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Transcript

God's Particular Revelation · Reformed Thinking

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Usually when we talk about communication, there is this
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assumption of like an equal footing.
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Yeah, shared baseline. Right, like if I want to explain
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a concept to a friend, we share a language, we share a basic
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human experience, and well, we share a physical reality.
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We're in the same space. Yeah, we breathing the same air,
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experiencing the same gravity, but imagine for a second trying
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to explain the concept of a vibrant multi colored sunset to
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a character drawn on A2 dimensional piece of paper.
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Oh. That is a wild thought
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experiment. Right, you are existing in a
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three-dimensional world with light, physics, depth and color.
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And they are. I mean they are just flat black
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ink on a white page. Just length and width, nothing
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else. Yeah, they only know length and
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width. They have 0 concept of up,
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little on the concept of a sun or you know, the physics of
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light refracting through the atmosphere.
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It's completely. Outside their reality.
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It is so the gap between your reality and theirs is so vast
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that any attempt to communicate requires you to drastically
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alter how you operate. You can't just shout at the
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paper. No, shouting does nothing.
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You would have to step into their world somehow, in a way
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they could comprehend, using the very limited materials of their
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reality. And, well, welcome to reformed
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thinking. Glad to be here for this one.
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Today we are opening up Miller J Erickson's work on Christian
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theology to figure out the actual mechanics of how the
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Creator of the universe speaks. The goal of this analysis is to
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understand God's particular or special revelation.
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Yeah, and that two-dimensional analogy gets right to the heart
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of the the epistemological problem we face.
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Break that down a bit for us. Sure.
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So everyone walking the earth has some concept of reality,
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right? Some basic framework of
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existence they operate within, but without God explicitly
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making himself known, humanity is left entirely in the dark.
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Just totally guessing. Right, guessing about who or
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what is outside that two-dimensional page.
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So we are going to look closely at why a general sense of God in
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nature falls short. Because nature isn't enough on
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its own. Precisely, we will examine the
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specific methods God uses to communicate across that infinite
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gap, and we are going to look at the heated theological debates
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regarding the nature of that communication.
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Like the whole factual versus personal debate.
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Yeah. Does God give us factual
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propositions about himself, or is he giving us an encounter
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with his presence? Right.
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And if you are listening to this, and you have ever wondered
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how finite, limited human minds can even begin to comprehend an
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infinite God, this is for you. Or you know why the Bible is
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filled with such specific historical details instead of
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just providing a universal list of moral rules.
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This discussion will answer those questions.
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It's going to be a heavy one, but super rewarding.
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OK, let's unpack this. Before we look at how God
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speaks, we must establish why He needed to speak in a special way
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in the first place. The why is always the best
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starting point. For sure, Erickson's text gives
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us a clear definition of special revelation.
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He says it is God manifesting Himself to particular persons at
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definite times and places to establish a redemptive
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relationship. The relational aspect is key
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there. Yeah, but the text draws a
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massive line in the sand between the relationship humans had with
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God before the fall and the relationship after the fall.
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Because the context of the fall is, I mean it is the absolute
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center of gravity for understanding the necessity of
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special revelation. Right.
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Things changed drastically. They did think about the pre
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fall state. Humans were positively inclined
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toward God, or at the very least operating from a state of
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neutral innocence. Like an unclouded consciousness.
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Spot on. Humanity had direct, unmediated
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fellowship with the Creator, but after the Fall, humanity faced 2
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distinct types of limitations that completely shattered that
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dynamic. OK, what's the first one?
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First, there is the natural limitation of our finiteness.
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We are limited beings, bound by time and space.
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Even without sin, right? Yes, even without sin, a finite
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creature cannot fully comprehend an infinite creator.
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The math just doesn't work. But the second limitation is far
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more critical. Moral limitation.
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Yeah, the Fall introduced A moral limitation.
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This is human sinfulness, rebellion, and a severely
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obscured spiritual understanding.
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It wasn't just a bump in the road.
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No, our relationship with God was not just paused or
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interrupted. It was broken.
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Active hostile rebellion took its place.
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So we have general revelation, which is the knowledge of God
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available through the physical universe and human conscience.
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Like Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare the glory of God.
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Right. The general evidence is there.
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But the text points out that because of this moral
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limitation, this sinfulness general revelation became
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obscured. The lens got dirty, so to speak.
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We look at a sunset and instead of seeing the Creator who
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engineered the physics of light, human beings might just worship
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the sun itself. Or worship the earth.
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Or reduce the whole thing to a meaningless cosmic accident.
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So special revelation acts as a remedial measure to fix this
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completely broken relationship. It's the targeted fix for a
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specific problem. Here is where it gets really
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interesting to me. The text makes a sharp
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distinction between knowledge about God and knowledge of God.
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Oh, that distinction changes everything about how we approach
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theology. Let me test out an analogy for
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this. A lot of people compare general
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revelation to reading a celebrity's Wikipedia page,
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while special revelation is like having coffee with them.
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I've heard that one. But I don't think that goes far
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enough considering the moral rebellion we just talked about.
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We aren't just curious fans. Right, we are actively hostile
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in our natural state. Exactly.
