Has God Said?: Scripture, the Word of God, and the Crisis of Theological Authority (The Evangelical Theological Society Monograph Series)

Publisher Description

Has God said? Has God actually spoken, declared himself and his purposes to us? Historically the Christian faith has affirmed God's redemptive, revelatory speaking as historical, contentful, redemptive, centrally in Jesus Christ and, under Christ and by the Spirit, in the text of Holy Scripture. But in the past three centuries developments in Western culture have created a crisis in relation to historical, divine authority. The modern reintroduction of destructive dualisms, cosmological and epistemological, via Descartes, Newton, Spinoza, and Kant have injured not only the physical sciences (e.g., positivism) but Christian theology as well. The resulting ""eclipse of God"" has permeated Western culture. In terms of the Christian understanding of revelation, it has meant the separation of God from historical action, the rejection of God's actual self-declaration, and especially in textual form, Holy Scripture. After critical analysis of these dualistic developments, this book presents the problematic effects in both Protestant (Schleiermacher, Bultmann, Tillich) and Roman Catholic (Rahner, Dulles) theology. The thought and influence of Karl Barth on the nature of Scripture is examined and distinguished from most ""Barthian approaches."" The effects of dualistic ""Barthian"" thought on contemporary evangelical views of Scripture (Pinnock, Fackre, Bloesch) are also critically analyzed and responses made (Helm, Wolterstorff, Packer). The final chapter is a christocentric, multileveled reformulation of the classical Scripture Principle, via Einstein, Torrance, and Calvin, that reaffirms the church's historical ""identity thesis,"" that Holy Scripture is the written Word of God, a crucial aspect of God's larger redemptive-revelatory purpose in Christ. ""John Morrison's Has God Said? rightly identifies the central issue in an Evangelical doctrine of Scripture. It's all about the meaning of 'is, ' as in 'the Bible is the Word of God.' Carefully distinguishing Barth's own position from 'Barthian' pretenders, Morrison analyzes various contemporary options, Evangelical and non-Evangelical, and then offers his own constructive proposal. Morrison's new position builds on Barth's (not Barthian!) Christocentric insights even as it reclaims the Scripture principle in a manner that even Calvin could applaud."" Kevin Vanhoozer Trinity Evangelical Divinity School ""For those who want to think deeply about what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God, John Morrison brings wide-ranging resources and careful reflection. Reading this book is a challenging but rewarding task."" Millard Erickson Baylor University ""Bravo to John Morrison for addressing a weighty issue in philosophical theology that is seldom even proposed, let alone faced squarely in recent academic discussions. Far from avoiding the general trend in recent critical thought, Morrison is to be commended for his affirmation that Scripture is an intricate component of God's redemptive self-revelation to a needy world. This volume places front and center God's work through Jesus Christ and in the very text of Scripture. I highly recommend this rigorous intellectual investigation and subsequent call to reaffirm Scripture as a crucial element in the revelation of God's loving actions to a needy creation."" Gary R. Habermas, Liberty University John Douglas Morrison is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Liberty University and Liberty Theological Seminary. His first book, Knowledge of the Self-Revealing God in the Thought of Thomas Forsyth Torrance, has received much recognition both in Europe and North America. In addition, he has written numerous articles on the church fathers, Calvin, Kierkegaard, Barth, and various developments in Roman Catholic thought.