The Bulletin of the Conference on the Theological Task in India

Editors: Mr. C.S. Paul, Rev. A.G. Hort

Editorial

At long last the second issue of the Theological Bulletin is to see the light of day and in sending it out in its present form, we owe our readers an apology for delay in publishing it and also for inability to include in it all the ‘Study Outlines’ as planned by the ‘Continuation Committee’ of the Theological Conference. But such of the Outlines as we have been able to include in this issue and the articles on cognate subjects by the members of the conference, we hope, will be found to be sufficiently thought-provoking and challenging to the smug Christian Consciences which have become accustomed to take much in Christianity for granted on one or other of the bases of Church life and tradition.

The original incentive to the Poona Conference came from a desire to produce an apologetic to India of our day and generation, on the assumption that we were of one mind in regard to the fundamentals of the Christian faith. But as the conference proceeded and as the members began to take stock of the Christian verities, it was increasingly realised that we ought to ‘dig deep’ and do a great deal of ‘spade work’ before we can launch on the task of apologetics, if ‘apologetics’ is what we need.

The Continuation Committee which met at Bangalore at the invitation of Dr. R.B. Manikam, the Convener, in consultation with other members, came to the conclusion that the primary need is to make clear to ourselves what is meant by the ‘given element’, ‘the core of truth’, Christianity. In pursuance of this task, the Committee worked out the following plan of study for the to be broadcast through the Bulletin in the coming year.

What in Christianity is given?

1. What is Revelation? (SAMBAYYA and WARD)

2. General and Special Revelation. (APPASAMY and SWEETMAN)

3. .

   1. Can Man know God? (DEVADUTT, MARTIN and MOSES)
   2. The Place of Experience and Authority in knowing God: (SISTER GERTRUDE)

4. What elements in Christianity may be said to be given? (PAUL and HORT)

We are glad to publish the Study Outlines on all the above subjects except the one on iii.(b). The place of Experience and Authority in knowing God. Much as we would have prized an outline on this subject from Sister Gertrude, we feel sure that our readers will find enough suggestions on this subject from the other published outlines. Commending the above plan of study, the convener rightly remarks, “Did all of us mean one and the same thing, when we used the words ‘the given element?’”. “It is easy for those with a Western background to assert the likeness of our faith, but not quite so easy for those pronouncedly Indian in outlook. This difference arises from the fact that the latter find themselves in the midst of other religions which also lay claim to revelation. Therefore, not only for the purpose of elucidation of our Christian creed to the members of our Churches, but also for that of Christian witness (apologetics), commending our religion to non-Christians, it seems imperative that we should study this subject”.

A casual glance at the published Study Outlines and articles will convince our readers that what Mr. Manikam anticipated has come true. Dr. Appasamy and Mr. Devadutt do not appear to draw the lines of demarcation between Christian and non-Christian religions as exclusively as Rev. W. Stewart and Rev. H.V. Martin seem to do. The latter two would hold that the Christian revelation is sui generis, while the former would maintain the uniqueness of the Christian revelation without going to the extent of making it sui generis.

In an issue like the present one the editor must be discreetly silent. Editorial comments, we are afraid, would be regarded as an unwarranted intrusion and perversion of purpose. So restraining all temptation to comment, we would commend the outlines and articles to the serious and thoughtful consideration of our readers in the fervent hope that out of these apparent differences in emphases and outlook, there may emerge something truly expressive of God’s word for our times and people.

(Editor C.S.P.)

Some Reflections on the Poona Conference

BY SISTER GERTRUDE

The chief thing that strikes me in studying the report of the Conference in the Bulletin is the varying senses in which the word experience is used, and the very opposite statements that are made about it. We may for instance compare the remarks of Dr. Devanandan and Mr. Sambayya (page 8), of Mr. Chenchiah (p. 11, 12), the respective papers of Mr. Martin and Dr. Appasamy (p. 20 ff) and statements in Findings No. 3 (p. 39, 40). This accordingly seems to be the place at which to begin our corporate thinking. This problem is very closely allied with (a) the determination of the content of Christian dogma and (b) the determination of the seat of authority in the Christian religion, which are the other outstanding problems raised by the Conference.

The following is an attempt to clarify the issue.

1. There is a confusion between “experience” as being the eye and ear witness of certain external events “One of the factors in the apologetic of the Apostles was personal experience, ‘That which we have seen and heard …’” (p. 40), and an inner subjective “experience” such as is claimed for Hindus, e.g., “communion with God” (p. 40, last para). The word is also used on the same page to denote ideas and tendencies in the mind which may or may not have an objective basis, e.g., “an innate desire to believe in an immanent Deity … an unlimited capacity for sacrifice in the cause of religion,” etc. Obviously these things are not all on a par with one another. Father Mascarenhas does not so confuse them, but says clearly (p. 23) that “the facts of what God has done, are not dependent for their truth on human experience, for subjective experience may be a hallucination”.
2. The truth is surely that to experience is one thing, to interpret one’s experience correctly is another. “Experience”, says Dr. Appasamy (p. 21) “shapes theology, when as at Pentecost there occurs an unprecedented experience of which theology must take account”. Yes but theology could make nothing of this “experience” if it had not been given the key to its interpretation in the O.T. Scriptures and the words of the Lord Jesus. “This”, says St. Peter at Pentecost “is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel”. Similarly, the witnessing of the external phenomena of the person and life of Jesus does not of itself yield the Christian “experience”, nor shape the Christian theology. Its true meaning remains “to Jews a stumbling-block, to Greeks foolishness”. As Mr. Martin says (p. 20) “Experience comes of faith, not faith of experience … Religious experience cannot test the reality of the revelation, for everything human is relative and ambiguous”.
3. Thus, the distinctive claim of the Christian religion is not primarily to have a certain experience, though this it also claims; but to hold the only key for rightly interpreting any “religious experience” wherever found, also the only criterion of the validity of such experience”. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, “Him declare we unto you”, says the Christian to the non-Christian. So the New Testament interprets the old, which receives its true meaning for the first time in Christ. So also the Greek Christian theologians interpreted the pagan philosophers, giving substance too much that they had only vaguely surmised. So now it is the task of the Indian Christian theologian to “study and re-interpret non-Christian thought in India, much of the meaning of which they will discover for the first time” (p. 10). What the non-Christian contributes to this process is not another authentic “experience” alongside the Christian, but fresh terms in which to express its meaning. The particular quality of the religious consciousness of any people (e.g., those things which are listed at the bottom of p. 40) does not provide new evidence upon which to base Christian theology, but only, as Fr. Estella says (p. 31), material for “understanding India’s approach to God and God’s approach in Christ to India”.
4. This pushes us back to a prior question upon what grounds do we claim to possess the key for interpreting experience? The Christian answers: “We have it by Revelation”. Here are raised the twin problems of (a) the content of Dogma, which is the summary of revealed truth, and (b) the authority upon which it is held and proclaimed. Thus, Mr. Martin: “Theology is essentially the exposition of the Christian revelation”(p. 13) and Mr. Hort: “The theologian must be primarily … the spokesman of the Word of God and of the Catholic Church”. (p. 16). But is not the receiving of a revelation in itself an “experience”? “Will not then our first question be:”What is the nature of that experience which we call revelation, and in the light of which we interpret and evaluate all other human experience”? I suggest that this question be made the theme for the next conference. It is one which has especial relevance in India, where we are confronted with religions which hold their own, incompatible, theories of revelation, and we shall need in the answering of it, all the learning of those who have made Hinduism and Islam their special fields of study.

Study Outline No. 1

Suggestions for a Study Outline on Revelation

By REV. MARCUS WARD, United Theological College, Bangalore

1. GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY.

   1. The urgency of the subject today in regard to the total task of the Church in face of secular humanism; new” self-consciousness of non-Christian religions, false Messianiams, etc.
   2. The new ‘accord’ between Science and Religion.
   3. Definition of Terms.
      • Revelation and Revelatum.
      • Divine Initiative and human enterprise/response.
      • Revelation and Discovery.
      • Problem of “Natural” Religion and Theology.
      • Revelation and Reason
      • General and Special Revelation.
   4. Course of Idea of Revelation in Christian History.

2. HOW HAS REVELATION BEEN GIVEN?

   1. Necessity of keeping to facts over against prior theories.
   2. Revelation in Nature, Conscience, History.
   3. Relation to (b) of Biblical Revelation and Revelation in the religions of the world.
   4. The Meaning of the Revelation in the Bible. (cf.) Kerygma.
   5. Revelation and Inspiration.

3. THE REVELATION IN CHRIST.

   1. The Gospel facts and the necessity of personal decision.
   2. Necessity of an adequate doctrine of the Incarnation.
   3. The God who speaks.
   4. Implications of Revelation being primarily in act.
   5. The once-for-allness of Revelation in Christ - “Here & Now.”; “All or Nothing”.
   6. Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
   7. Revelation continued in the Church.