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I mean spot on. So let's think about it like
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software development instead. General Revelation is like a
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user looking at a massive, incredibly complex piece of open
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source code. OK, I track with that.
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By looking at the code, you can do some things about the
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programmer. You can see they are brilliant.
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You can see they prefer efficiency.
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You can see they're highly organized.
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You're getting the knowledge about the programmer's skill,
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yes. You have knowledge about them,
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yeah, but special revelation is the programmer leaving a
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specific README text file inside the folder addressed directly to
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you. Oh, I.
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Like that? And it explains why they wrote
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the software, how they want you to use it, and offering a Direct
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Line of contact. You go from deducing traits from
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the environment to receiving direct relational communication.
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That analogy holds up exceptionally well because it
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highlights intentionality. Yeah.
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It's very intentional. The objective of special
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revelation is entirely relational.
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It's primary purpose is not to enlarge the general scope of
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human knowledge or to turn us all into, you know, cosmic
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philosophers. Right, it's not a data dump.
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No, not at all. The knowledge about it is
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provided entirely for the purpose of knowledge of the
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facts are there to facilitate the relationship.
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That makes so much sense. And this actually explains A
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fascinating aspect of the biblical text that often
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frustrates modern readers. What's that?
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The Bible leaves out a staggering amount of
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biographical detail about Jesus. Yeah, it drives historians
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crazy. Completely crazy.
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We have no idea how tall he was, what color his hair was, what
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his favorite food was, or what he did on a random Tuesday when
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he was 20 years old. They want the daily itinerary of
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Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, and those details would
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satisfy simple human curiosity. They would give us more
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knowledge about him, like scanning that source code for
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trivial quirks. But it doesn't help the
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relationship. Precisely knowing his hair color
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does not build faith. The the objective of special
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revelation is to provide the specific information needed to
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restore the relationship, not to satisfy historical curiosity.
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The text is brutally efficient in that regard.
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It really is. It only gives us the redemptive
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history. Yeah, if the goal is relational,
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throwing in random trivia about Jesus's height doesn't help me
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trust him more to save me from my sins.
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Not even a little bit. But the text also clarifies that
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special revelation does not replace general revelation, it
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builds upon it. They work together.
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Without the general concepts of reality provided by general
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revelation, we would lack the very vocabulary required to
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comprehend special revelation. So they are tethered.
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Yes, special revelation builds upon the foundation of general
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revelation. Think back to your software
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analogy. If you don't understand the
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basic concept of what a computer is, or what software is supposed
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to do, which is the general revelation environment, the
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README file is going to be completely unintelligible.
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Oh wow, yeah. If I don't know what a screen
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is, the text file means nothing. Spot on.
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The two mutually require each other and are completely
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harmonious. Only when theologians try to
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isolate them from one another do they seem to conflict.
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Right. They share a common subject
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matter and yield A complementary understanding of God.
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Exactly. I mean, that is spot on.
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So since the goal is highly relational, the methods God uses
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must bridge that massive dimension gap we talked about at
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the start. He has to step onto the 2D page.
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Yes, he has to step onto the page in a way the stick figure
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can actually comprehend. Ericsson identifies 3 specific
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characteristics of the style of God's communication.
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It is personal, anthropic, and analogical.
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Let's start with personal. OK, so God doesn't just hand out
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a textbook of universal axioms like an ancient geometry teacher
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listing outlaws of physics. No, he acts like a person
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interacting with other persons. Right, he gives his name.
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I am. He makes specific covenants with
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specific people like Noah, Abraham and Moses.
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It's a very grounded approach. Scripture is a record of
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concrete occurrences, not abstract philosophy.
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A personal God presents himself to persons.
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You see this constantly in Scripture.
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Think about the Apostle Paul. What about him?
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The stated goal of his life wasn't to memorize a set of
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abstract philosophical concepts or master a system of ethics.
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No, it was deeply relational. Right.
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His stated goal in his letter to the Philippians was a personal
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acquaintance with Christ. He says that I may know Him and
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the power of his resurrection. Not that I may know facts about.
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Him Yeah. Scripture is not a formal
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theological presentation with arguments and counterarguments
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structured like a university debate.
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It is intensely personal. It focuses primarily on those
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dimensions of God that are significant for faith and
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relationship. Then there is the second
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characteristic. Anthropic This is a fascinating
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1. It means God condescends to
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human levels. I love the historic detail the
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text points out regarding Koine Greek, the language the New
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Testament was written. In oh, the garbage dump
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discovery. Yes, for long time, centuries
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actually, scholars looked at the Greek of the New Testament and
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realized it didn't match the classical highly polished Creek
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of philosophers like Plato or Aristotle.
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It looked weird to them. It did so for a while.
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People thought Koine Creek was this magical divine dialect
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created by the Holy Spirit specifically for the Bible, like
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a special Holy Ghost language. And then the archaeologist
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started digging in Egypt. Right, they found all these
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papyri in the garbage dumps of ancient Egypt.
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Just everyday trash. Yeah, and what were they?
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They were shopping lists, tax receipts, personal letters
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between family members. And the grammar was identical.
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Yes, the scholars realized, the grammar and vocabulary of those
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everyday documents perfectly matched the New Testament.
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It wasn't a glowing divine language at all.
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It was the everyday vernacular, it.
