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The Moody Handbook of Theology, Revised and Expanded by Paul Enns - Radical Theologies · Reformed Thinking

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So if you break your arm, the X-ray shows a jagged white line,
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right? Yeah.
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Pretty unmistakable. Right, it is totally binary,
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broken or not broken. And, well, we usually like
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theology to be that clear too. Clean, visible and comforting.
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But welcome to reform thinking. I am your host.
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And today we are looking at a diagnostic landscape that is
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incredibly murky. Murky is an understatement.
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Yeah. We are doing a deep dive into
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the heart of 20th century radical theology, and the goal
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here is to help you, the listener, make sense of these
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massive shifts without, you know, feeling like you are
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drowning in academic jargon. It is a massive undertaking, but
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understanding these movements is highly significant.
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You really cannot fully grasp the modern secular mindset
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without tracing the philosophical steps that well
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that led culture away from historic Orthodox Christian
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thought. I mean, we are pulling our
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insights today from Paul Enz's The Moody Handbook of Theology,
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specifically zeroing in on the section covering radical
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theologies, and we are going to track a very clear logical
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progression here. Right, because these things
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build on each other. Yeah, it starts with questioning
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the historical reliability of the biblical text.
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And once the text falls, the next logical step is questioning
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the boundaries of religion itself.
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From there you get a group of thinkers who just outright
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declare God is dead. Which sounds crazy, but they
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meant. It they really did.
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And finally, we arrive at those who attempt to redefine God as
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this mutating, evolving force. That progression is key.
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I mean, ideas do not happen in a vacuum.
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Before a culture alters its definition of God, it first
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alters its approach to the text about God.
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That is the starting line for this entire trajectory.
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Which brings us to our first stop right Rudolf Boltman,
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Because to understand the ideas, we have to look at the
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environment that actually produced them.
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Absolutely. Context is everything.
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So Boltman was born in 1884. He was the son of an Evangelical
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Lutheran minister, which is interesting, and he spent 30
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years as a professor of New Testament at Marburg.
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And while he studied under well known liberal theologians, his
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real shift happened when he collided with dialectical
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theology and really the philosophy of his era.
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Right, the academic air he was breathing at Marburg.
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Yeah, that is the critical factor here.
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Martin Heidegger, the famous philosopher, was actually
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teaching there at the exact same time.
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Heidegger's philosophy focus heavily on human existence.
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Like on the subjective human experience.
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Yes, precisely. Boltman took Heidegger's
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philosophical framework and just laid it right over the New
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Testament. The outcome was a radical
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criticism of the text. He stopped looking at the Bible
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as divine historical revelation and started looking at it
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strictly through the lens of human existential experience.
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I really want to break down how that actually worked in
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practice, because it leads directly to Boltmann's major
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contribution, which is a form criticism.
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Right, his defining method. Yeah, he developed this method
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to supposedly discover the literary forms and the
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underlying sources the writers of Scripture used because
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Boltman rejected the idea that the New Testament writings are
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authentic, cohesive work works by individual authors.
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He did not buy that at all. No, instead, he viewed the
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gospel writers primarily as collectors and editors, he
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argued. They just pieced together these
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fragmentary writings and well, heavily embellished the original
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records about the life of Christ.
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The implication of that approach changes everything.
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One of the form critics summarized their stance
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perfectly when he said we do not have the story of Jesus, we only
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have stories about Jesus. Wow, just stories.
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Yeah, they concluded that the gospel records are essentially
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just a collection of myths. For Bolt Man, these myths
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portrayed subjective truths about human existence rather
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than communicating actual, verifiable historical events.
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So the Bible is no longer treated as a supernatural record
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of God acting in history. Not at all.
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It is treated like any other piece of ancient literature that
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just sort of evolved over time. I think the best way to
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visualize what Boltman is doing here is to picture an art
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restorer. OK, I like that.
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Imagine Boltman looking at a priceless ancient painting of
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Jesus, but he is completely convinced the early church
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vandalized it. He thinks they took a can of
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spray paint and covered the real historical Jesus with angels,
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miracles and supernatural claims.
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Right, painting over the original.
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Yeah, so Boltman decides he needs to clean the painting.
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He creates this chemical solvent, which he calls
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demythologizing, to scrub away all the supernatural spray paint
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because he is hoping to find the original masterpiece underneath.