4. THE “BARTHIAN” ATTITUDE.

   Estimate of the background, contribution and value of such theologians as Barth, Brunner, Kraemer, Frick.

5. REVELATION IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

   1. Relate to main thread of previous discussion.
   2. Classification of religions according to view of Revelation reflected in sacred scriptures.
   3. Critique of various attitudes to non-Christian religions.
   4. Challenge of Tambaram (e.g., Kraemer and German group and opposing general view).
   5. Relevance of traditional Christian view reflected in Logos doctrine, eye:
   6. Attempt to formulate modern view taking into account all data of comparative study and Biblical criticism.
   7. Implication for Christian “policy” in India.

Suggestions for Bibliography on Revelation

(Selected from enormous literature on the subject.)

• H.M. GWATKIN - THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 2 VOLS. ARTICLE IN E.R.E. VOL. 10.
• BAILLIE AND MARTIN (EDITED) - REVELATION.
• EMIL BRUNNER - THE MEDIATOR; PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION; NATURE AND GRACE.
• W.M. HORTON - CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTAL THEOLOGY.
• KARL BARTH - COMMENTARY ON ROMANS; KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND SERVICE OF GOD; DOGMATIC VOL. 1.
• CAIRNS - THE RIDDLE OF THE WORLD.
• MACDONALD -GOD CREATION AND REVELATION
• KRAEMER - THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IN A NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD.
• LIVINGSTONE PRESS - TAMBARAM SUMMARY REPORT AND RELEVANT SECTIONS OF THE MAIN REPORT.
• FARMER - THE WORLD AND GOD.
• DEWICK - THE INDWELLING GOD.
• SODERBLOM - THE LIVING GOD; REVELATION.
• CHALLENGER - THE EXCELLENCE OF REVEALED RELIGION.
• OTTO - THE IDEA OF THE HOLY; RELIGION’S ESSAYS.
• SMITH - ELEMENTS OF COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY,
• PHILLIPS - THE GOSPEL IN THE WORLD.
• DODD - THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE; THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING; HISTORY AND THE GOSPEL.
• STREETER - THE GOD WHO SPEAKS.
• MACNICOL - IS CHRISTIANITY UNIQUE?
• FARQUHAR - THE CROWN OF HINDUISM.
• MOULION - RELIGION AND RELIGIONS.
• GREGORY - THE UNFINISHED UNIVERSE.
• MARITAIN - TRUE HUMANISM.
• BARRY - THE RELEVANCE OF CHRISTIANITY.
• TEMPLE - NATURE, MAN AND GOD.
• H.W. ROBINSON - REDEMPTION AND REVELATION.
• MACKINTOSH - TYPES OF MODERN THEOLOGY.

Study Outline No. 2

Revelation General and Special

BY DR. A.J. APPASAMY

The Problem Stated

Is there revelation only in Christianity or is there revelation also in other religions? This problem is very pressing at the present time for two reasons:

1. Through the Younger Churches Christianity is in more intimate contact with different religions all over the world today than in any previous age.
2. The scientific method is being applied to the study of religions. All relevant facts are collected, and their meaning is investigated in a spirit of detachment. Is it possible to study religions in a spirit of detachment at all?

The Teaching of Jesus About Other Religions

This is the fountainhead of our Theology. All the relevant passages in the Gospels must be pieced together, and their significance interpreted in the light of Christ’s own life. Where there is no explicit teaching the inward spirit of Christ’s message must be applied.

1. Judaism. Jesus was a loyal and devout Jew and believed that Israel was the race chosen of God for spreading the knowledge of Himself in all the world: Jesus said, ’Salvation is of the Jews”. (John 4:22).

   And yet He recognised the weaknesses of Judaism and pointed them out clearly

   1. The Jewish Scriptures. He studied the Scriptures with loving care and yet showed how imperfect they were, (The Sermon on the Mount),
   2. He acknowledged the burdensomeness and folly of the Jewish tradition. (Matthew 23:16-23).
   3. In His talk with the Samaritan woman He ignored the controversy about the temple in Jerusalem and emphasised the need for the worship of God in spirit and in truth. (John 4:19-24).
   4. He pointed out the hypocrisy and wickedness of the religious leaders of His day. (Matthew 23).

   This does not, however, mean that Jesus was a non-institutionalist. (Matthew 22:23).

   The attitude of Jesus to Judaism may also be true of His relation to Christianity in its present development.

2. Christianity. Christ calls for absolute faith in Him and complete surrender from His followers. He expects them to preach His religion to all the nations of the world.

He condemns all violent methods of conversion. (Luke 9:51-56).

What about subtle methods of conversion? Are our educational and medical institutions adopting subtle methods of conversion?

An Indian Padri said, ‘The worst Christian is better than the best Hindu’ Jesus said, ‘Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven. But he that doth the will of my Father’. (Matthew 7:21-23).

Other Religions. The centurion. (Matthew 7:5-13), The centurion was a non-Christian and yet Jesus commended his faith. Matthew 8:11 refer to non-Christians.

The talk with a Syro-Phoenician woman. She was also a non-Christian. (Matthew 15:21-28)

The Day of Judgement. (Matthew 25:31-46). Many of those who are chosen for eternal life do not seem to have a knowledge of Christ.

‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ (Matthew 7:15-20). The early religious leaders of Hinduism the poets of the Vedic hymns, the authors of the Upanishads and the author of the Gita. Gandhijii’s life of service and sacrifice. Kraemer confessed that he was ‘baffled’ by Gandhijii.

We must also consider the effect of the prophets’ teaching on the lives of their followers. Bishop Gore acknowledges that the prophets of non-Christian religions have exerted on some of their followers a real influence for good. (The Philosophy of the Good Life, pp. 263-264)

We may say that there has been a special revelation of God in Christianity and a general revelation of God in religions other than Christianity.

Hindu Criticism of a Special Revelation. God is eternal and perfect and the Incarnation of Christ is contingent and limited.

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is limited:

1. In time: What happened in the first century cannot be of use for all ages.
2. In space: What helped Palestine cannot help China, India, Africa or Europe.
3. In type of life: Jesus was a Sanyasi and taught that we should take no thought for the morrow; A businessman has to think very much of the morrow. The South Indian Railway line could not have been laid without thought of its future, say, for the next fifty years.

The teaching of Jesus on this point is quite clear He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. (John 14:8-11).

1. The vast majority of people want a concrete embodiment of eternal truth In spite of India’s philosophy the devotion in India has been given to popular figures like Rama or Krishna.
2. Christianity recognises the limitations of the Incarnation. God does give up part of His glory and power and knowledge when He takes birth as a human being. This shows the height and the breadth and the depth of His love for us.

Bibliography

• H. KRAEMER - THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IN A NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD
• H. KRAEMER AND OTHERS - THE AUTHORITY OF THE FAITH
• CHARLES GORE - PHILOSOPHY OF THE GOOD LIFE
• NATHAN SODERBLOM - THE LIVING GOD
• H.H. MONTGOMERY AND OTHERS - MANKIND AND THE CHURCH

Study Outline No. 3A

Can Man Know God?

By Rev. H.V. MARTIN, M.A., B.D.

I regret having to report that so far this group is not in full working order. Mr. V.E. Devadutt who was appointed as joint-convener has been unable so far to give time to it. Mr. Moses whose name was also given, has been ill and thus unable to help so far. In consultation with Dr. Manikam, I have sent out circulars to some members and others asking for their help in drawing out a brief historical survey of this problem under the following 16 headings.

1. Bible
2. Augustine
3. Aquinas
4. Luther and Calvin
5. The Deists
6. Unitarians
7. Schleiermacher, Ritschl and Otto
8. Kierkegaard
9. Barth and Brunner
10. Orthodox Hinduism
11. Brahmo Samaj and Rama-Krishna Mission
12. Parsees
13. Islam
14. Syrian Church
15. (Greek) Orthodox Church
16. Neo-Hinduism

A few answers have come back, for which I am grateful. In the meantime I received a list of 6 members of the Group and I have also circulated them for their help in preparing an outline of study, and a bibliography. My personal feeling is that a study group by correspondence on such a wide subject is going to be very difficult, especially when members will represent differing standpoints. Then again, it will be difficult to avoid covering some of the ground of Groups

1 and 2 which are dealing with Revelation, and with Group 4 which is considering the given element in Christianity. But it seems to me that the particular task of the Group 3 will be to deal with the concept of knowledge of God in relation to man, his appropriation of this knowledge, the point of contact, if any, in man for revelation, the problem of the ‘Imago Dei’ in man, the doctrine of original sin and human corruption, and the question of the relation of God to man as immanent and transcendent. Such large questions cannot be tackled effectively by correspondence in so short a time.