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Was the language of the marketplace.
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God used ordinary everyday forms to communicate.
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He met them where they were. He used common experiences like
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dreams and even in the incarnation Jesus came as an
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average Carpenter from Nazareth. He didn't come as a glowing 10
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foot tall angelic being. The anthropic nature of
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revelation is a staggering reality when you pause to
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consider. It it really is.
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John Calvin used a great phrase for this.
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He said God lists to us the way a nurse or a mother lisps and
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uses baby talk to communicate with a toddler.
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Wow, that's a brilliant way to picture it.
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Right. The mother isn't being
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deceitful, she is accommodating her vast adult vocabulary to the
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finite capacity of the child. She is stepping down to their
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level so they can grasp it. Yeah, humans cannot reach up to
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investigate God, and we wouldn't possess the capacity to
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understand Him even if we could. We're just 2D stick figures.
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So God discloses himself in human language and human
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categories of thought and action.
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It is not anthropomorphism in a simplistic, primitive sense, but
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rather a translation of divine truth into human categories.
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That makes so much sense. When God appeared to humanity,
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He used the modality of an ordinary human being.
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Jesus carried no visible sign of distinctiveness that wood forest
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belief simply by looking at him. That leads us to the third
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characteristic of God's communication style, which might
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be the most complex to grasp analogical.
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This one requires some mental gymnastics.
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It does. The text says analogical
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languages midway between univocal and equivocal.
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Let's define those for a second. OK, univocal means the word has
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the exact same meaning in both contexts.
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For example, if I say a man is tall and a building is tall,
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tall means the same thing. Right, measuring a certain
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vertical height. But equivocal means the word has
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completely different meanings. If I say the bark of a tree and
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the bark of a dog, those are two totally unrelated concepts that
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just happened to share a sound. They have 0 overlap and meaning
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right? So analogical is somewhere in
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the middle. Ericsson uses a very helpful
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illustration here with the word run.
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OK, let's hear. If I say a person is running a
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marathon and then I say a train is running between Chicago and
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Detroit. OK, I see where this is going.
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The action is similar in effect, rapid forward movement toward a
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destination, but the mechanics are totally different.
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Yeah, a human is using muscles, tendons and cardiovascular
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endurance. And a train is using a diesel
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engine, steel wheels and tracks. It's the same idea at different
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mechanics. So here's the question that
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always trips people. Up.
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Let's have it. If God loves and humans love,
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how do we know we aren't just projecting our very flawed
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emotional human feelings onto God and calling it divine?
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That is the big critique from secular philosophy.
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Right. Like if a person had a terrible,
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abusive earthly father and the Bible says God is a father, how
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does that analogical language not completely breakdown and
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distort who God actually is? That is the critical
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vulnerability of language. But the text clarifies the
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analogical means qualitatively the same but differing in
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degree. Qualitatively the same.
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What does that mean in practice? When the Bible says God loves,
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it means the exact same sort of quality we refer to when we
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speak of humans loving a steadfast, unselfish concern for
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the welfare of the other person. The difference is not in the
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kind of love, but the degree. Oh, I see.
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Our love is finite, conditional, often selfish, and limited by
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our changing moods. God's love is infinite,
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immutable, and perfect. So the core essence is the same.
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Yes, we cannot fully grasp the infinite degree of it, but the
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knowledge we have is still genuine.
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So going back to the fatherhood example, human fatherhood is the
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broken, finite shadow of the reality.
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God's fatherhood is the actual substance.
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That is a great way to put it. We know a fraction of what love
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is, that that fraction is true to the whole.
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OK, but to address my concern about projection, how do we know
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we picked the right analogy? The text points out the
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mathematical problem of trying to create analogies on our own.
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Like an algebra problem. Yeah, if we try to guess what
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God is like based on our own experience, we are working with
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an equation that has two unknown variables.
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Which is impossible to solve. Spot on.
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We don't fully know God's infinite nature, and we don't
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fully understand our own finite human experience due to the
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corruption of sin. So we can't create a perfect
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analogy from the ground up. We simply can't.
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But God knowing both sides of the equation completely, He
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knows his infinite nature, and He knows our finite human
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experience perfectly. He selects the precise human
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experiences that accurately reflect divine truth.
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Because he sees the whole board. Yes, he chooses the analogical
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language because he knows it works.
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He is the author of both realities, so he knows exactly
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which words bridge the gap without distorting the truth.
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That makes a lot of sense. Gives you a lot of confidence in
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the text. It really does.
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So, knowing that God's style is analogical, anthropic, and
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personal, we now investigate the specific modes he utilizes in
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the real world. How it actually plays out.
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Yeah, how does this communication actually show up
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on the timeline of human history?
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Erickson outlines 3 modalities, starting with actions in
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history. The big observable events.
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Right. God's mighty deeds, the Exodus,
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the conquest of Canaan, the resurrection of Jesus.
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These are central to the biblical narrative, but 20th
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century theologians had massive debates over the exact
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relationship between historical events and divine revelation.
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It was a huge battleground. It really was.
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Erickson outlines 3 distinct views, and the first is called
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Revelation in History, championed by G Ernest Wright.
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Wright was a major figure in what was called the biblical
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theology movement. What was his main argument?