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That is a brilliant analogy because it captures the sheer
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destructiveness of his method. He believed that to uncover the
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original statements of Jesus, you have to peel off all the
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layers of editorial embellishments added by the
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early church. All the stuff he considered
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myth. Yes, he argued that the early
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church cloaked the gospel writings and mythological
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thought patterns of their specific time, and the most
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famous example Bulman pointed to is the ancient concept of a
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three tiered universe. Right, the ancient idea of
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heaven above, of earth in the middle and hell below.
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Precisely. And within those 3 levels of
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existence, the ancient mind placed supernatural beings, you
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know, God, angels, Satan, and demons.
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Boltman viewed all of this as a mythological framework.
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You thought modern people could not handle it?
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Right. He argued that the modern
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scientific mind simply cannot accept a three tiered universe
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or the intervention of supernatural beings in nature.
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Therefore, according to Boltman, those concepts only have
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symbolic meanings. To find the real truth for
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modern man, you must strip away the myth.
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But wait, if he uses his chemical solvent to scrub away
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the miracles, the resurrection, the angels and the demons,
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doesn't he just burn right through the canvas?
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What is actually left? The source material mentions he
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still believed in something called the Kurigma.
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Yes, Bolton did not want to destroy the Christian faith.
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He genuinely thought he was saving it for the modern
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intellectual, even while seeing the New Testament as enshrouded
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with myth. He believed there was a
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charisma, a core gospel proclamation hidden behind those
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mythological patterns of thought.
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OK, so a message underneath it all.
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Yeah, in his view, God meets the individual through the preached
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word in this sort of existential crisis of decision.
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The entire goal of his demythologizing project was to
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find the true intent of the biblical writers so that the
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karigma could be proclaimed without offending the
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sensibilities of modern man. I have to push back on this
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though. If you strip away all the
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historical facts, if you remove the physical resurrection of
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Christ and all the supernatural elements, what are you actually
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preaching? You are left with very little.
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You are just preaching A subjective feeling at that
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point. That is the crucial flaw, and it
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is precisely the verdict Paul ends reaches in his evaluation
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form. Criticism is an entirely
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subjective methodology. Because it relies on what the
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critic decides is real. Right.
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It is a fundamental denial of the inspiration of Scripture
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because it approaches the Bible from a purely naturalistic
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standpoint. It is just dissecting it like
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any ordinary book. Demythologization builds on that
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subjectivity. Yeah, operating on the pretty
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arrogant premise that anything not aligning with the modern
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scientific mind must be eliminated.
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Exactly. It leads straight into a brick
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wall of absolute doubt, and the historical record shows that is
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what happened. The result of Bolt Man's
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methodology is total skepticism. And Bolt Man himself actually
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admitted this, did he not? He did, he stated.
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I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing
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concerning the life and personality of Jesus.
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He claimed the early Christian sources showed no interest in
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history, are fragmentary and are entirely legendary.
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When you step back and look at the bigger picture, Ends asks a
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very pointed question. What is the benefit of
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proclaiming a gospel that has no historical validity?
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It is a fair question. Historic Orthodox Christian
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faith is anchored to actual events in time and space.
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It claims historical validity. Yes, it happened in real life,
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right? Boltman's system, untethered
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from history, results in a proclamation of mere myth.
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A gospel without historical footing offers 0 hope to a dying
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world. That creates an enormous dominar
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effect, because once Boltman stripped the historical
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certainty from the text, the foundation cracked.
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Yeah, the floodgates open. If the text is just myth, then
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the institutions built on that text are suddenly up for debate.
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And that brings us to the next generation who began stripping
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away the traditional boundaries of religious life itself.
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It is the natural next step. If Boltman just proved to the
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world that we cannot know the historical Jesus, the next
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logical step is to redefine what it means to follow him.
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Which leads us to our second stop Dietrich Bonhoefer and the
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enigma of religionless Christianity.
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Before we analyze his theology, we really have to look at his
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historical context. Bonhoefer's life story is
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incredibly dramatic and you simply cannot separate his
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writings from the era he lived in.
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You really cannot. It plays out like a cinematic
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thriller just to layout the facts neutrally from the text.
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Bonhoefer was born in 19 O 6, the son of a Berlin neurologist.
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He was a brilliant mind, earning a Doctor of Theology degree from
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the University of Berlin by the age of 21.