I suggest therefore as Prolegomena that the subject should be approached along the following lines.

1. THE RELIGIOUS SCIENTIST. What is the answer from the standpoint of Science? Is the concept of God possible through the knowledge man had acquired through the scientific approach to reality? Can man in any way rightly know anything of God through the material world as created, and the study of the laws of nature? The material approach to the problem.

2. THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHER. What is the answer from the standpoint of philosophy? Is the concept of God possible directly or indirectly from a study of the human mind, and from the knowledge acquired through human reason? Can the ultimate reality of philosophy, be equated with the term God, and thus known through human reason? The mental approach to the problem.

3. THE RELIGIOUS MYSTIC. What is the answer from the standpoint of Mysticism? Can God be known to man through feeling, in the depths of the human heart, or in Nature? Is it really God who is experienced there? What is the content of such knowledge of God arrived at through inner feeling? Is the God the Hindu mystic finds the same as the one the Christian mystic finds? The emotional approach.

4. THE RELIGIOUS DOGMATIST. Is knowledge of God possible through revealed truth given from above through special persons and recorded in special books? Is knowledge of God the acceptance of dogma and wholly conditioned by it? Is the given element in dogma fixed and final? Is such a ‘given’ revelation not subject to any further expansion? In relation to rival dogmas, (i.e.) Christian and Islamic, claiming to give the true knowledge of God, how is man to choose? From this standpoint is the knowledge of God the same in Islam as in Christianity? The Dogmatic approach.

5. THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN. As I see this problem, taking the Holy Scriptures as the norm and standard; through which the Word of God is mediated to us by the Holy Spirit, the question so asked “Can man know God?” Is not a Christian question at all, not a question with which the Christian as such is concerned. There are two main reasons for this.

   1. The question in this form presupposes an objective, impersonal standpoint, that of a spectator. Can a man, any man as man, know God as God? From the Christian standpoint there is only one answer to this question so framed, and that is, emphatically No. Man as man can never in all his life know God as God in this way, as an object of knowledge. The knowledge of God presupposes a personal interest on the part of man, and so long as the problem is pursued as, so often it is both scientifically, philosophically ethically, in this objective impersonal manner, man cannot get beyond his own imaginings and speculations. The God he comes to know is an impersonal God of his own make-up, consciously or unconsciously; and not the living true God of whom the Bible speaks, We must therefore frame the question as follows. “Can I know God?”

      Here again, however, it is not just a personal enquiry, on the circumference of our life. The problem of the knowledge of God from the Christian standpoint is an existential problem, existential in the sense of an acute realisation that my very existence depends upon the answer to it. It is not a question which I can ask casually and occasionally, as a matter of curious interest. It is only when I myself am so thoroughly involved in the question that it becomes THE question of my life, a question that burns in my soul till nothing else matters but this; only when I know with flaming certainty that my existence is blackness and terror and an abyss until. I come to know God my Maker only when I am inwardly convinced that my whole life, my present and future destiny, hangs upon this question, and its answer, and that I am ready to venture all, to count the whole world lost and well lost if only I can find God; only then can an answer come. The knowledge of God is existential knowledge, and can only be existentially appropriated, that is, by Christian faith.

   2. The second reason why the question “Can man know God?” is not a Christian question at all is that it presupposes that God can in some ways become an object of human knowledge; that somehow there is a communication of knowledge, the revelation of certain truths, which man is to accept on the authority of the Church, or the inward witness of the Spirit, or both. But a knowledge of God in this sense means that God becomes one object of knowledge amongst other objects of knowledge, of the same quality and commensurate, the one with the other. This presupposition cuts right across the Biblical testimony that God is and remains always subject, a Sovereign Lord, and does not and cannot, as God, submit Himself to be known by man in the way that man knows other persons and things. Even in His self-revelation, God never becomes an object to man; He remains subject, addressing man through His Word. This is the paradox of Christian revelation, that at one and the same time an unveiling and a veiling; Christ reveals God and yet at the same time that revelation is a hidden one, never directly apparent, but subject to the existential decision of faith. Strictly speaking therefore, I cannot know God, in the sense that I know other things and other persons. If we are to preserve the Biblical emphasis, and stand by the ‘otherness’ of God as God, we must again alter the form of our question, as follows. “Can I be known of God?”

To this, the Christian answer is YES, through faith in Christ. This preserves the emphasis that God in His self-revelation cannot become an object of human knowledge but remains always Subject, and is stressed by Paul. “After that ye have known God, or rather, are known of God”. (Galatians 4:9) The possible relation between man and God thus becomes one of acknowledgement rather than one of knowledge. Understood in this sense, we avoid the danger of irrational Dogmatism on the one hand, and that of irrational Mysticism on the other. “Can I be known of God?”. To this, the Christian Gospel returns the glad answer YES. In Christ, we are known of God, and to be known of God is eternal life.

Whether the study group can proceed along these lines or not, and what help the Indian religious heritage can give us in our study of this problem, remains to be seen. Perhaps from the above statement, some criticisms may come that will help us forward.

Can Man Know God? Bibliography

• KRAEMER - CHRISTIAN, MESSAGE CH. 4 and 5
• FARQUHAR - MODERN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
• RADHAKRISHNAN - EASTERN RELIGIONS AND WESTERN THOUGHT
• G.S. HENDRY - GOD THE CREATOR CH. 1
• BRUNNER - GOD AND MAN CH. 1 and 2
• BARTH - KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND SERVICE OF GOD
• BARTH - DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD CD. 1
• BRUNNER - MEDIATOR BR. 1 CH. 1-5
• BRUNNER - PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION CH. 5 and 6
• CAMFIELD - REVELATION AND THE HOLY SPIRIT
• A.E. TAYLOR - FAITH OF A MORALIST
• JOHN BAILLIE - OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
• JOHN OMAN - HONEST RELIGION
• K.E. KIRK - THE VISION OF GOD
• K.E. KIRK - GOD AND THE WORLD
• R.D. RANADE - MYSTICISM IN MAHARASHTRA CH. 4
• TAMBARAM SERIES Vol. I - CONTRIBUTIONS BY PROFS. HOGG AND FARMER
• KIERKEGAARD - PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS
• KIERKEGAARD - CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT

Study Outline No. 3B

Can Man Know God? A Syllabus for Study

BY V. DEVADUTT

1. WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?

   1. Definition of terms generally used:-Knowledge; Experience; Apprehension and Understanding.
   2. Presuppositions of Knowledge: - The Subject; the Object.
   3. The knowledge process: - The Rationalist and Empiricist. Controversy examined.
   4. Knowledge as wider than anything covered by the intellectual life alone.
   5. Varying degrees of intimacy in knowledge, varying with the operation of a part or the whole of the personality.
   6. A tentative constructive statement.

2. THE STATUS OF THE CONTENT OF KNOWLEDGE.

   1. The Kantian Phenomenology
   2. The Relativism of the Agnostics. Dean Mansel.
   3. The Advaita critique of empirical knowledge.
   4. The Barthian critique of the individual’s capacities.

3. SOME PROBLEMS ARISING OUT OF THE ABOVE DISCUSSION,

   1. Faith arising out of the moral consciousness as the only ground on which to make religious affirmations. Kant; John Baillie.

   2. Revelation as the only source of information about God and God’s nature:

      1. Revelation as defined by Indian thinkers-Sankara and Ramanuja.
      2. Revelation as defined by the Schoolmen and the Roman Church.
      3. Revelation as defined by Barthians.

4. THE PROBLEM OF REVELATION CRITICALLY EXAMINED.

   1. Revelation and the Intellectual enterprise. In the case of the claims of rival Revelations, does a dogmatic judgement satisfy; is it ever fair and honest? Is intellectual criticism ruled out?
   2. Does Revelation rule out cognitive activity?
   3. Does Revelation necessarily imply that the movement to know from the side of the subject is doomed to futility?

5. A THEORY IN CONSTRUCTION,

   1. The term ‘knowledge’ is used generally in too narrow a sense, i.e., as if knowledge were the result solely of the operations of the intellect. Other factors in personality besides the intellect are often involved.
   2. Intellectual knowledge qua intellectual knowledge suffers from many disadvantages. Bergson’s critique of intellectual knowledge.
   3. There is what might be called ‘integral knowing’ - a knowing which involves the whole personality; in ‘integral knowing” the whole personality is keyed to a keen pitch of sensibility and is capable of genuine religious vision. This may be called ’Intuitive knowing’.

6. MYSTICISM

   1. Mysticism is akin to Intuitive knowing.
   2. Various types of mysticism examined.
   3. Indian mysticism - various schools.
   4. Certain specific dangers of mysticism and certain metaphysical assumptions of mysticism, especially of some Indian Schools critically examined
   5. Yoga as a method of mysticism and its possibilities as a Christian discipline.