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Wright's view proposes that the Bible is primarily a historical
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recital in his framework. The Bible itself is not strictly
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the Word of God in a direct propositional sense.
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OK, So what is it to him? He sees it as a record of the
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acts of God and the human response to those acts.
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Biblical doctrines, therefore, are just inferences drawn from
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the historical recital. Give me an example of how that
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works in practice, Like how does a doctrine come from an
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inference? Let's take the doctrine of
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election, Wright would say. Israel looked at the historical
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fact that they were slaves in Egypt and then God brought them
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out with a mighty hand. OK, observable history.
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Right from that observable historical event, the Israelite
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writers inferred that God is a God of grace and that He elected
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them out of all the nations. So the doctrine of grace isn't
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something God dictated to Moses on a tablet.
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Not according to Wright. It is an inference drawn from
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the act of deliverance. OK, let me push back on Wright's
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view right away. Go for it.
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If the biblical writers were just making human inferences
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based on historical events they witnessed, doesn't that
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inherently mean their theological conclusions could be
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totally wrong? It absolutely opens that door.
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Like let's say I watch a historical event today like a
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massive political upheaval. My inference about why it
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happened and who the good guys are might be entirely incorrect
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based on my biases. Humans misinterpret events all
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the time. Right.
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What if an Egyptian saw the Red Sea part?
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The Egyptian might infer that the Israelite God is a demon of
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chaos, destroying their army. A very valid point.
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If doctrine is just human inference, the whole foundation
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of objective truth collapses. You have hit on the exact fatal
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flaw of the biblical theology movement, and it is the problem
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Erickson identifies with Wright's position it.
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Seems so fragile. It is Wright's view asserts,
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that the events are the locus of the revelation, but the
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inferences are only human inferences.
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This opens a massive door for historical criticism to come in
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and correct the biblical writers.
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Because if Moses was just guessing about the meaning of
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the Exodus. Then anyone can guess.
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Yeah, a modern scholar with a pH.
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D from a European university can say well, Moses was a product of
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his primitive time. I have a better psychological
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framework, so I will draw a different inference from the
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Exodus. That is the inevitable result.
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It allows modern scholars, with their modern assumptions, to
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look at the same historical events and draw completely
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different theological conclusions than Moses or Paul
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did. That completely compromises the
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text's authority. It places a modern
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presupposition in control of interpreting biblical events.
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Which moves us to the next generation of theologians who
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saw that vulnerability and tried to plug the hole.
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They realized Wright's view was. Yeah, so this brings us to the
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second view, Revelation through history, which is heavily
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associated with Neo Orthodoxy. A huge shift in thinking.
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The neo Orthodox thinkers looked at Wright's mess and said
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history is too vulnerable to criticism.
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We need a different approach. So they separated the two.
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They did. They argue that history is just
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the shell. The actual revelation is an
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encounter. Erickson notes that miracles
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themselves didn't guarantee meeting God.
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That is a crucial observation. Look at the New Testament.
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The Pharisees saw the exact same miracles Jesus performed that
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the disciples saw. They saw blind men give insight.
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The physical event was witnessed by everyone.
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But the Pharisees attributed the the miracles to the Beelzebub,
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the Prince of demons. So the historical event itself
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wasn't the revelation because the Pharisees saw the event and
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missed God entirely. Near Orthodoxy makes a sharp,
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absolute distinction between the historical event and the
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revelation itself. For them, revelation is a
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personal, sovereign encounter between God and a human being in
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the present moment. The historical event is merely
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the vehicle. OK, I follow.
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You can read the words of Exodus or observe a miracle in the 1st
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century, but unless God directly and sovereignly presents Himself
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to you in that specific moment, the event remains opaque.
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It's like staring at a blank television screen until God
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decides to turn the power on. That is a very fair comparison.
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This view attempts to protect Revelation from the very
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historical criticism that threatens Wright's view.
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Oh, because the history isn't the point anymore.
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Spot on. Think.
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Think about it. If the revelation is an internal
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sovereign encounter granted by God, then a secular historian
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disproving a date or a geographical location in the Old
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Testament doesn't destroy the revelation.
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Because the historical fact wasn't the revelation to begin
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with. The encounter was.
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Yes, Neo Orthodoxy builds an impenetrable fortress around
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Revelation by moving it entirely into the subjective realm of
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personal experience. But that sounds incredibly
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subjective. It is the definition of
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subjective. If the encounter is entirely
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internal and divorced from objective history, how do I know
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I actually met God? I might just have indigestion or
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A rush of endorphins. It is highly subjective, which
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is the primary warning Ericsson issues regarding neo orthodoxy.
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It feels like a dangerous game to play.
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If revelation is completely divorced from observable
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historical fact, truth becomes entirely dynamic, internal, and
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impossible to verify. It reduces theology to pure
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existentialism. And that leads to the third view
22:35
of history, which swings the pendulum all the way back in the
22:38
opposite direction. The Panenberg circle.
22:40
Right Revelation as history associated with Wolfhart,
22:43
Panenberg and his group of scholars.
22:46
Penenburg looks at the subjectivism of Neo orthodoxy
22:49
and the historical weakness of right, and he argues that God's
22:53
actions in history are literal and unifical.