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Which is incredibly young. Very.
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By 1930, he completed a second dissertation and spent a year
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studying in New York City. Then the entire trajectory of
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world history shifted. Adolf Hitler became Chancellor
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of Germany in 1933. The dark turning point.
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Bon Heffer, whose twin sister was married to a Jewish man, was
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fiercely outspoken in his opposition to Nazism and the
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horrific ideology of Aryan supremacy.
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He joined the Confessing Church which stood against the state
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sponsored church. Right.
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He led an underground seminary that the Nazis eventually shut
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down. The noose was tightening around
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his life with every passing year.
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The state forbade him to speak publicly or publish any
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writings. He actually had a chance to
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escape, too. He went back to New York briefly
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in 1939. But he did not stay.
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No, he chose to return to Germany almost immediately to
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join the struggle against the Nazis.
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He became involved in a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler.
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In 1943. He was arrested and thrown into
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a military prison. And that is where he wrote his
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famous letters and papers from prison.
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Yes, eventually. When evidence surfaced of his
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involvement in the failed 1944 bomb plot against Hitler, Bon
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Haffer was executed by hanging in 1945, just days before the
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Allied forces liberated the camp.
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It is an incredible historical record of courage.
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Now, keeping that intense environment in mind, we have to
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transition to his theological shifts.
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Bon Huffer was a highly independent thinker.
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But he was influenced by others, right?
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Yes, he was heavily indebted to Carl Barth's dialectic theology,
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which often leans on paradox intention.
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One of Bon Huffer's most striking stances was his deep
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distaste for religion. He really did not like the
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traditional structures. No, he found the traditional
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institutional structures of religion unacceptable.
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For Bonhoeffer, all that mattered was a personal
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encounter with Christ, and he defined Jesus in a very
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specific, relational way. He called him being there for
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others. That is a fascinating phrasing,
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being there for others. He viewed Christ as active not
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just within the church, but out in the secularized world.
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Yes, Ends points out that Bonhoeffer believed Christ
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confronts people not through the old traditional processes of
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repentance, faith, conversion and sanctification.
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But in entirely new ways, right? Yeah, through their godless
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attitudes in a secular life, this terminology was radical and
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sparked massive debate. He also held a very extreme view
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of the church. Extremely radical In those
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prison letters, he argued that the Church is only truly the
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church when it exists for others.
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He suggested the church should make a radical start by giving
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away all its property to those in need.
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Which is a huge departure from institutional norms.
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Huge clergy, in his view, should not be paid a salary but should
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live solely on free will offerings or engage in secular
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jobs. The Church should not try to
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dominate culture, but should share in the secular problems of
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ordinary life. And this brings us to his most
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controversial and debated concept, religionless
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Christianity. Bonhoeffer completely rejected
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the traditional divide between the sacred and secular realms.
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He hated the idea of a compartmentalized faith.
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Exactly. He believed you must serve
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Christ out in the messy secular world, not just in some isolated
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sacred bubble on Sunday morning. Let me stop you there, because
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this phrase religionless Christianity feels like a total
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landmine. Did he mean Christians should
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just be highly disciplined out in the real world, avoiding
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religious hypocrisy? Or did he mean we should
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abandoned the concept of God entirely?
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That is the mass of tension in his writings, and the source
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text unpacks both interpretations carefully.
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Because he wrote these thoughts and fragmented letters from a
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prison cell, they were not systematically arranged.
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Right, he never got to write the final.
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Textbook on it. Exactly so.
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On one side, conservative scholars understand religionless
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Christianity in a positive sense.
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They read it as a call to intense worldly discipleship.
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In this view, a person lives responsibly under the aspect of
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God as the ultimate reality. So living a highly disciplined
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self sacrificial life in the real world as a true disciple of
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Christ, stripping away fake religious piety.
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Yes, and I can understand that reading, especially given his
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literal martyrdom for his convictions.
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But there is a much darker reading of his work and it gains
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serious traction. Yeah, the radical theologians of
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the 1960s gained massive momentum from Bonhoeffer's
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statements. In his letters, he wrote that
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the mature man who has come of age must learn to live
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independent of God. As a huge statement.
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He argued that with the advent of the scientific revolution,
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humanity can learn to solve its own problems without running to
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God as a crutch, Bonhoeffer declared Man has learnt to deal
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with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to
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the working hypothesis called God.
