Article

"God, Revelation and Authority" by Carl F. H. Henry

Mark R. Talbot
Thursday, July 5th 2007
Jul/Aug 2000

In conjunction with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's recent launch of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement, Henry's magnum opus has been republished. This six-volume series began to appear in 1976 and was completed in 1983.

As Henry states in a new preface, God, Revelation and Authority represents his effort "to challenge the course of modern theology" by exhibiting the cognitive defensibility of scriptural Christianity. This primarily involves showing how evangelical Christianity's truth-claims can be integrated into a "unified system of truth" covering all that we justifiably believe or know. As he observed in introducing the series in 1976, our culture has come to view religion as "a matter of personal preference rather than [as] a truth-commitment universally valid for one and all." But this, in effect, shears faith and theology off from everyday life in a way that makes many "far more sure of the landing of astronauts on the moon" than they are "of God's incarnation in Jesus Christ, more sure of scientists propelled into outer space than of the Logos 'that came down from heaven' (John 3:13, KJV) as the eternal Word become flesh (John 1:14)." The remedy for this is to recognize that appeals "to God and revelation cannot stand alone." We who believe that God has spoken and still speaks must strive to reach some agreement with our nonbelieving contemporaries "on rational methods of inquiry, ways of argument, and criteria for verification" so that our Christian assertions can be seen in a context where they have some chance of commending themselves to rational reflection.

Henry's six volumes represent his own massive effort to put the fundamental Christian assertions in such a context. The first four volumes, all subtitled The God Who Speaks and Shows, concentrate on analyzing the nature of religious knowledge. The last two volumes, subtitled The God Who Stands and Stays, explore the nature of the God who makes Himself known through his gracious revelation. "Theology," Henry insists in his first volume, "sets out not simply with God as a speculative presupposition but with God known in his revelation." Volumes II to IV are especially noteworthy for their articulation and defense of fifteen theses about divine revelation, all arising out of Henry's conviction that "God heralds his unchanging truth to man once for all and ongoingly; man meanwhile asserts a multiplicity of contrary things about God and his Word." One of Henry's great strengths is his ability to restate fundamental Christian truths in striking ways. Here Henry's first thesis hints of the richness of all the rest: "Revelation is a divinely initiated activity, God's free communication by which he alone turns his personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of his reality."

As is to be expected with so large an effort, some aspects of Henry's work are not fully satisfying. One is that much of the scholarship is dated-and indeed was so even when the set first went to press. Another-and an aspect that is especially aggravating to a philosopher-is that sometimes Henry buttresses his own positions too much by merely citing authorities rather than by carefully arguing for their truth.

Yet the set remains invaluable and a necessary starting point for those who would explore the great doctrines about God and Scripture that were at the Reformation's heart. Indeed, this is especially true now that modernism has given way to postmodernism, with, as Henry puts it, "its vengeful repudiation of any objective conception of deity, truth, and goodness." Now, even more than when this set first appeared, we need to learn from Henry's attempt to show that evangelical Christianity is the final truth that holds for and indeed judges all human beings. Even for Henry's postmodern evangelical critics, the proper way forward in evangelical theology goes through and not around his efforts.

Thursday, July 5th 2007

“Modern Reformation has championed confessional Reformation theology in an anti-confessional and anti-theological age.”

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