22:55
He wants objective ground again, yeah.
22:57
Erickson says Panenburg believes the resurrection of Jesus could
23:00
be proven by reason, just as any other fact of history.
23:03
For Panenburg, the event itself is the revelation.
23:07
The Panenburg Circle attempts to restore a firm objective ground
23:10
to theology. By leaning heavy into history.
23:13
Yes. They regard God's actions in
23:16
history as having the exact same sense as the actions of a human
23:19
person in history. They want to subject the
23:22
biblical claims to rigorous historical methodology.
23:25
So they aren't afraid of the historians.
23:27
Not at all. While they might blur the lines
23:30
a bit between general and special revelation, by looking
23:34
at Universal World history as a single cohesive revelation, they
23:38
restore the idea that historical events actually are revelation.
23:42
You point to Jesus for this, right?
23:43
They do. They point to the fact that
23:45
Jesus himself pointed to his observable works and placed
23:49
responsibility on those who saw them.
23:51
Like with John the Baptist. Yeah, he didn't say to John the
23:53
Baptist disciples wait for a subjective internal encounter.
23:56
He said go back and report to John what you hear and see.
23:59
The blind received sight. The lame walk.
24:02
The objective history matter. It mattered immensely.
24:04
But actions alone can still be ambiguous.
24:07
What do you mean? If I look out my window right
24:09
now and see a guy running frantically down the street, I
24:12
don't know why he is running. You just see the action.
24:14
Right. Is he running late for a bus?
24:16
Is he running away from a bank robbery?
24:18
Is he just training for a marathon?
24:19
The physical action is objective, but the meaning of
24:22
the action is ambiguous. It needs.
24:24
Context. The action needs an explanation.
24:26
So to ensure his actions in history are understood, God adds
24:30
the second modality of revelation, divine speech.
24:34
This is a vital connection. James Barr provides a brilliant
24:38
critique of the pure action history model that Wright
24:42
promoted. What does Barr say?
24:44
Barr points out that actions are completely opaque, without
24:47
speech. The most snark theological
24:49
example of this is the crucifixion of Jesus.
24:52
Oh yeah, that's the ultimate example.
24:54
If Jesus simply dies on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem, what
24:58
does that historical event actually mean?
25:00
Right, if you are a Roman soldier standing there, he is
25:02
just another failed political rebel facing state execution.
25:06
Just another Tuesday for. Rome.
25:07
And if you are a sympathetic bystander, maybe he is a tragic
25:11
martyr dying for his ethical principles.
25:14
Exactly. I mean spot on.
25:16
The historical action alone cannot give you the doctrine of
25:18
the substitutionary atonement. There's no way to infer that
25:21
just by watching. There is nothing in the physical
25:24
biology of a man dying on wood that screams.
25:27
This is the propitiation for the sins of the world.
25:30
We only know it is an atoning sacrifice because God spoke to
25:33
interpret the event. Yes, Jesus himself instituted
25:37
the Lord's Supper before the cross, providing the speech to
25:40
interpret the coming action. He gave the context before it
25:43
happened. He said This is my blood of the
25:45
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of
25:48
sins. Speech is required to lock in
25:50
the meaning of the history. Erickson mentions that this
25:53
divine speech can take several forms.
25:56
Audible voices, inward communication to prophets or
26:00
something called concursive inspiration.
26:02
Concursive inspiration is fascinating.
26:04
It really is. It is where revelation and
26:06
inspiration merge seamlessly. God creates thoughts in the mind
26:10
of the author as they write, using the author's own
26:13
vocabulary, their own historical context, and their own writing
26:17
style, but producing precisely the message God intends.
26:20
It's a beautiful partnership. It isn't a trance where the
26:23
writer's eyes roll back in their head and they take dictation
26:27
like a robot. Paul still sounds like Paul and
26:29
John still sounds like John. The human element is preserved.
26:33
But the divine message is secured.
26:35
This divine speech interprets the divine actions, but then
26:39
Ericsson brings us to the ultimate modality of revelation,
26:43
the incarnation. The Incarnation is the absolute
26:46
pinnacle of special revelation. It brings it all together.
26:49
Here event and speech merge completely.
26:52
Jesus did not just bring a message from God like an Old
26:55
Testament prophet. He was the message.
26:58
The medium is the message, literally.
27:00
The opening lines of Hebrews state this perfectly.
27:03
In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets
27:06
at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He
27:10
has spoken to us by His Son. It makes me think of the
27:12
incredible claim Jesus made to Philip in the Upper room.
27:16
Anyone who has seen me has seen the father.
27:19
That is a staggering statement. It is wild.
27:21
He isn't saying I'm a signpost pointing you to the Father.
27:24
He is saying you are looking at the manifestation of the Father.
27:27
And that satisfies all the requirements of special
27:30
revelation we have discussed so far.
27:31
How so? Christ's perfect character, his
27:34
spoken words, and his miraculous actions form a concentrated
27:38
redemptive history. When Jesus spoke, there was a
27:41
directness and an authority that far surpassed the prophets.
27:46
They always had to say. Thus says the Lord.
27:49
Right. But Jesus said Truly, truly, I
27:52
say to you, it is the most complete mediation of divine
27:55
truth, because it is God himself living among humans, displaying
27:58
His attributes in real time in a three-dimensional world.