7. A STUDY OF ST. JOHN’S GOSPEL

   1. What does ‘knowing’ mean in the Gospel? What does blindness or ‘ignorance’ mean in various contexts in the Gospel?
   2. A Study of the use of the words oisa and yivwekw in the Gospel.
   3. What are the functions of the ttapakhytos?
   4. Does the Gospel teach that we can know God? If it teaches that we can know Him under what conditions?
   5. What is the meaning of such teaching as: - “In that day ye shall know that I am in my father, and ye in me, and I in you”? In what way does this close intimacy of indwelling affect our cognitive activity?

Bibliography: Indian Literature

1. Sankara’s Commentary on Brahma-Sutras - Translated by G. Thibaut, Sacred Books of the East. Vols. S4 and S5.
2. Brahma-Sutra Catubsutri with Sankara’a Commentary - Translated by Har Dutt Sarma, Poona Oriental Book Depot, Poona.
3. Ramanuja’s Commentary on Brahma-Sutras - Translated by G. Thibaut, Sacred Books of the East. Vol. 58.
4. Vedantaparibhasha - Translated by S. Suryanarayana Sastri, Theosophical Society. Adyar.
5. Six Ways of Knowing - D.M. Datta, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
6. Nyaya Theory of Knowledge - S.O. Chatterji, Calcutta University.
7. Saiva Siddhanta - Violet Paranjothi, Luzac & Co.
8. A History of Indian Philosophy Vols 1 and 3 - S.N. Das Gupta, Cambridge University Press.

Other Literature

1. AULLEN, BARTH ETC. - REVELATION, FABER AND FABER
2. BAILLIE, JOHN - OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS;
3. BAILLIE, JOHN - THE INTERPRETATION OF RELIGION, T & T CLARK
4. BARTH, KARL - THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND SERVICE OF GOD, HODDER AND STOUGHTON
5. BARTH, KARL - THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD
6. BENNETT, C.A. - THE DILEMMA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, NEW HAVEN
7. BERGSON, A. - AN INTRODUCTION TO METAPHYSICS, MACMILLAN
8. BERGSON, A. - CREATIVE EVOLUTION, MACMILLAN
9. BHUNNER, E. - THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, IVOR, NICKOLSON AND WATSON
10. BRUNNER, E. - THE THEOLOGY OF CRISIS, CHARLES SCRIBNER AND SONS
11. CARINS, D.S. - THE RIDDLE OF THE WORLD, S.O.M. PRESS
12. DE BURGH, W.G. - TOWARDS A RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, MACDONALD AND EVANS
13. DE BURGH, W.G. - FROM MORALITY TO RELIGION, MACDONALD AND EVANS
14. HEIM, KARL - GOD TRANSCENDENT, NISBET
15. HOCKING, W.E. - TYPES OF PHILOSOPHY, SCRIBNER
16. FR. VON HUGEL - THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION, J.M. DENT & CO.
17. FR. VON HUGEL - ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, J.M. DENT and CO.
18. HOYLE, B. - THE TEACHING OF BARTH, S.C.M. PRESS
19. INGE, W.R. - PERSONAL IDEALISM AND MYSTICISM
20. LINDSAY, A.D. - THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH
21. MAOKINTOSE, H.R. - THE CHRISTIAN APPREHENSION OF GOD
22. MACKINTOSH, D.E. - THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH. CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY
23. MOCONNACHIE, J. - THE BARTHIAN THEOLOGY, HODDER AND STOUGHTON
24. OMAN, J. - THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
25. OMAN, J. - VISION AND AUTHORITY, HODDER AND STOUGHTON
26. OTTO, R. - MYSTICISM, EAST AND WEST, MACMILLAN
27. RADHAKRISHNAN, S. - AN IDEALIST VIEW OF LIFE, GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN
28. RADHAKRISHNAN, S. - EASTERN RELIGIOUS AND WESTERN THOUGHT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
29. SODERBLOM - THE LIVING GOD, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
30. SODERBLOM - THE NATURE OF REVELATION, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
31. TAMBRAM SERIES - THE AUTHORITY OF FAITH, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
32. TAYLOR, A.E. - THE FAITH OF A MORALIST, MACMILLAN
33. TEMPLE, W. - NATURE, MAN AND GOD, MACMILLAN
34. TENANT, E.R. - PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
35. WEBB, C.C.J. - PROBLEMS IN THE RELATIONS OF GOD AND MAN, NISBET

Study Outline No. 4

What Elements in Christianity May Be Said to Be Given?

BY C.S. PAUL

Preliminary Considerations

1. .

   1. Can we speak of anything, in experience in general or religions experience in particular, as absolutely given?

   2. Is it not true to say that the given element forms part of experience only through interpretation?

   3. In the light of the answer to the above questions do we regard as absolutely valid the distinction often made between

      1. Natural Religion and Revealed Religion
      2. General Revelation and Special Revelation?

   4. Again it is said that the primary function of the Christian Revelation is not illumination but salvation; is that antithesis justified?

   5. Revelation is said to be not imparting of information or encounter with truth but encounter with a person. In the light of, “I am the way, the truth and the life”, is there not a reconciliation between encounter with truth and encounter with a person possible?

   6. If encounter with Christ is to lead to repentance, then is not a Christian background in knowledge pre-supposed? Will one who has learnt to think of sin as ‘ignorance’ be led to repentance, if at all he encounters Christ Jesus? Or will one whose ideas of God are different from those of a Christian ever encounter Christ in such a way as to lead to repentance and salvation?

   7. Usually the existing system of knowledge determines the nature and contents of the particular knowledge and too often a revolutionary new discovery may react on the whole and alter the nature of that whole. E.g., the Copernican revolution in Astronomy. If so God’s encounter with the world of men through the special revelation in Jesus Christ might alter our whole system of thinking and acting in religion and in that sense the revelation will be revolutionary. If so we need not draw the contrast between reason and faith or between natural and revealed religion so absolutely as is done in certain quarters.

   8. Man is a sinner, but he is a sinner made in the image of God, for man alone can be a sinner and not the brute beasts. The initiative for men’s salvation will certainly have to be from God, but without man’s free willed co-operation can God save him? Can man give that free willed co-operation without knowing what it is all about? Is not such knowledge the result of an encounter with a God who enlightens the mind as well as helps the will attitude? Can we explain the necessity for the death on the cross except in the light of these conditions of man’s salvation?

2. .

   1. Before thinking about the given elements in Christianity, we must also make up our minds on the validity of the distinction between the Religion of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit. Is such a distinction valid in knowledge in general and in Christianity in particular, which claims to be a religion of revelation?”
   2. A religion of revelation would need an authoritative interpretation of that revelation. Where does that authority lie? Is it in the Bible? In the Church? In Christ? In the Holy Spirit Who will lead us into all truth and knowledge or is it in all of them put together?
   3. Is there progressive revelation? Is there progressive interpretation of the revealed truth? Have we in a revelation finality? For example. Is the fact of Christ final as interpreted by any one age?
   4. We may distinguish between the given element and its progressive interpretation, but can we separate them in practice?

What Then Are the Given Elements?

1. The Fact of Jesus Christ?

   1. Is He a mere historic fact?
   2. How do we relate the historic with the Eternal Christ?
   3. Does the doctrine of the Trinity help us in this connection?
   4. Was He God and man in one person?
   5. Is virgin birth a given fact or necessary to understand the fact of incarnation?
   6. What light does the death on the cross throw on God’s scheme of salvation?
   7. Resurrection, Ascension and Judgement?

2. The Fact and Problem of Sin.

   1. Is sin merely a violation of a divine command? A wrong will attitude? An error due to ignorance? A rebellion on the part of a creature against a loving Creator God?
   2. In what way can we distinguish between sin and the sinner?

3. Salvation.

   1. What is God’s scheme of salvation?
   2. The place and meaning of the cross?
   3. How relate the cross on Calvary with cross on the heart of God ?
   4. Salvation through works versus salvation through faith and the grace of God.
   5. The meaning of repentance, forgiveness, redeem ton, justification and sanctification.
   6. Can man be saved through God’s initiative alone without man’s intelligent free willed co-operation?

4. God.

   1. Creator, Redeemer and Father Almighty.
   2. God the Father, God the Only Begotten Son, and God the Holy Ghost? One in Three, Three in One?

5. The Bible.

   1. Have O. T. and N. T. scriptures the same value?
   2. In what sense inspired?
   3. What is the real place and authority of the Bible?

6. The Church and the Creeds.

   1. What is the Church? The Body of Christ?
   2. Did Christ found the Church? Is it the divinely fashioned instrument of God’s grace?
   3. Can such a Church be divided?
   4. What is the place and authority of the Church Universal and the councils of such a Church?
   5. Can the Creed be altered? Can the Creed be a confession of faith if statements in it are not believed or understood in a sense other than what was originally meant by them?

