Systematic Theology (Vol. 1-3). Augustus Hopkins Strong

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СКАЧАТЬ 718, 719, maintains that there is no other principle for dogmatics than Holy Scripture. Yet he holds that knowledge never comes directly from Scripture, but from faith. The order is not: Scripture, doctrine, faith; but rather, Scripture, faith, doctrine. Scripture is no more a direct authority than is the church. Revelation is addressed to the whole man, that is, to the will of the man, and it claims obedience from him. Since all Christian knowledge is mediated through faith, it rests on obedience to the authority of revelation, and revelation is self-manifestation on the part of God. Kaftan should have recognized more fully that not simply Scripture, but all knowable truth, is a revelation from God, and that Christ is “the light which lighteth every man” (John 1:9). Revelation is an organic whole, which begins in nature, but finds its climax and key in the historical Christ whom Scripture presents to us. See H. C. Minton's review of Martineau's Seat of Authority, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., Apr. 1900:203 sq.

      1. Scripture and Nature.

      By nature we here mean not only physical facts, or facts with regard to the substances, properties, forces, and laws of the material world, but also spiritual facts, or facts with regard to the intellectual and moral constitution of man, and the orderly arrangement of human society and history.

      We here use the word “nature” in the ordinary sense, as including man. There is another and more proper use of the word “nature,” which makes it simply a complex of forces and beings under the law of cause and effect. To nature in this sense man belongs only as respects his body, while as immaterial and personal he is a supernatural being. Free will is not under the law of physical and mechanical causation. As Bushnell has said: “Nature and the supernatural together constitute the one system of God.” Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 232—“Things are natural or supernatural according to where we stand. Man is supernatural to the mineral; God is supernatural to the man.” We shall in subsequent chapters use the term “nature” in the narrow sense. The universal use of the phrase “Natural Theology,”however, compels us in this chapter to employ the word “nature” in its broader sense as including man, although we do this under protest, and with this explanation of the more proper meaning of the term. See Hopkins, in Princeton Review, Sept. 1882:183 sq.

      E. G. Robinson: “Bushnell separates nature from the supernatural. Nature is a blind train of causes. God has nothing to do with it, except as he steps into it from without. Man is supernatural, because he is outside of nature, having the power of originating an independent train of causes.” If this were the proper conception of nature, then we might be compelled to conclude with P. T. Forsyth, in Faith and Criticism, 100—“There is no revelation in nature. There can be none, because there is no forgiveness. We cannot be sure about her. She is only aesthetic. Her ideal is harmony, not reconciliation. … For the conscience, stricken or strong, she has no word. … Nature does not contain her own teleology, and for the moral soul that refuses to be fancy-fed, Christ is the one luminous smile on the dark face of the world.”But this is virtually to confine Christ's revelation to Scripture or to the incarnation. As there was an astronomy without the telescope, so there was a theology before the Bible. George Harris, Moral Evolution, 411—“Nature is both evolution and revelation. As soon as the question How is answered, the questions Whence and Why arise. Nature is to God what speech is to thought.” The title of Henry Drummond's book should have been: “Spiritual Law in the Natural World,” for nature is but the free though regular activity of God; what we call the supernatural is simply his extraordinary working.

      (a) Natural theology.—The universe is a source of theology. The Scriptures assert that God has revealed himself in nature. There is not only an outward witness to his existence and character in the constitution and government of the universe (Ps. 19; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:20), but an inward witness to his existence and character in the heart of every man (Rom. 1:17, 18, 19, 20, 32; 2:15). The systematic exhibition of these facts, whether derived from observation, history or science, constitutes natural theology.

      Outward witness: Ps.19:1–6—“The heavens declare the glory of God”; Acts 14:17—“he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons”; Rom. 1:20—“for the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.” Inward witness: Rom. 1:19—τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ = “that which is known of God is manifest in them.” Compare the ἀποκαλύπτεται of the gospel in verse 17, with the ἀποκαλύπτεται of wrath in verse 18—two revelations, one of ὀργή, the other of χάρις; see Shedd, Homiletics, 11. Rom. 1:32—“knowing the ordinance of God”; 2:15—“they show the work of the law written in their hearts.” Therefore even the heathen are “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). There are two books: Nature and Scripture—one written, the other unwritten: and there is need of studying both. On the passages in Romans, see the Commentary of Hodge.

      Spurgeon told of a godly person who, when sailing down the Rhine, closed his eyes, lest the beauty of the scene should divert his mind from spiritual themes. The Puritan turned away from the moss-rose, saying that he would count nothing on earth lovely. But this is to despise God's works. J. H. Barrows: “The Himalayas are the raised letters upon which we blind children put our fingers to spell out the name of God.”To despise the works of God is to despise God himself. God is present in nature, and is now speaking. Ps. 19:1—“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork”—present tenses. Nature is not so much a book, as a voice. Hutton, Essays, 2:236—“The direct knowledge of spiritual communion must be supplemented by knowledge of God's ways gained from the study of nature. To neglect the study of the natural mysteries of the universe leads to an arrogant and illicit intrusion of moral and spiritual assumptions into a different world. This is the lesson of the book of Job.” Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 85—“Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, is also, and is thereby, the servant and interpreter of the living God.” Books of science are the record of man's past interpretations of God's works.

      (b) Natural theology supplemented.—The Christian revelation is the chief source of theology. The Scriptures plainly declare that the revelation of God in nature does not supply all the knowledge which a sinner needs (Acts 17:23; Eph. 3:9). This revelation is therefore supplemented by another, in which divine attributes and merciful provisions only dimly shadowed forth in nature are made known to men. This latter revelation consists of a series of supernatural events and communications, the record of which is presented in the Scriptures.

      Acts 17:23—Paul shows that, though the Athenians, in the erection of an altar to an unknown God, “acknowledged a divine existence beyond any which the ordinary rites of their worship recognized, that Being was still unknown to them; they had no just conception of his nature and perfections” (Hackett, in loco). Eph. 3:9—“the mystery which hath been hid in God”—this mystery is in the gospel made known for man's salvation. Hegel, in his Philosophy of Religion, says that Christianity is the only revealed religion, because the Christian God is the only one from whom a revelation can come. We may add that as science is the record of man's progressive interpretation of God's revelation in the realm of nature, so Scripture is the record of man's progressive interpretation of God's revelation in the realm of spirit. The phrase “word of God” does not primarily denote a record—it is the spoken word, the doctrine, the vitalizing truth, disclosed by Christ; see Mat. 13:19—“heareth the word of the kingdom”; Luke 5:1—“heard the word of God”; Acts 8:25—“spoken the word of the Lord”; 13:48, 49—“glorified the word of God: … the word of the Lord was spread abroad”; 19:10, 20—“heard the word of the Lord, … mightily grew the word of the Lord”; 1 Cor. 1:18—“the word of the cross”—all designating not a document, but an unwritten word; cf.Jer. 1:4—“the word of Jehovah came unto me”; Ez. 1:3—“the word of Jehovah came expressly СКАЧАТЬ