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That phrase right there, the working hypothesis called God,
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that is chilling. It really is.
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Radical thinkers took this to mean modern society must
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completely abandoned the concept of a divine being.
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It is incredibly hard to reconcile a man who died for his
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faith with statements about living as if God does not exist.
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How does Paula Enz evaluate this tension?
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Enz's evaluation is very objective.
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He points out the primary issue, Bonheffer's untimely death.
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Because his life was cut short by the executioner, his
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dualistic and enigmatic statements were never fully
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explained or systematized by the man himself.
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He left behind a puzzle. He did.
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He was heavily influenced by dialectic theology, which
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deliberately relies on tension and apparent contradictions.
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However, Ends draws a firm conclusion about the impact of
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those words. Regardless of what Bonhoeffer
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actually meant in his own heart. Right.
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Regardless of his personal intent, his writings about human
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independence and abandoning the working hypothesis of God
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directly laid the groundwork for the secular God is Dead
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theologians. Furthermore, Ends argues that
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Bonhoeffer's call for human maturity and absolute
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independence from God heavily contradicts the scriptural call
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to rely on God in our weakness. Specifically citing Paul's
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letters where God's strength is made perfect in human weakness.
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Yes, precisely. This is the exact pivot point of
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the 20th century. You can draw a straight,
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unbroken line from Bonhoeffer's concept of man without God to a
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group of radical thinkers who took that idea to its absolute
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logical extreme. They did not hold back at all.
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No. If Bonhoeffer just told the
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world that man can survive without the working hypothesis
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of God, the next logical question for a young theologian
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in the 1960s is well, why do we even need to pretend God is
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alive? Which brings us to our third
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stop, the God is Dead movement. Many people look back at the God
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is Dead theology, which by the way even made the cover of Time
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magazine in the 60s, and they assume it was a joke or a media
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stunt. It sounds like clickbait.
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It does. But these theologians were
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entirely serious. They were trying to build a
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theology for a post atomic, scientifically advanced world,
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and the philosophical roots of this movement go much deeper
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than the 1960s they traced back to.
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Friedrich Nietzsche, right? The 19th century philosopher who
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famously proclaimed God is dead. Yes, but they also pull from
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Immanuel Kant and Albrecht ritual.
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Both Kant and ritual built intricate philosophical systems
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that essentially concluded you cannot demonstrably prove the
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existence of God through pure reason.
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And they borrowed heavily from the previous two men.
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We just impact They took Boltman's premise that the Bible
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is pure myth, and they took Bonheffer's push that man must
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learn to live without God. It is a perfect storm of radical
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thought. To really grasp the mechanics of
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this movement, we need to look at 4 distinct viewpoints
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outlined in the text. Let's start with Gabriel
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Vahenian. Gabriel Vahenian was a highly
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educated scholar who studied at the Sorbonne and Princeton.
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He eventually taught at Syracuse University and he wrote a book
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called The Death of God, The Culture of Our Post Christian
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Era. His primary argument was
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cultural, wasn't it? Yes, he argued that our society
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is fundamentally post Christian. He believed the traditional
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historic Christian worldview had been entirely eclipsed by the
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modern scientific age. For Vahanian, the transcendent
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God of the Bible was no longer necessary to explain the
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universe. Therefore, he had become totally
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irrelevant to modern man. Spot on.
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The fascinating thing about Vahanian is that he did not
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actually believe God was literally dead, but he argued
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that the concept of God in the culture was dead.
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Right, the cultural idea of him had died.
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He observed that in Christian culture, God was no longer
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viewed as transcendent meaning and awe inspiring holy being
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outside of and above the created world.
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Instead, the culture had dragged the concept of God down and
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merged him with man. It became very horizontal.
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Exactly. Vahenian pointed to popular
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cultural phrases like calling God your copilot to demonstrate
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how society had reduced the Almighty to a purely human
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helpful buddy. That cultural analysis leads
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right into the second figure, Paul Van Buren.
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He taught at Episcopal Theological Seminary and later
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at Temple University. He specifically moved to Temple
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because the university had transitioned from a religious
18:13
institution to a secular 1. He wanted to be in that secular
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environment. He did.
