265 - The Idea of Revelation In Recent Thought

The Idea of Revelation In Recent Thought
By John Baillie
151 pp. New York, Columbia University Press, 1956. $3.00.

Not long ago (our author says) any school-boy could have told you what Revelation means. It is God giving us information we could not get anywhere else. Revelation as communication of a body of knowledge was the prevailing conception till within the past century. What Revelation had to offer was more than our "unaided reason" could reach; but it was only more of the same. Now, however, we are returning to a more Biblical conception of Revelation as from person to person, subject to subject. (Incidentally this is also a return to Calvinist orthodoxy, the Westminster Confession of Faith speaking of God's revealing primarily "himself and his will.") Dr. Baillie's review of contemporary thought along this line is compact though perhaps because of brevity not at all points clear. He reviews and criticizes passim the views of such pen as Maurice, Temple, Farmer, Tillich, Farrer, Thornton, Barth, and Brunner.

Revelation of God, God, differs from the "self-revelation" of things for the latter case is no more than a metaphor. God's self-revelation can be richer than that of human beings, not only because he is richer but because our media are restricted, while "there is nothing through which God cannot reveal himself to me." The theory of A. Farrer that images the vehicle of revelation is examined and rejected, as on the whole mechanical. "The human imagination is just as fallible as the judgment forming intellect." Substituting implanted images for communicated truths does not get us away from the difficulties of the problem.

What is communicated is God himself, and therefore also Good News. Revelation, as Brunner says, is first of all Event, and the Event is Christ. Nevertheless the content of Revelation is never bare event but "the intercourse of event and interpretation." Revelation is also a demand; and faith therefore comes in for analysis. As against the older-and current Roman-intellectualist view of faith, the "modern" emphasis on fiducia is examined. This is not strictly modern, for the Shorter Catechism's definition of saving faith is cited, and F. D. Maurice of the nineteenth century clearly repudiated the identification of faith with assent to dogma. He pointed out that the way creeds are used in the liturgy shows that they are not mere collections of dogmas.

266 - The Idea of Revelation In Recent Thought

A chapter, "Scripture and Covenant," is devoted to the relation between Revelation and the Bible. The simple identification of Revelation with the total content of Scripture has been widely abandoned. It is denied that the earliest Reformers made this identification; but the later Reformers did. In this connection there is a brief exposition and criticism of Fr. Thornton's Revelation and the Modern World, with a rejection of his identification of Scripture as a whole with Revelation. Dr. Baillie, the way, accepts verbal inspiration but denies its plenary or inerrant character.

Some have complained that there is too little of Baillie himself here. The author has already presented his own views elsewhere, as in "Our Knowledge of God." The title disclaims a personal emphasis. Yet his own mind is perceptible throughout, and the last chapter, "The Challenge of Revelation," is autobiographical, a moving story of his own experience. Starting from some man's remark that prayer is "so one-sided," Baillie recounts his own story. He discovered that God is trying to speak to us all the time, he has done all he can to make his will known to us; only we are "conveniently deaf toward God." We may not hear because we are not prepared to hear. Divine guidance on how to attain our ambitions-yes, we would welcome that; but God does not oblige. We are prepared to listen only if listening involves no readjustments … and so we do not hear at all. In another figure, we need not complain that the light is dim; "it is enough to see to do our work ."

Kenneth J. Foreman
Louisville Theological Seminary
Louisville, Kentucky