimes confuse American readers. Their references to “corn” will be readily understood as grain by British readers, but in the United States the word can only mean maize. To the British reader, Cundall’s use of “prophylactic” clearly means “a preventive from disease”; but to the average American, for whom the word has a more restricted meaning, it may cause some eyebrow-raising when applied to divine activity.

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Differences between the two studies appear primarily in the tendency of Cundall to differ with traditional views of authorship and date, and that of Morris to give more detailed analysis of individual words. This is due not to a difference of approach but to the nature of the evidence in Judges and to the size of the Book of Ruth—it is short enough to permit more intensive treatment.

Surely the desire of the editor that “these books will help many to understand, and to respond to, the Word of God today” will be granted. And another encouraging fact is apparent. A new “school of the prophets” is arising, composed of men who study the Bible critically, defend it effectively, and proclaim it convincingly. May their tribe increase!

Studies Doctrinal Development

Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena, by Jaroslav Pelikan (Yale University, 1969, 149 pp., $6), is reviewed by Frederick Abbott Norwood, professor of history of Christianity, Garrett Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois.

This little book has two parts and four themes. The first part defines and discusses the problem of doctrinal development; the second consists of three case studies drawn from the patristic period.

The primary theme is identified in the title. Questions surrounding the process of doctrinal development have become increasingly numerous and insistent in the twentieth century as a result of various forces. Both dogmatic fixations by councils and popes in the last one hundred years and the openings and loosenings of Vatican Council II contribute to the concern over the meaning, even the possibility, of doctrinal development. Moreover, every ecumenical action underlines the importance of reassessing doctrinal developments that in the past all too often have led to schism. Pelikan here makes a beginning at the needed reassessment.

His second theme is a revisitation of John Henry Newman’s An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), which attempted to define seven criteria for distinguishing between valid and invalid development. He analyzes these in the light of Protestant-Catholic polemic.

Pelikan’s other two themes, if not quite a hidden agenda, are more subtly presented, but nevertheless are quite present in his mind. The whole book might be viewed as a justification of the historical method and the subject of the history of Christianity as against the theological method and the subject of history of doctrine narrowly conceived. Christian doctrine, he avers, is too important to leave to the theologians. Historical method and study are essential for proper understanding of the development of doctrine, because that development takes place in the environment of the total Christian community, which itself is placed in the environment of general history. Many church historians have understood this for a long time, hence are puzzled at theologians who profess new discovery under various guises such as the secular gospel. Of course one can raise questions about some of Pelikan’s own presuppositions. He frequently allows Lutherans and Calvinists to speak for the entire Protestant tradition as if no one else had anything worth saying. He leaves no place for discussion of Harnack’s proposition that patristics is the “center of gravity of church history as a scholarly field.” Perhaps so, but is it axiomatic?

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Oh, yes. His fourth theme is advertisement of his multi-volume history of doctrine, now in gestation.

Book Briefs

Love and Truth Meet, by Max Thurian (United Church Press, 1968, 166 pp., $6.50). The Taizé theologian seeks to point a way to Christian unity that will steer away from doctrinal laxity on the one hand and a divisive spirit on the other.

Man Yearning for Grace, by Jared Wicks (Corpus, 1969, 410 pp., $12.50). Studies Luther’s early works in the context of his pre-Reformation spiritual struggles rather than forcing them into the framework of his later thought.

Soka Gakkai, by Noah Brannen (John Knox, 1968, 181 pp., $5.50). An enlightening investigation of one of the fastest-growing and most significant religious and political movements of our day, pointing out its significance for Japan and the rest of the world.

Meditations for the Newly Married, by John M. Drescher (Herald, 1969, 139 pp., $4). The moderator of the Mennonite General Conference offers solidly biblical and practical advice for newlyweds.

Where Now Is Thy God?, by J. Wallace Hamilton (Revell, 1969, 128 pp., $3.50). Sixteen sermons, aimed at the uncertainty and confusion of this generation, show the effectiveness of the Christian faith for contemporary living.

The Foundations of Social Order, by Rousas Rushdoony (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968, 232 pp., $5.95). A study of the creeds and councils of the early Church.

The Renewal of Preaching, by David James Randolph (Fortress, 1969, 137 pp., $3.95). Seeks a new understanding of preaching growing out of the new hermeneutic. The parts of this volume that are really worthwhile aren’t really new.

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Take It to the People, by Howard E. Mumma (World, 1969, 124 pp., $3.95). Suggests unusual and exciting ways of taking the Gospel of Christ to people wherever they may be found.

Modern War and the Christian, by Ralph L. Moellering (Augsburg, 1969, 94 pp., paperback, $2.50). Studies militarism, pacifism, and “realism” (the “just war” tradition) and suggests positive action Christians can take. Sympathetic to the pacifist position but does not embrace it completely.

Heart Cry for Revival, by Stephen F. Olford (Zondervan, 1962, 119 pp., paperback, $1.95). Reprint of a collection of expository sermons on revival by the pastor of New York’s Calvary Baptist Church.

The Sovereignty of Grace, by Cornelius Van Til (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969, 110 pp., paperback, $1.50). An appraisal of G. C. Berkouwer’s view of the Articles of Dort.

The Book of Obadiah, by Don W. Hillis (Baker, 1969, 75 pp., paperback, $1.95). This volume and The Books of Nahum and Zephaniah, by T. Miles Bennett, are a useful addition to the “Shield Bible Study Series.”

Phenomenology of Religion, edited by Joseph Dabney Bettis (Harper & Row, 1969, 245 pp., paperback, $3.50). This selection of essays written from diverse perspectives represents the attempts of various philosophers to describe the essence of religion. Could be useful for research.

Catholic Pentecostals, by Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghen (Paulist, 1969, 266 pp., paperback, $1.95). If the title jolts you, so will the book. An extremely interesting account of the Pentecostal movement within the Catholic Church.

Reconciling Community, by Orlando L. Tibbetts (Judson, 1969, 128 pp., paperback, $2.50). Challenges the Church to new forms of evangelism in a rapidly changing culture and offers helpful, specific suggestions toward a more effective ministry.

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