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He wanted to ask questions about religion as they arise in a
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purely secular society. Van Duren explicitly took his
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starting point from Bonhoeffer's demand, Bonhoeffer said.
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Honesty demands that we recognize that we must live in
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the world as if there were no God.
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And Van Buren took that baton and just sprinted with it.
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He wrote the secular meaning of the gospel because he completely
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accepted Bolt Man's view that the Bible is myth.
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Van Buren argued it is logically impossible and totally
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meaningless to even speak the word God.
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He wanted to banish the word entirely.
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He believed secular man must abandoned all talk of the divine
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and instead find meaning solely in the human Jesus and what he
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called the Easter event. But we have to clarify how he
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redefined that event, because for Van Buren, the Easter event
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had absolutely nothing to do with a literal physical
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resurrection from a tomb. He stripped all the supernatural
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elements away. Yes, he reduced Easter to a
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contagious freedom to love. It is like keeping a massive
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holiday tradition but completely forgetting the reason for it.
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You keep the festive dinner, you keep the decorations, but you
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entirely strip away the historical event that started
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the tradition in the first place.
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That is a very accurate comparison.
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Van Buren wants to keep the phrase Easter event because it
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sounds nice, but he removes the actual resurrection, leaving an
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empty shell. You keep the vocabulary but
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hollow out the meaning entirely. The third theologian in this
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group is William Hamilton, a Baptist minister who taught at
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Colgate Rochester Divinity School.
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Hamilton rejected the traditional Orthodox view of God
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completely. He viewed the death of God a bit
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differently, though. He did.
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He viewed it not as a single philosophical moment in time,
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but as a slow cultural event that have been occurring over
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the last 200 years. Hamilton argued that humanity
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just needs to accept this death of God, get over the grief and
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stop expecting any help from the divine.
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According to his writings, solutions to human suffering and
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life's problems are only found in the secular world.
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He wrote that God is no longer necessary to deliver man from
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despair or self righteousness. And the reason for this?
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The massive rise in technology and modern science.
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He believed human technology replaced the need for divine
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deliverance. We have medicine, we have
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psychology, we have engineering. We do not need a savior.
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So what did he leave intact? Just the ethics derived from
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Jesus of Nazareth. Loving your neighbor, being
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kind, stuff like that, but completely severed from any
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divine authority, he told modern Christians to turn away from
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historic theology, turn away from the church, and turn
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entirely to solving the world's practical problems.
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This brings us to the 4th and undoubtedly the most radical
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figure, Thomas JJ Altizer. He taught at Emory University
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and wrote The Gospel of Christian Atheism.
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Christian Atheism. Just let that title sink in.
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It is quite the oxymoron. Altizer built directly on
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Nietzsche's philosophical premise of the death of God, but
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he took it in a bizarre literal direction.
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He stated we shall understand the death of God as an
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historical event. God has died in our time, in our
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history, in our existence. Wait hold on all Tizer is wild
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because he literally hijacked scripture to argue his point.
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He used Philippians chapter 2 verses 6 the rate, which is a
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beautiful passage about Christ's humility and incarnation, to
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suggest that God actually died in history when Christ died on
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the cross. Not just that the God man died
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for sins. No, he argued that the
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transcendent God of the universe committed divine suicide.
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He spoke in very poetic, almost mystical dialectic language,
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arguing that all of reality undergoes constant destruction
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and recreation. He flatly denied the existence
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of any sovereign, unconditioned being.
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Yes, Altizer's theology is staggering.
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He argued that God willed his own self annihilation.
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He believed God died as a transcendent holy being in order
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to lose his transcendence and achieve total permanent union
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with humanity and the physical world.
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It is so out there. For all tizer, a Christian
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should actually will the continuing death of God so that
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the divine can become fully absorbed into human history.
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That sounds less like Christian theology and more like the
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script for a science fiction multiverse movie.
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If you remove God, if you remove the concept of human sin against
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a holy creator, and if you remove the atonement, is this
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even theology anymore? Or is it just sociology?
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Yeah, it's just secular sociology wearing a religious
22:38
mask. That is, the exact critique
22:40
raised by Paul ends in the source material.
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Ends notes several devastating shared points of failure across
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all four of these thinkers. First, they all begin with a
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Bolt Manian approach. They treat the Bible as myth and
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refuse to take its historical assertions about God, Jesus and
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humanity seriously. Like Vahenian, they see Jesus
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only as a good human example, right?