7. The Sacraments.

   1. What is a sacrament?
   2. Holy Communion and Baptism, were they instituted by Jesus? And that as a means of grace?

If we roughly take the above seven elements as the given elements in Christianity, we become only painfully aware of the fact that there is not much unanimity in regard to any one of them in the different denominations of the Church and yet a professing Christian is expected to take one or other of the recognised attitudes to each one of the seven points. Our differences in many cases, according to the answers we would give to the questions raised under each head, will be so great as to lead to the question -have we anything at all that we may refer to as the given element? None of the above facts are simple, but highly complex permitting of different answers. Where then do we find finality and unity in Christianity?

Bibliography

1. What it means to be a Christian - Rt. Rev. A.C. Headlam
2. Foundations of Belief - A.J. Balfour
3. Scientific Theory of Religion - Rt. Rev. E.W. Barnes
4. The Bible, the Church and Reason - C.A. Briggs
5. Introduction to the Creeds - A.E. Burn
6. Spiritual experience - A. Clutton Brock
7. The Psychology of Grace - C.W. Emmet
8. The Bible, its Origin and Nature - Marcus Dods
9. Philosophy of Religion - G. Galloway
10. What is Christianity? - A. Harnack
11. Mystical Element of Religion - Baron Von Hugel
12. Doctrine of the Person of Christ - H.R. Mackintosh
13. God in Christian Thought and Experience - W.R. Matthews
14. The Faith of a Moralist - A.B. Taylor
15. Christian Theology - Rt. Rev. A.O. Headlam
16. The Gospel in Experience - S.H. Childs
17. The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World - H. Kraemer

The Christian Doctrine of Revelation

(With Some Reference to Hindu Teaching)

BY Rev. W. STEWART

Introduction

Religion concerns traffic between God and man. It presupposes at least some knowledge of God on the part of man, knowledge which must ultimately come from God. This would imply that some doctrine of “revelation” should be found in all religions, as is indeed the case. But for our understanding of what the doctrine will be, of what will be the method or form of revelation, a great deal depends on our understanding of the relation between God and man. Radhakrishnan answers for Hinduism by saying “there is a cordial harmony between God and man in Indian thought” and this assumption of harmony seems to underlie the main emphasis of Hindu belief. It is this which makes it possible for the same writer to say further that for Hinduism “‘know the self’ sums up the law and the prophets, which claims that the final truth of the universe, of God and man, is discoverable in Man’s own inmost soul, did he but learn to look aright.” For such a religion it is right to say that “revelation” is but another name for “discovery”, found, as Kraemer says, in the supreme moments of religious experience, in which man pierces the veil to find the ultimate truth in his own soul.

Biblical religion consistently sounds a contrasting note expressed in such texts as “God is in heaven and thou upon earth.” (Ecclesiastes 5:2.) Fundamentally the Bible teaches that between God and man there is a great gulf fixed, first because God is the Creator and man the creature, and still more seriously because man is a sinner, a rebel. Therefore, it cannot be easily assumed that man and God will walk together; on the contrary the vital problem is that of bridging this gulf, which man the creature and the rebel cannot cross himself. The ultimate need is not for illumination and knowledge, but for salvation, because for man to be alienated from his Creator is calamity, yet he cannot save himself. In consequence, though individual teachers have sometimes wavered, the great currents of Christian thought have never ceased to emphasise that in Revelation the initiative must, ever rest with God. In the symposium on “Revelation”, edited by Prof. Baillie, the unanimity on this point stands out strikingly in the midst of much divergence on other matters, Brunner puts the matter vigorously, but I think most Christian thinkers are one with him: “Revelation in the Biblical sense of the word means this, that in the event of revelation something is said to me which, apart from this event, is not accessible to me, but is and remains concealed; something then, which most certainly does not dwell within me, in any depth of my own being, something therefore which I can neither control nor judge”.

1. An Orthodox View - Objectivity

There is a strain of Christian teaching, so Constantly reappearing and so well established in popular thought, that it might almost be taken as the classical view. It owes much of its formal expression to Thomas Aquinas, but it is older than he, and younger also. This teaching divides human knowledge, information and understanding, into two great departments, like a two-storey building. In the one department is “natural knowledge”, what man can discover for himself by the unaided use of observation and reason. In the other comes “revealed knowledge” what man could not discover for himself, but which has been communicated by God through the channels of revelation. “Natural knowledge” does not include all knowledge of things divine. On the contrary it is held that a considerable “Natural Theology” can be built, up on rational grounds. For example in the Christian tradition, it is usually believed that by natural means one can establish that. God is One, that He is the Creator, omnipotent and just. St. Paul himself asserts in the Epistle to the Romans that God has shown enough of Himself and His will in creation to make man “without excuse” if he falls into sin by ignoring or defying what is made known there. In the same category comes the conception of a natural moral law, written in the heart, the implications of which may be developed irrespective of supernatural communication. Much has been achieved with this conception, and it would appear to be sheer perversity to argue as Karl Barth so vigorously does, that there is no such thing as “Natural Theology”, which, apart from anything else, has good Scriptural authority.

But the doctrine, we are describing adds the second storey of “revealed knowledge” in which category it places such doctrines as that of the Trinity, or the mode of creation, or Eschatology. This is information which we could not conceivably have found for ourselves - it comes from God Himself, mediated through some channel of revelation.

This analysis of our knowledge of God has much to commend it, and its main outline must remain the basis of a proper doctrine of revelation. It is nonsense to deny that there is a knowledge of God given in nature and reason, and especially in the moral law, and this analysis recognises this, while at the same time, it sets limits to human pride with the recognition that man is not the master of the universe but in some things at least must be a humble learner. Yet both in itself, and still more, as it works out in practice, the doctrine is open to serious criticism.

1. Barth is right in showing how fatally easy it is to be too optimistic about what may be achieved by the unaided use of human faculties. Natural Theology does not speak with a single voice. We need only recall the wide variety of often mutually contradictory teachings that have been given under the Gifford Lectureship on Natural Religion, to prove that. The belief that natural observation can yield a consistent view of the truth of God has probably grown largely because in the main it was worked out in Christian countries, and writers failed to note how ’often their conclusions were really conditioned by Christian presuppositions. In India this mistake is less likely to be made, and nature speaks in an ambiguous voice, while naturalistic religions in the chaos of their conflicting creeds make sport of the glib assumption that unaided nature teaches clearly that God is One, or that He is just or loving, or even the Creator.

2. Then in practice it becomes of first importance to see that the “revealed truth” is mediated, kept from corruption, and guaranteed. Man has ever and again sought to construct for this truth some secure framework of dogma on which to depend. Best known is the claim of the Roman Catholic Church, asserting infallibility for itself, ultimately concentrated in the Pope. The Roman Catholic member of the Poona Conference last December intervened more than once in discussion to point out the necessity of God having provided with revealed truth an infallible Interpretation of that truth. Actually in Protestantism too we find similar eagerness to safeguard the deposit of revealed truth from question or corruption, not in an infallible Church, but by an infallible Book, the information contained in which is taken as final. In each case the boundary between truths of reason and revelation, which is called for by the theory, is blurred. Thus, while the Roman Church was prepared to use the Inquisition to suppress Galileo’s discovery that the earth is a star moving round the sun, because it contradicted their “revealed truth”, the Protestant Church has no better record in its conflict with the science which insisted that the age of the world cannot be summed up in the six thousand years of biblical history. Actually the claim for an objective criterion of this kind, especially in the Fundamentalist Protestant form comes dangerously near the Mohammedan view of revelation, which makes the Quran an oracle of God, which He dictated with final authority, and cannot be questioned.

3. The root of the weakness lies in the fact that the “revealed truth” is finally regarded as in the nature of information. It may not be otherwise accessible to unaided man, but it remains information which man can take charge of, and in a sense possess. The knowledge of the method of creation, or of the nature of the Trinity becomes part of our property or equipment, and both Roman Catholicism and the Fundamentalist are eager to provide this kind of truth on which we may lay firm hold. It appeals to a strong characteristic of human nature, a desire for security, something Brunner trenchantly describes by saying: “A man wants to have something firm in his hand, with which to fight his battles.” But this idea of revelation as primarily the imparting of information fails to take seriously the fact that God is the living God and because He is the Lord, encounter with Him will not primarily lead to a mere imparting of information. Mere reception of information leaves us the same rebels, claiming to be master of God the Lord. As Brunner says again, it is not the imparting of knowledge which is the heart of this event, but God’s claim upon me. The analogy is not the imparting of information, but an encounter with a person, and that Person the Lord of our life which demands a change in me, The central fact remains that a man is a creature a sinner alienated from his Lord, and so, as Kraemer has well said the root problem is not the mastery of knowledge, but “how can sinful man really walk with God, the holy and the righteous, in unbroken and undefiled fellowship?