28:02
So we have established that God speaks through history, through
28:05
audible and inward speech, and supremely through the
28:08
incarnation of Jesus Christ. That's the baseline.
28:11
But this brings us to a massive fault line in 20th century
28:14
theology. It is the great debate,
28:16
propositional versus personal revelation.
28:19
This is where things get really heated.
28:20
When God speaks, is he giving us factual propositions, actual
28:25
data and information that can be written down?
28:27
Or is He just giving us a personal encounter?
28:29
This is a critical distinction, and it shapes how different
28:32
traditions view the Bible today. Break it down for us.
28:35
OK, so the Neo Orthodox view, which draws heavily from the
28:38
philosopher Sarin Kierkegaard, argues that revelation is not
28:42
information. Kierkegaard was a heavy hitter.
28:45
Very much so. Kierkegaard made a sharp
28:47
distinction between objective truth and subjective truth.
28:51
He argued that seeking objective information is an attempt to
28:53
define an item by putting it into classes, which inherently
28:56
limits it. OK, I think I follow.
28:58
The argument is that gaining objective information about
29:00
something is a subtle attempt to bring it under your control.
29:04
Meaning, if I can define God with a list of facts, He is
29:08
omnipotent, he is holy, He is Spirit, I can put him in a
29:12
theological box, catalog him, and manage him.
29:15
You've got it. To use Martin Buber's
29:17
terminology, you make God an I instead of an I Dow.
29:21
You turn him into an object of study rather than a person to be
29:23
encountered. That is the core of their
29:25
argument. So thinkers like Emil Brunner
29:28
and Carl Barth took this philosophy and argue that there
29:30
are no revealed truths, only truths of revelation.
29:34
Doctrine is just a token of the encounter.
29:36
For them, God does not reveal propositions.
29:39
He reviews himself. The Bible, therefore, is not a
29:43
collection of divine facts. It is a human record of past
29:47
encounters that God might use to spark a new encounter today.
29:51
That's their framework, but let's look at the pushback.
29:54
OK, let's unpack this with an analogy Erickson highlights from
29:57
the theologian Edward Carnell. Carnell talks about making a
30:00
bank deposit. This is a very practical
30:02
analogy. He says if I need someone to
30:04
deposit my cash at the bank, I don't just blindly trust a
30:08
stranger on the street who smiles at me.
30:10
I need some facts about their honesty first.
30:12
You need a reason to trust them. Cornell argues that vital faith,
30:16
which is the relational trust Neo Orthodoxy loves, requires
30:19
general faith, which is a belief in facts.
30:23
The facts precede the trust. Right.
30:25
If the pastor tells me to trust God and surrender my life to
30:28
him, my first rational question has to be which God?
30:31
What are his attributes? Is he trustworthy?
30:34
Does he keep his promises? I need facts to base my trust
30:37
on. It's just logical.
30:39
If revelation is purely a personal encounter with no
30:41
factual propositions, how could a person know they are
30:45
encountering the Christian God and not just their own
30:48
psychological self projection? The critique Carnell raises is
30:52
devastating to a purely non propositional theology.
30:55
It really is. Ludwig Feuerbach, a 19th century
30:58
philosopher, argued that exact point against religion.
31:02
He suggested that the object of human faith is nothing more than
31:05
our own self projection just. Staring in a mirror.
31:08
Yeah, an idealized version of ourselves that we project onto
31:11
the ceiling of the universe and call God.
31:14
If revelation is purely subjective and lacks objective
31:17
propositional facts, the criteria for testing truth
31:20
vanish. You have nothing to measure it
31:22
against. Right.
31:23
Brenner tries to argue that a person just knows it is God when
31:26
they encounter him, but millions of people in other religions
31:29
claim the exact same subjective emotional encounter with
31:32
entirely different deities. So you need facts.
31:35
Without propositions, theology teeters on the brink of absolute
31:38
subjectivism. You have no way to test the
31:41
spirits as the Apostle John commands believers to do.
31:44
Erickson also points out a false dichotomy regarding language
31:47
here. The Neo Orthodox thinkers assume
31:50
that speaking about someone using third person propositions
31:54
automatically makes them an impersonal object in it.
31:58
Which just isn't true of human language.
32:00
No, Erickson introduces I Hessian language.
32:03
Let me use my own life as an example.
32:05
I can describe my spouse to you using third person propositions.
32:08
OK, give us some data. I can tell you their eye color,
32:12
the city they were born in, their profession, and their
32:14
character traits. I'm giving you objective data.
32:17
Facts and figures. But I'm doing it with immense
32:20
warmth, reverence, and personal connection.
32:23
I am not turning my spouse into an inanimate object, but giving
32:26
you facts about. Them the facts actually
32:28
facilitate your understanding of why you love them, Yes.
32:31
Therefore, God can reveal Himself personally by telling us
32:35
factual propositions about Himself.
32:37
The shift from speaking to someone to speaking about
32:39
someone does not mandate a shift from personal to impersonal.
32:42
It's a false choice. Erickson concludes that
32:44
revelation is not an either or scenario.
32:47
It is a both hand. God primarily reveals himself,
32:50
yes, but He does so at least in part, by communicating factual
32:56
propositions about His nature, His acts, and His will.