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Second, because they completely ignore the biblical concept of
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human depravity and sin, they completely ignore the biblical
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solution, which is Christ's substitutionary atonement on the
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cross. So if there is no sin and no
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savior, what are they actually offering to humanity?
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Pure secularization. Their proposed solution is
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simply entering into the world's problems and trying to solve
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them through science, technology and human ethics without any
23:28
regard for God or eternal realities.
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Ends concludes that their system produces a completely man
23:33
centered gospel. It elevates humanity to the
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center of the universe, replacing the God centered
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worldview of historic orthodoxy. OK, that covers the thinkers who
23:42
decided to hold a funeral for God.
23:44
But human beings are inherently religious.
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We are wired to worship, so killing off God entirely left a
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vacuum. Something had to fill the void.
23:53
Exactly. And that brings us to the final
23:55
group in our progression Process theology.
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Instead of killing God off, Process Theology decided to keep
24:01
the God talk. They kept the religious
24:04
vocabulary, but they drastically altered the definition of God.
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They turned God into a force that mutates.
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Yeah, a force that learns and evolves alongside humanity.
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This movement is fascinating because it approaches the study
24:16
of God entirely from a philosophical and mathematical
24:19
perspective rather than a biblical one.
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Divine special revelation does not enter the picture at all for
24:24
them. They rely on human reason.
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And the philosophical foundation here goes back to Jorg Wilhel
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Friedrich Hegel, right? Yes.
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Hegel taught that the universe is incomplete and always
24:34
changing. He proposed that reality is a
24:36
constant movement of a dialectic thesis, antithesis and
24:40
synthesis. I always think of Hegel's
24:42
dialectic like a cosmic tennis match.
24:45
The thesis hits the ball over the net.
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The antithesis hits it back. Right back and forth.
24:50
But in Hegel's world, instead of someone scoring a point and
24:53
ending the game, the ball melts in midair and turns into a
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completely new mutant ball. That is the synthesis.
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And then the game starts all over again with the new ball.
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The rules are always changing. The universe is never finished.
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That is an excellent way to visualize it.
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In the Hegelian system. These synthesis are stages of
25:12
creative evolution. They are never final, static, or
25:16
unchanging perfections. Process theology builds entirely
25:20
on this premise of constant evolutionary change.
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And they apply that rule of change directly to the nature of
25:25
God. Yes they do.
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The source text presents 6 variations of process theology.
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We are going to look at how these thinkers dismantle the
25:32
traditional attributes of God. The first is Alfred N Whitehead,
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who is generally considered the father of the movement.
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He's a highly respected philosopher and a mathematician.
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Right. He observed the constant flux of
25:44
the physical world through his math and science studies and
25:47
concluded that process is the rule of the world.
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Everything is in a constant cycle of becoming, and Whitehead
25:54
made the massive leap of applying this evolutionary
25:57
process to God himself. Yes, Whitehead viewed God as
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bipolar or dipolar. He suggested God has two
26:03
distinct sides. 1st A primordial nature which relates to abstract
26:08
eternal objects and possibilities.
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And the second side. 2nd A consequent nature, which is His
26:14
imminence relating to the physical world.
26:16
In this consequent nature, God is continually in the process of
26:20
saving and preserving the world, but He is never arriving at a
26:23
final victorious state. So wait, in Whitehead's system
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God is basically a combination of the eternal and the temporal,
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infinite and finite? Pretty much.
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But the shocking part is that for Whitehead, God is an
26:34
impersonal force. He is not omnipotent, he is not
26:37
all powerful, He is just a Co creator with mange shaping the
26:40
future together by trial and error.
26:42
Whitehead believed God actually suffers and grows along with the
26:44
world through creativity. That lack of omnipotence is a
26:47
hallmark of process theology. The second figure, Charles
26:51
Hartshorn, built on Whitehead's ideas.
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Hartshorn rejected the traditional orthodox concept of
26:57
a sovereign God and viewed God merely as a director.
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Of the world, A director. He argued from a rationalistic,
27:04
logical viewpoint for the existence of a necessary being.
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However, this being is entirely impersonal and works in
27:11
cooperation with the world, mutually dependent on it.
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Hartzhorn argued that God does not have an unchanging essence.