2. The Reaction-Subjectivism

Throughout Christian history this objectivism though strong has never gone long unchallenged. There have repeatedly arisen movements claiming a direct knowledge of God, apart from the hard dogmas of the Church. The best known in the early Church were the Montanists, who claimed divine inspiration as prophets of a new age, and set their inspired vision on a level with, or above, the Scriptures. The Reformation which broke the fetters of an authoritarian Church soon brought’a new authoritarianism in Fundamentalism, but it also led to a new individualism in sects like the Anabaptists. The Quakers lay main stress on the Inner Light, and in our own day, though they have largely kept Scripture in the central place, the Oxford Group have sometimes been in danger of giving private revelations final authority. Besides the sects with their greater or lesser individuality, there has been a strain of mysticism in the Christian tradition, which looks for more direct experience of the Divine. The whole movement finds strong justification as a protest against the errors of orthodoxy. It stresses the truth that God is a living God, and His dealings with men are the dealings of a living Personality with living persons, not to be enchained in mechanical rules and traditions. It thus underlines a thoroughly Christian emphasis in maintaining that God’s word must be heard by me as a living word to be real in my life.

This interpretation brings us much nearer the Hindu outlook. It is true that the Hindu refers to the Veda as authoritative Scripture, but the interpreters of Hindu thought insist that there is nothing in the Veda which cannot be found for himself by the seeker, and there is no criterion which can assert itself above that within the self. The seeker is ultimately an individualist. He gives honoured place to rational thought, but whether his way is of knowledge, devotion or service, he knows that the intellect is not enough. He seeks for a “darsana”, a spiritual perception, a whole view revealed to the soul sense. The goal is reached in a flash of intuition involving the whole personality. Such a perception is essentially private, not to be communicated to another. Radhakrishnan emphasises this by quoting approvingly the words; “God put it into my head, and I cannot put it into yours.”

1. An obvious criticism of this interpretation of revelation is the lack of any criterion revealed in such a remark as that just quoted. If the ultimate experience of truth is something which happens entirely within myself, why should my vision not be as good as yours? Actually the Hindu concedes the relativity of the whole process and interprets this as an example of the wide tolerance of his religion. Thus, Bhattacharya says there is no A priori necessity of a system and still less for a system admitting of no alternative systems. But the matter is more serious for the Christian, who cannot concede that truth is relative. Yet where in Christian tradition, sects or mystics have neglected the Pauline injunction to “hold fast the Head”, a similar relativism has set in, and the history of such sects has shown such diverse and chaotic beliefs and practices as celibacy and promiscuity, tongues and spiritual healing, prophecies of the end and Perfectionist doctrines, holding in turn the central place.

2. More serious than this intellectual rudderlessness is the frequent lack of moral earnestness involved. The Hindu may demand a spiritual preparation of the seeker which involves moral purification, but there is not in the pantheistic conception of God anything to claim an active positive ethical impulse. Temple seems justified in saying, Wherever Ultimate Reality is so conceived as to make our appropriate attitude to it a contemplative absorption or absorbed contemplation, this must always be so. Only where the Ultimate Reality is known as Righteous, can religious devotion become a source of ethical inspiration. In the Christian tradition too, when subjective experience has claimed too central a place, there has often been failure in moral seriousness. St. Paul early perceived that even overwhelming spiritual experiences among his converts who could “speak with tongues”, might be accompanied by great moral laxity, and this perception has often been repeated.

3. Actually we have not escaped the idea that what is happening is basically something we have achieved or gained, we have added to our knowledge of ultimate reality by methods which we control. Selfish individualism so far from being modified by such an experience may actually be reinforced, and St. Paul rightly observed that “Knowledge puffeth up”. Hinduism shows it in the kind of deification accorded to the spiritual guru. There have been Christian mystics, of the type of Meister Eckhart, whose language has sometimes implied a similar claim. But more commonly in the Christian tradition it has manifested itself in the self-confident, proud intolerance of the sect against other Christians.

4. The trouble is that while the objectivist forgets that God is the living God, not to be contained within mechanical rule, the subjectivist has forgotten the guilt of sin between man and God. It has been called the “fallacy of the unbroken unity,” the belief that the way is open and man can by searching find out God. Indeed with Hinduism, as for that matter with most philosophy, one has the curious sense that the thinker himself creates God, postulating what his theory demands that God should be like. As Brunner says, such a God can never be the Lord. Herein this school of thought differs radically from the Biblical conception of revelation. As Dewick has pointed out, the Biblical view finds vivid expression in words like those of “Woe unto you who desire the day of the Lord! Wherefore would ye have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light.” (Amos 5:8). Such a sentence recalls that for sinful man the encounter with the Holy God must first mean judgement. It is paralleled in the New Testament, when St. Peter says to Jesus “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8.)

3. The Biblical Conception: The Act of God

In the world of the Bible, a conception that differs from both types so far considered. The fundamental point of difference seems to be that, for the men of the Bible, revelation is not primarily concerned with the imparting of information - to fill the gaps in our knowledge - by authoritative statement or inner intuition but with the direct encounter with God the Lord. God does not impart information: He gives Himself, and He makes a claim. It does not mean that no information is involved, for the encounter leads to a new illumination and grasp of truth otherwise concealed, but this is secondary and derivative. It is the encounter with the Lord which is primary.

We may recall some outstanding events, in Biblical history which illustrate this. There is the call of Abraham, father of the Hebrew race, who heard the command. “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee.” (Genesis 12:1.) Or the call of Moses at the Burning Bush, struggling with God’s inexorable command to return to Egypt to free his people. Or repeatedly in the prophets, Isaiah in the temple overwhelmed by the presence of God and sent forth by Him to preach; Jeremiah with his protest that he is but a child, Amos saying “God took me from following the flock.” There is the same note in the New Testament where the disciples ‘hear the command: “Follow me,” where St. Paul hears from Ananias” The God of our father hath appointed thee to know His will.” (Acts 22:11.) Indeed, all the time the revelation is not of general truths but Divine will. St. Paul sums it up’in his letter to the Ephesians: “He made known unto us the mystery of His will” (Ephesians 1:9.) As a final example remember the disciples’ request for information about the time of the end, with Christ’s reply that it was known to none, and the summons to be ready. In Revelation, we meet our Lord and Master, and as MacConnachie puts it “The Word of God, arrests a man, telling him he is not his own.”

The encounter involves at least three elements:

1. There is judgement, conviction of sin. To this we referred at the end of the last section. To meet the Lord must mean a conviction of unworthiness. It is more than the humility of the creature before his Creator; it is the shrinking of the guilty in the presence of the Holy. Isaiah’s expression, “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaias 6:7.) is a type of all and the message of the prophets invariably contains a summons to repentance, a summons equally clear on the lips of Jesus, Who began to preach saying “repent ye.”. The Bible does not know an easy way to blessedness in God’s presence, nor that it is a comfortable thing for a man to meet his God.

2. But with the judgement there is also mercy, and this is indeed the fundamental utterance of Biblical revelation. The drawing nigh to God is not for condemnation but for redemption. It is what man could not do for himself that God has done. The gulf has been bridged, from God’s side. This is the sure proclamation of the Gospel This Gospel rings out in all its marvellous beauty in Christ Himself, the Word became flesh. His coming is God’s utterly gracious word, reaching to sinful men. His Passion is the final declaration of the love which saves to the innermost. The Prophets pointed forward to this revelation, for they who know God’s judgement also sense He is Redeemer Knowing that it is of His grace that we are not consumed, they know there is forgiveness with Him, and point forward confidently to the unveiling of His grace. And it is to this revelation that the apostles bear witness, for they have known its supreme reality in their own hearts and lives.

3. Finally, there is the claim upon man. The Germans love to express this by a play on two related words, “Gabe” meaning a gift and “Aufgabe” meaning a task. The gift is offered, and with it a task is required. The task is laid on us, but with it the gift of God’s grace The Bible references made above illustrate this fully. They, confirm abundantly that Biblical revelation is not the expanding of our knowledge, that which we possess, it means rather that we are ourselves possessed by another, the discovery that “We are not our own”. It demands that we yield the central place in our universe to the Lord of the Universe. As St. Paul says, “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s”. (1 Corinthians 3:21,28) Everything else may be fitted into our systems, but not God - He is the Lord. As Temple puts it: “Revelation does not consist primarily in propositions concerning Christ to which my intellect may assent, it is in Christ Himself to whom my whole personality must bow”. In revelation there is a supreme claim upon the whole man.