32:59
The two elements are inseparable.
33:01
You cannot have a relationship with a blank slate.
33:03
You really can't. While many theologians heavily
33:06
critique Karl Barth on this issue of propositional truth,
33:09
some scholars argue he is widely misunderstood by evangelicals.
33:13
Barth is notoriously difficult to pin down.
33:16
This leads us into the mechanics of how Scripture actually
33:18
preserves truth. The text brings up Bruce
33:21
Mccormick's defense of Barth. McCormick argues that critics
33:24
fail to understand Barth's ontology of Scripture.
33:27
Ontology is the keyword there. Breakdown What McCormick is
33:30
actually saying. What does ontology of Scripture
33:32
mean in this context? Ontology deals with the nature
33:34
of being what something actually is.
33:37
McCormick points out that Barth operates as a Reformed thinker,
33:40
which is crucial here. OK, how does that change things?
33:43
In historic Christology, there is a difference between the
33:46
Reformed view and the Lutheran view regarding the two natures
33:49
of Christ. The divine and the human.
33:52
Right. The Lutheran concept known as
33:54
communicatio idiomatim suggests that the attributes of Christ's
33:58
divine nature are communicated to his human nature.
34:02
The divine bleeds over into the human.
34:04
So in that view, Christ's physical human body might take
34:08
on divine attributes like omnipresence, which is how
34:11
Lutheran's explain Christ's physical presence in the
34:14
communion elements everywhere in the world at once.
34:16
Correct, but the Reformed view which Barth adheres to keeps the
34:20
divine and human nature's distinct 2 natures, one person
34:24
unmixed. So Christo's human body is
34:26
localized. It doesn't become omnipresent.
34:29
Right. And McCormick argues that Barth
34:31
applies the same Reformed framework to Scripture.
34:34
How did that play to a book? The Bible is a human book, human
34:38
words, human grammar, human history.
34:40
It does not glow in the dark. It doesn't take on divine
34:42
attributes in and of itself. OK, I'm with you.
34:44
For Barth, the Bible becomes the Word of God based entirely on
34:48
the divine will when God elects to use the text in a specific
34:52
moment of encounter. But doesn't that just bring us
34:54
back to the neo Orthodox problem where the Bible is just a dead
34:58
letter until God turns the power on?
35:00
Here is Mccormick's key defense. While Barth believes the Bible
35:04
becomes the word of God through divine action, the true nature
35:07
of the Bible doesn't change if a fallen reader misses it.
35:11
Oh, so the objective reality remains.
35:14
Yes, God's sovereign will has determined what the Bible is,
35:18
and a human's failure to experience the encounter doesn't
35:21
negate the objective reality of the text.
35:23
So the Bible status rests on God's objective decision to use
35:28
it, not on the reader's subjective experience.
35:30
That is what McCormack is arguing, yes.
35:32
So if Revelation it includes propositional truth, it can be
35:35
recorded and preserved. Erickson uses a great analogy
35:38
from linguist Kenneth Pike about a recorded graduate lecture.
35:41
I love this analogy. Imagine a brilliant physics
35:43
professor gives a lecture to a room full of college freshmen.
35:47
He fills the chalkboard with complex equations.
35:49
Way above their pay grade. Completely none of the students
35:53
understand a word of it. It goes completely over their
35:55
heads. There is no cognitive reception.
35:57
It's just noise to them. But someone presses record on a
36:01
tape player sitting on the desk. Three years later, those same
36:05
students, now seniors with advanced math degrees, listen to
36:09
the tape and finally grasp the concepts.
36:12
Because they finally have the capacity.
36:15
Mike's point is that the truth remained on the tape the entire
36:18
time. The truth didn't disappear into
36:20
the ether just because there was no initial cognitive response
36:23
from the students. That analogy perfectly
36:26
illustrates the preservation of propositional revelation.
36:28
It locks it in. The Neo Orthodox insistence that
36:31
there is no revelation without an immediate human response
36:35
ignores the basic function of language, which is to store
36:38
ideas. Language is a storage unit,
36:39
yeah. The text on the page remains
36:42
objectively true whether the reader comprehends it in that
36:45
moment or not. If revelation is propositional,
36:48
it can be preserved across centuries.
36:50
The prophets can write things down that they themselves don't
36:53
fully understand, preserving the propositions for a future
36:56
generation. We see that in the Old Testament
36:58
all the time. But we still have to deal with
37:00
the massive philosophical roadblock set up by Immanuel
37:03
Kant. Kant.
37:06
You can't talk theology without running into him.
37:08
We can talk about propositions in history all we want, but if
37:11
Kant is right, none of it matters, Kant claimed.
37:14
There is a fundamental epistemological gap.
37:17
The massive divide. He argued we can only know
37:20
phenomena, things as they appear to our senses, and we can never
37:23
truly know numena things as they actually are in themselves.
37:27
Kant's Critique shaped 2 centuries of theology.
37:31
To understand Kant, you have to think about his Copernican
37:34
revolution in philosophy. What was the revolution?
37:36
Before Kant, people assumed the human mind was a blank slate
37:40
that passively received information from the outside
37:42
world. Kant argued the opposite.