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Instead, God is continually developing, continually learning
27:22
and completing himself by advancing his own experience
27:25
through participation in human suffering.
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He leaned heavily on nature for this.
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The text highlights that Hartzhorn based his concept
27:31
entirely on natural theology, looking at nature and human
27:34
reason while rejecting supernaturalism and biblical
27:37
revelation completely. The third thinker is John Cobb.
27:41
Cobb remained firmly within process theology but rejected
27:44
Whitehead's bipolar thesis. Instead of an abstract entity,
27:47
Cobb saw God as a unity in a living person, but he embraced a
27:51
highly unorthodox doctrine called panentheism.
27:54
We need to unpack that term clearly.
27:56
Panentheism means all things happen within God.
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Right, it is distinct from pantheism.
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Think of God as the ocean and the physical universe as the
28:05
fish swimming inside the ocean. Cobb suggested that God is in
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the world and the world is in and from God.
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The text points out this is a philosophical attempt to smash 2
28:15
concepts together. Theism and pantheism, yeah.
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Theism, the belief in a personal God, and pantheism, the belief
28:22
that the physical universe itself is God.
28:25
And because of that view, Cobb had a very specific non biblical
28:28
view of evil. He explained human evil and
28:31
suffering not on the basis of the historical fall of man in
28:34
Genesis 3. What as a natural result of
28:36
evolution? Yes, as an unavoidable result of
28:38
the evolutionary process, he viewed the rise of life and
28:42
values as naturally giving rise to freedom, self consciousness
28:45
and reason, which inherently brings friction and pain, Ends
28:49
notes this reflects a highly optimistic view of humanity
28:52
totally ignoring the destructive reality of human sin moving to
28:55
the. 4th figure we have Nelson Pike.
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Pike aimed his philosophical arguments directly at Thomas
29:01
Aquinas and the traditional historic belief in God's
29:05
timelessness and immutability. Pike had a real problem with God
29:08
being outside of time. He argued that if God is
29:11
timeless, meaning he exists outside of the constraints of
29:14
time, he has no future. If he has no future, he cannot
29:17
act within time, even though the physical world was created in
29:20
time. Pike went much further, arguing
29:23
that timelessness would actually eliminate God's personality.
29:26
His logic was that personality demands a real time response to
29:30
stimuli. So if God cannot change, he
29:32
cannot react. Right.
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If God is immutable, meaning absolutely unchanging in his
29:36
nature and being pale, Pike argued, he cannot authentically
29:40
respond to believers in worship or prayer.
29:43
Pike also argued that timelessness would nullify the
29:46
incarnation because the incarnation of Christ demands a
29:49
massive change of state. It is a massive misunderstanding
29:51
of how orthodox theology views God's sovereignty working
29:54
alongside His relational nature #5 is Schubert, M Ogden.
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The text notes Ogden shows a strong influence from Bolt Man.
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Oh really? Bring you full circle.
30:03
Yeah, he believed modern man must have a rational
30:06
understanding of his own existence in the world.
30:09
Ogden built on Hartsworn's dipolar view, but added his own
30:13
twist. He believed God is relative to
30:16
the world. He used a very physical analogy.
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What was it? Just as a human person is
30:20
intimately related to their physical body, God is related to
30:24
the physical world. Therefore, the universe is the
30:28
actual physical body of God. Wow, so the universe is God's
30:32
body? Through this concept of
30:33
sympathetic participation, God is included in all beings and
30:37
related to every single entity in the universe.
30:40
And because of this profound relatedness, God is constantly
30:43
subject to change just as a human body changes.
30:46
Finally, we have Norman Pittenger.
30:48
Pittenger brings process theology to bear, specifically
30:51
on Christology, the study of Christ.
30:53
Right, when Pittinger refers to the deity of Christ, he is not
30:57
talking about the historic doctrine that Jesus is fully God
31:00
in his essence. For Pittinger, Christ's deity
31:03
was simply the divine activity of God acting through a human
31:05
being. So Christ is just God's action
31:08
among men, a high watermark of human evolution.
31:10
Yes, Pittinger also followed panentheism, believing the being
31:14
of God penetrates the whole universe.
31:17
For him, God is active in the world, providing self
31:19
realization for creatures, and every single time God acts, that
31:24
occasion is an incarnation of God.
31:26
So look at what has been constructed here.