All this means that the truth of Biblical revelation is of another order from general philosophical truth. The philosopher looks for something neutral, and timeless, open to discovery by any man who will search aright, open to abstract rational demonstration, independent of any personal decision, For such a frame of mind truth embodied in an event, in an encounter demanding decision, is, as to the Greeks, foolishness. Yet this is the truth the Bible proclaims, saying “Grace and truth came in Jesus Christ.” Such truth is received only by submission of the whole personality to a living Lord which is faith, it requires “existential thinking”, thinking that involves us personally, our total response to the living God. This we cannot possess or demonstrate, but about it, we can bear witness. Indeed, God has chosen “witness” as the supreme instrument by which His truth is imparted to men. As St. Paul says, “It has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21).

This conception has in it both elements of subjectivity and objectivity that men have sought. It is objective, because the individual must be addressed from without. If there is one thing certain it is that what I hear is not the creation of my own heart, the Word is not discovered in my own soul. Yet it is also subjective for, to be real to me, I myself must hear the Word. It comes to me first through the witness of others, for there is no private source of discovery, but I cannot be saved by hearsay, I myself must hear the word of the Lord.

4. The Word of God

A. Christ

Christians are unanimous in finding the heart of revelation in Jesus Christ, of whom St. John said The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. The Incarnation Revelation is par excellence. Many writers point out the striking fact, noted especially by Kraemer that it is not the immanentist religions with their “cordial harmony between man and God” which know the Incarnation. These may have theophanies, manifestations of God often repeated, but not the decisive bridging of the gulf, for they do not know the gulf. It is Biblical religion, acutely aware of the guilt, which knows the Incarnation. Dewick points out that indeed Immanence and Incarnation are mutually exclusive, for the former admits of degrees, while the latter is absolute - once for all.

The fact that the core of the revelation is in Christ Himself means that Christianity is rooted in history - in an event. Attempts have been made to find the core of Christianity elsewhere, as in the teaching of Jesus. This would remove the offence of historicity, and bring Christianity into line with other thought, for the general truth of a teaching does not depend on the historicity of its teacher. Temple justly points out that in the Sacred Books of the East “the” cause of religion is not regarded as damaged by an admission that the stories in the books are legendary and no more.” It is not so with Christianity. Here we stand or fall with the historicity of the Incarnation. The crux lies here, that the story is no “myth”, but in very truth God has bridged the gulf between Himself and man in Christ. “If Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain. (1 Corinthians 15:14.)

1. Our first point is therefore that Christ Himself is the Revelation. Not His teachings, and not any propositions about Him, but Christ Himself and His claim upon us. In yielding to that claim we yield to God. Here let us note how completely different is the position of Jesus from that of other personalities of Scripture. The prophet is essentially a witness, declaring what he has seen and heard. His typical word is “The Word of the Lord came to me, saying.” The typical word of Jesus is “I say into you” Scripture bears witness to Him, as He Himself noted: “Ye search the Scriptures … and these ’are they which bear witness to me”. (John 5:39) They are the witnesses. He is the Principal. In Him is the Act of God.

2. Secondly, He is the Criterion. We are often asked for the proof whereby we judge Jesus to be the Son of God, the Ultimate Revelation. If there could be an answer to this demand, it would itself show the claim to be false It would imply that something other than Christ, something in our own control, our reason, or our acceptance of miracle or of other authority, occupied a place higher than Christ, so that we could test Him by this standard, which would then hold the central place. But if He is the ultimate revelation, then He bears His own authentication in Himself. As Brunner says, “There is no standard within ourselves by which we can judge Jesus to be God”. Elliot urges the same thing: “Ultimately apart from revelation, there seems to be no criterion of philosophical credibility”. And, to quote Brunner again, “There neither can nor should be any criterion of divine revelation assignable beforehand”. There is no more ultimate criterion, Jesus Himself is the standard by which all else is judged.

3. But then, thirdly, how do we recognise and acknowledge Him? I can but refer to history of St. Peter, with his confession of Christ “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, and Jesus’ acknowledgement. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” The knowledge is there overwhelmingly when a man is truly addressed by God, and in faith responds with his whole self to that address. For it is by faith that we apprehend the revelation of God, which otherwise remains closed to us, and faith means the response of the whole man. As Barth says “Faith is the reference of all our living, thinking, willing, and feeling to the existence of Jesus Christ, as the one ground on which we stand, the one stay upon which we hang, the one food by which we are nourished.” But such a realisation of God in Christ received in faith is as open to us today as it was to Peter, Jesus did not become revelation to all His contemporaries in the flesh; to the vast majority He was hidden. But then as now where the witness of God is received in the heart of the believer, and answered in faith, there is the illumination, the recognition, over mastering and final, so complete that the believer can but say “whereas I was blind, now I see”. Where this does not happen, there is no revelation.

“Though Christ our Lord a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, And not in thee, thy soul remains eternally forlorn”.

But where it does happen, Christ, the Eternal Contemporary, becomes for us too, the revelation of God. His judgement, grace, and call.

B. The Bible

This brings us to the Scripture, already described as the witness to Christ. To conceive the Bible itself as the Word of God, captured, bound between two boards, is to fall into the error of the Fundamentalist, the Muslim view of revelation, God has chosen to give the Scriptures as His great means of grace, giving us through them authentic witness to Himself in His dealings with men, and through the words of Scripture we do ever and again hear His voice. But the voice of God is ever a living voice not to be confused with the printed word itself. It is good to remember that Fundamentalism was not the doctrine of the Reformers, who never confused the written word with the living voice, of God. Luther’s classic word is “The Bible is the cradle in which Christ is laid”, and Temple rightly sums up Luther’s teaching by saying that for him “the Word is the living present utterance of God to the soul, spoken through, rather than contained in, the Bible”. Barth is in the true line of the Reformers when he says, “Holy Scripture as such is not the revelation. And yet, Holy Scripture is the revelation, if and in so far as Jesus Christ speaks to us through the witness of His prophet and apostles”.

1. It is necessary to remind ourselves of the criterion of revelation. Again and again comes that search for a criterion, and history is full of the barren controversy about two authorities - “does the Church guarantee to us the authority of the Bible, or does the authority of the Bible come first and found the Church?” The answer of the Reformers takes us outside the range of that controversy with the great doctrine of the Testimony of the Holy Spirit. Man’s search for external security is vain, for the encounter with the living God which is the core of the religious life is not to be fettered and bound down by any rule. He must speak to the heart of a man Himself. It is simple observation that He does it continually through the words of Scripture, for I doubt if there can be any Christian with a spark of religious experience who has not known what it was for a word of the Bible which he read suddenly to come like an arrow to his heart. Through such events we know that the word of God is living and actual, and “sharper than any two-edged sword”. (Hebrews 4:12.)

2. That we receive the Bible within the Church is equally clear, and that we are surrounded and kept, guided and fed by our fellowship in the living tradition of the Church, from which is we depart on some private intuition of our own we shall be in grave danger of having left the Christian way. But while that is true, and there is nothing in Christianity to countenance individualism which neglects this truth, it is equally true that the Word becomes the Living Word to me only when conjoined with the living Spirit of God active at this present hour. But He still is the living Spirit, and still does bear witness with our spirit, and show us the things of Christ, the ever living Lord and Master.

Conclusion - Fulfilment in Christ

In the course of the paper we have referred much to the question of a criterion, and have seen that Christ must Himself be the criterion of the Revelation He brings. For He comes upon us as a Master, declaring to us that which we could not conceivably have known without Him. But in noting how He is self authenticating we have seen that His coming involves a new orientation of our life,’ and we may ask how this is related to what went before, and to the normal seeking of men. Is the search of man answered now, is there something here to still the questioning of the philosopher?

Mackintosh seems to take it for granted that there will be a close connection between the earlier search and revelation. He says “The creative action of Revelation upon reason and conscience will presumably be acknowledged by all who take Revelation seriously” This is certainly› in line with Scripture where St. Paul and St. John are at one in finding Christ the Master key, not merely for the understanding of man and his destiny, but for the whole cosmos. In Him, we find the Key, for in Him, we find that which gives sense to all the apparently conflicting currents of life and the problems of the world.

1. Thus, it is in the light of the revelation in Christ that the voice of nature which otherwise speaks so ambiguously is heard as a further witness to God’s grace and power: It is through the eyes of Jesus that we see a loving Father’s hand in the bloom of the flower, the soaring of the bird, and the fall of the rain It takes the mind of a converted St. Francis, converted at the foot of the Cross, to burst into the paean of praise:

    "All creatures of our God and King."

   Masefield strikes an authentic note when he puts on the lips of the converted ploughman the words:

    "O glory of the lighted mind,
    How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind,
    The station brook to my new eyes
    Seemed babbling out of Paradise".

   It is in the light of Christ that the voice of nature makes sense.

2. It is also in the light of Christ that the Scripture is illumined. The Old Testament had prophecies, witness pointing to Christ, but often confusing and hard to understand, looking for a King to reign in righteousness, for the victory of the chosen people, or for the suffering servant to bear the sins of others. In the light of Christ, in the New Testament, the apostles see it all in harmony and interpret the whole Scripture with confidence.