37:44
That the mind is active. He said the human mind actively
37:47
shapes and structures reality. The mind applies categories like
37:51
time, space, and causality to the raw data of the senses.
37:55
It is like being born wearing rose colored glasses that are
37:58
fused to your face. You can never take them off, you
38:01
only see the world tinted red. That is an excellent way to
38:04
picture it. You can never see the true color
38:07
of reality, the numina, because your mind is always filtering
38:10
it. So if God is a super sensory
38:13
object, a being outside of time, space and physical matter, Kant
38:18
says we cannot apply the categories of human
38:21
understanding to him. He doesn't fit in the category.
38:23
Right. We cannot know God as he is.
38:25
We are tracked behind the wall of our own sensory perception.
38:29
So if Kant says we are locked behind a sensory wall, or we
38:32
cannot know the spiritual realm, how do modern theologians get
38:35
around that? How is knowledge of God even
38:38
possible? Modern theologians have offered
38:40
several solutions to bridge this chasm.
38:42
Kevin Vanhooser uses speech act theory.
38:45
What does that entail? This theory looks at language
38:47
not just as a transfer of information, but as an action.
38:51
Vanhooser focuses on God as the divine speaker and looks at what
38:54
God intends to accomplish by his words.
38:57
Moving from nouns to verbs, basically.
38:59
The focus shifts from mere locution, the words spoken, to
39:03
elocution, what the speaker's doing by speaking, like making a
39:07
promise or issuing a command. This grounds revelation in the
39:10
personal action of God rather than just static facts.
39:14
But perhaps the most compelling solution to the Kontian problem
39:18
relies on Kirkegaard's concept of dimensional beyond this.
39:21
This is the physics analogy in Ericsson's text.
39:24
I love this. It completely reframes the
39:26
problem. It does walk us through it.
39:28
Instead of thinking of God as just really far away in our
39:31
three-dimensional plane, we should think of God as existing
39:34
in a higher dimension. 4th dimension or beyond?
39:37
Yeah. Physicists note that a being
39:40
operating in 4 dimensions can intervene in a three-dimensional
39:43
world effortlessly while remaining completely
39:46
incomprehensible to the three-dimensional beings if they
39:49
try to study the 4th dimension. Because the 3D beings lack the
39:52
categories for it. The Kantian problem assumes
39:56
humans have to build a bridge from our side to the numina.
39:59
Khat assumes we have to climb up to God's level of reality, and
40:02
since we can't, theology is impossible.
40:04
But the dimensional analogy flips that.
40:06
It shows that a gap that cannot be bridged from the human side
40:10
is not an insuperable difficulty from the divine side.
40:14
God bridges the gap from His dimension to ours.
40:17
We don't have to breakthrough Kant's wall.
40:19
No, God simply steps over it into our reality.
40:22
He translates the four dimensional reality into 3
40:25
dimensional language and history.
40:27
That brings us right back to your 2D paper analogy from the
40:29
start of the discussion. It really does.
40:32
Let's recap the massive ground we have covered today.
40:35
We started with humanity's dire need for special revelation.
40:39
The absolute necessity of it. Because of our physical
40:42
finiteness and our moral rebellion, general revelation in
40:46
nature wasn't enough. Looking at the source code of
40:48
the universe didn't fix the broken relationship.
40:51
We needed the read me. File We needed a remedial
40:54
relational intervention. We saw how God condescended
40:57
using human concepts, the everyday marketplace vernacular
41:00
of Koine Greek, and actual history to communicate.
41:03
The anthropic approach. We navigated the intense debates
41:06
over history, realizing that historical actions alone are
41:09
ambiguous and required divine speech to interpret them.
41:13
Culminating perfectly in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who
41:16
is both the event and the speech.
41:18
And we waded into the deep waters of propositional versus
41:22
personal revelation, concluding that God gives us both.
41:25
A deeply personal encounter grounded in factual, objective
41:29
truth preserved in the Scriptures.
41:31
Effectively stepping across dimensions to reach us.
41:34
It is a staggering reality to consider.
41:36
It really is. If we connect all these
41:38
philosophical and theological dots to the every everyday life
41:42
of a believer, it raises a massive question.
41:45
What's that? If God has gone to such
41:47
extraordinary multi dimensional lengths to cross the infinite
41:50
gap? If he utilized centuries of
41:52
history, raised up prophets, inspired the preservation of
41:56
specific texts through concursive inspiration, and
41:59
orchestrated the incarnation of his Son to secure this message
42:02
in a language we can comprehend? What is the weight of our
42:05
responsibility when we open that text?
42:07
Oh man, that is heavy. If the creator of the universe
42:10
went through all of that to step onto your two-dimensional page
42:13
and speak to you, how casually are we treating the everyday act
42:16
of reading it? That is a thought that should
42:18
stop us in our tracks. We started by talking of the
42:21
impossibility of communicating with a flat drawing on a page.
42:25
The gap seems too vast. But it was bridged.
42:28
The reality we've uncovered today is that the author of the
42:30
page didn't just shout into the void.
42:33
He picked up the pen, stepped onto the paper and wrote himself
42:36
into the story so we could know him.
42:39
A perfect way to summarize it. Thanks for joining us on this
42:42
deep dive.