31:28
We have a theological system where God is completely stripped
31:31
of His sovereign power, his unchanging holy nature, and his
31:34
transcendence. He is reduced to a mathematical
31:38
evolutionary force, mutating alongside humanity, learning as
31:41
he goes. I look at process theology like
31:44
a mirror. A historic orthodox theology
31:47
acts like an anchor. It holds fast regardless of the
31:49
cultural weather or the scientific trends of the decade.
31:52
But process theology does not hold fast.
31:54
No, it acts like a mirror that only reflects the current
31:56
scientific assumptions of its day.
31:58
If Darwinian evolution is the leading scientific thought, the
32:02
theology immediately adapts to make God an evolving mutating
32:05
force. That aligns perfectly with
32:07
Enza's sharp critique process. Theology derives its concepts
32:10
not from scriptural revelation, but from mathematical hypothesis
32:14
and rationalistic speculation. It builds on human philosophy.
32:17
It denies the personality and absolute sovereignty of God,
32:21
viewing Him only as a changing, struggling force.
32:24
It completely abandons the supernatural and miraculous
32:27
interventions of God in history. Ends points out that this man
32:31
made system directly contradicts plain scriptural declarations
32:35
regarding God's immutability. Like in Malachi 3.6 where God
32:39
emphatically declares I, the Lord do not change.
32:42
Yes, and James 1.17, which speaks of the father of lights
32:46
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
32:50
Ends quotes theologian Karl FH Henry, who sums up the total
32:53
devastation of process theology perfectly.
32:56
Henry states that in this system, creation becomes
32:59
evolution, redemption becomes relationship, and resurrection
33:02
becomes renewal. The living holy God of the Bible
33:05
is completely submerged into human imminent concepts.
33:09
The entire framework is based on human reason rather than divine
33:12
revelation, and it completely ignores the biblical concepts of
33:15
sin, judgment, and the necessity of a blood atonement.
33:18
When we synthesize this entire progression, the massive
33:21
trajectory we cover today is incredibly sobering.
33:23
It really is a domino effect. We observed how Bolt Man's
33:26
initial questioning of the historical reality of the
33:28
biblical text opened the door for Bon Heffer's questioning of
33:32
the bounds of religion itself. That questioning LED directly to
33:37
the God is Dead movement, which proudly abandoned God for the
33:40
promises of science and secular solutions.
33:43
And finally it resulted in process theology.
33:46
Where a new, weaker God was created in the image of human
33:49
evolution and philosophical speculation.
33:52
The sheer weight of these ideas is staggering.
33:55
By replacing divine revelation with rationalistic speculation,
33:58
these 20th century theologians built elaborate, doomed systems
34:02
that abandoned the supernatural entirely.
34:05
They exchanged the solid anchor of historical faith for the
34:08
shifting sands of human philosophy.
34:10
And that raises a critical issue for us today.
34:13
These historical shifts are not just academic trivia for a
34:16
seminary classroom. They are the architectural
34:19
blueprints of modern secular thought.
34:20
They really shape the world we live in now.
34:22
They teach us a very hard lesson.
34:25
When you elevate human philosophy over divine
34:27
revelation, the inevitable result is a theology that looks
34:30
exactly like the broken culture around it.
34:32
So what does this all mean for you, the listener?
34:36
I want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over.
34:38
We saw today how all these radical 20th century theologies
34:42
were heavily dictated by the popular philosophies and
34:45
scientific assumptions of their specific era.
34:48
Boltmann leaned heavily on Heidegger's existentialism
34:50
because it was popular. And process theology was built
34:53
almost entirely on Hegel's dialectic and early evolutionary
34:57
theory because it was the academic trend.
34:59
They let their culture dictate their theology.
35:01
Which is a constant temptation in every era.
35:04
So my question for you is this. What unexamined modern cultural
35:08
assumptions are currently shaping the way you interpret
35:10
reality and read the biblical text today?
35:13
Are you viewing the text through the clear, authoritative lens of
35:16
its own historical claims? Or are you looking at a murky
35:19
X-ray clouded by the philosophies and psychological
35:22
trends of our own time? That is a question that requires
35:25
serious, honest reflection from all of us.
35:28
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the roots of
35:31
radical theology. We appreciate you taking the
35:33
time to sort through these heavy ideas with us.
35:35
Until next time, keep thinking critically.