Revelation and Inspiration in Neo-Orthodox Theology Part II: The Method of Revelation -- By: Kenneth S. Kantzer

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 115:459 (Jul 1958)
Article: Revelation and Inspiration in Neo-Orthodox Theology Part II: The Method of Revelation
Author: Kenneth S. Kantzer


Revelation and Inspiration in Neo-Orthodox Theology
Part II:
The Method of Revelation

Kenneth S. Kantzer

[Kenneth S. Kantzer is Charles Deal Professor of Theology and Division Chairman at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.]

The Method of Revelation: How Does God Reveal Himself?

The answer to the question, “How does God reveal Himself?” is in reality already determined by our answer to the previous question, “What is revelation?” If we define revelation as the divine communication of truth to men, then the means of revelation will of necessity involve a work of “inspiration” whereby God conveys to human hearers His word of truth, propositions about Himself and about reality, which He wishes to communicate to men.

In such a situation, of course, further questions will raise themselves. Precisely which propositions are divinely revealed and which stem merely from human judgment? How can these divinely revealed propositions be distinguished from others which are only alleged to be so? How can divinely given propositions be understood, interpreted, and adequately conveyed in human language?

Most contemporary theologians consider such questions unanswerable. They seek, however, to short-cut what appears to them to be a very devious line of thinking. At the very beginning they chose a radically different approach to the problems of revelation by defining revelation not as the divine communication of truth but as God’s disclosure of Himself as a person. This different definition of revelation prescribes necessarily a different method of revelation. It is quite obvious that if God cannot, or does not, reveal propositional truth, then the method of revelation will not involve an “inspiration of truth” either to Biblical prophets and apostles or to anyone else.

If, therefore, the contemporary theologians are correct in insisting that all revelation is not of truth but only of a person, then the method of divine revelation

must be limited to acts of God in nature, in history, in conscience, or in the human soul. And this is precisely the contemporary view. Baillie, for example, writes: “God reveals Himself in action—in the gracious activity by which He invades the field of human experience and human history which is otherwise but a vain show, empty and drained of meaning” (John Baillie, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought, p. 50).

Professor Tillich adds: “There are no revealed doctrines, but there are revelatory events and situations which can be described in doctrinal terms…. The ‘Word of God’ contains neither revealed commandments nor revealed doctrine. It accomp...

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