3. And so it is with the range of human life Every question is not answered, but the ultimate question is answered and there is no mere groping left. “We see not, yet all things brought under His feet, but we beheld … Jesus” (Hebrews 2:8, 9) He brings a harmony and peace which can be found nowhere else, for He has brought meaning into life. The secret of man is found in his relation to God, and that is why man alienated from God is truly lost when a man allows himself to be addressed by God in Christ, acknowledges the Master Who has sought and found him, peace enters his soul. It is this man who, as Cairns says, is in the full sense of the term, a person. Baillie puts it profoundly in two sentences: “The humanity of man rests in nothing else than the Divine Word addressed to him”, and again “Human nature is constituted by the self disclosure to this poor dust of the Spirit of the living God”. We hear in such words of the moderns the echo of the insight of St. Augustine “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”

Compiled by Rev. W. Stewart:the Christian Doctrine of Revelation. Bibliography

• BAILLIE - “Our Knowledge of God.”
• BAILLIE (Editor) - “Revelation” (Especially article by Temple).
• BARTH - “The Doctrine of the Word of God”.
• BARTH - Article in “Revelation”.
• BRUNNER - “The Mediator”
• BRUNNER - “Man in Revolt”
• BRUNNER - “The Philosophy of Religion”
• BRUNNER - “The Theology of Crisis”
• BRUNNER - “The Word and the World”
• BRUNNER - “Wahrheit als Begegnung”
• BRUNNER - “Unser Claube”.
• DEWICK - “The Indwelling God”.
• FARMER - “The World and God”
• KRAEMER - “The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World”
• MACCONNACHIE - “The Theology of Karl Barth”
• MACKINTOSE - “Types of Modern Theology”
• E.R.E. - “Article on ’Revelation”
• SCHWEITZER - “Indian Thought and its Development”
• CAVE - “Hinduism and Christianity”
• DAS GUPTA - “History of Indian Philosophy”
• RADHAKRISHNAN - “History of Indian Philosophy”

A Divine God

BY H.V. MARTIN”

“Your thoughts of God are too human.” These words are said to have been addressed by Luther to Erasmus, but they are also implicitly addressed by many Hindus to us Christians. Are we not in danger of making God into a human God, instead of continually realising and affirming Him as a Divine God?

Martin Luther was no ascetic nor mystic; he was a realist so far as human life is concerned. If we can credit a certain tradition, it was he who composed the famous lines,

"Wer night lieut Weiber, Wein, Gosang,
Der bleat in Narr seen Jeben lang"

Which in English runs:

"Who loves not woman, wine and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long"

Through a terrible tribulation of conscience and soul agony, Luther, after seeing the depths of his own heart, came finally to peace through utter trust in what “Almighty God had done for him in Christ. Henceforward, he had one aim, as he tells us in his opening lecture on the Epistle to the Romans, and that was to magnify sin which is at the same time to magnify God. Luther believed in a God who was Divine.

Christian Liberalism has tended on the other band to go back to the human God of Erasmus, as is evident in its reaction against the Neo-Orthodox stress upon the utter transcendence of God, the use of the term ‘Altogether Other’ and the principle ‘Finitum non capon infinite.’ Against this, Liberalism stresses the immanence of God in Nature, and especially in Human Nature, and speaks of the Fatherhood of God to all men, with whom also it seems to be on the most familiar hand-shaking terms. Compare Dr. Temple with Karl Barth or Gogarten. The former writes: “In mature we find God; we do not only infer from Nature what God must be like, but when we see Nature truly, we see God self-manifested in and through it … Yet the self-revelation so given is incomplete and inadequate. Personality can only reveal itself in persons. Consequently, it is specially in Human Nature-in men and women-that we see God.” (Nature, Man and God, p. 266) Note the different stress in the following. “God, the pure and absolute boundary and beginning of all that we are and have and do; God, who is distinguished qualitatively from men and from everything human, and must never be identified with anything which we name, or experience, or conceive, or worship as God; God who confronts all human disturbance with an unconditional command:”Halt”; and all human rest with an equally unconditional command ‘Advance’; God, the ‘Yes’ in our ‘No’, and the _No’ in our ‹Yes”, the First and the Last, and consequently the Unknown, who is never a known thing in the midst of other known things; God, the Lord, the Creator, the Redeemer-this is the Living God” Romans p. 330(1). “This God is the Unrecognised by our, understanding, the Uncomprehended by our concepts, the Immeasurable by our measures, the Ungraspable for our grasping” (Gogarten-Von Glaubea, and Offenbarung p. 11) In the last two quotations we feel the note of a God who is Divine; in the first, that of a human God akin to us.

But, it is argued by our Christian Liberals, surely such a conception of God as “utter transcendence” and altogether other’ must mean that there is no possibility of His approaching us or of our finding Him “How can a God who is so far away above me and beyond us ever help us here on earth? Surely the meaning of the Incarnation is that the God who is dimly perceived in Nature, grasped theoretically by philosophy, and worshipped distortedly in every religion, is revealed fully and completely in Jesus Christ as the God-Man? Why then this stress upon the Altogether Other?_ To answer these objections, let us go back to Lather and his conception of the Divine God.

1. Luther insists that it is impossible for man to know God in His naked majesty, as He is in Himself absolutely, that is, God as Deus or Deus Absolutus. Though philosophers speak of a First Cause, the Supreme Reality and the Ultimate Being, and equate these with the religious idea of God, this God is Deus Abeconditus, a mere logical conception, for of the reality and existence of such a God, there can be, ns Luther says ‘nulla scientia et cognitio nulla’ The God of philosophy is a ‘figmentum’, and when Luther does apply the term Deus Absconditus to this, he gives it no positive value, but uses it only polemically. The only God whom it is given us to know, is God in Christ, Deus Vestitus or Deus Involutus, God as He gives Himself to be, known of us, clothed in the humanity of His Word, involved and enveloped in human form. This is the only sense in which we can know God. “What God is in His nature we cannot determine … He cannot be apprehended in His naked majesty.” - (Luther).

   In the Hindu conception of Nirguna Brahman, we have the parallel conception to Deus Nudus. The Hindu Vedanta in its pure form is altogether right in stressing that the naked purity and essence of Divinity is indescribable and unknowable to man in any positive way. To all positive suggestions or questions, the answer must be given ‘Neti, Neti’. “The eye goeth not thither, nor speech nor, mind”. God in His naked majesty, God as He is actually in Himself, the Absolute, can only be spoken of in utter silence. All positive efforts to go beyond this end up with Deus Absconditus.

2. Luther insists that we can only know God as He gives Himself to be known, as Deus Revelatus. Theology must start with Christ, and not with vain speculations about the nature of the God-head. But is not a revelation of God in His naked majesty. When Moses spoke with God on Mount Sinai, he besought God “Show me thy glory”; but God replied “No man shall see me and live” (Exodus 33:18-20). Our knowledge of God in Christ is always a knowledge of God in His hiddenness. As Luther insisted, Deus Relatus is at the same time Deus Absconditus. What Kierkegaard calls “the infinite qualitative difference between man and God” is not abolished by the Incarnation, but rather thereby established. Christ as the Incarnation of God preserves His absolute Incognito, so that by no direct way is He seen and known as God. It is true that the Fourth Gospel records Christ as saying “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9) but this must apply to the eyes of faith; otherwise the conclusion is inevitable that the Pharisees and even Pilate saw God face to face, and yet crucified Him.

The stress on the transcendence and Otherness of God is therefore necessary to preserve the Divinity of God over against humanistic tendencies to make the knowledge of God commensurate with other human knowledge.” Revelation is not mere communication of knowledge. “Revelation is what is by its nature inaccessible, and remains so, even when it is revealed” (Kraemer-“The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World.”. p. 69). Here is the paradox of the Christian knowledge of God, as Deus Revelatus and yet at the same time Deus Absconditus. Strictly speaking, we cannot know God; for He is wholly Other to us. But Deus Revelatus means that we can be known of God, so that the relationship is not so much one of knowledge as of acknowledgement. Paul stresses the same point. “After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God” (Galatians 4:9). To this corresponds the concept of faith. Knowledge of God is always faith-knowledge, not to be confused with other forms of knowledge, for it is sui generis. We cannot ‘believe’ in the full Christian sense, in that which is ‘revealed’ in the sense of being made fully apparent and perceptible. We can only believe in that which is hidden. “It is necessary that all things which are believed should be hidden.” - (Luther).

Therefore, the Incarnation should not be made the excuse for humanising our conception of God. A God who is like man, who is conceived according to the analogies of human nature, is no God who can save us in the extremity of our present peril. Nor will such a conception appeal to the Indian heart. Our God is a Divine God, before whom we acknowledge our nothingness, and seek His unmerited grace.