Verse Concepts. Barth’s statement here makes explicit a pun or play on words noted by Geoffrey Bromiley in the title of this section, “The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religion.” Bromiley observes “that the word abolition is used here for the German Aufhebung, which in good Hegelian fashion can mean elevating as well as abolishing. [3] Your gold and silver are corroded. Are we not arguing in a circle? Ironically, he traces the liberal denial of the uniqueness of Christ to the excessive rationalism of some orthodox Protestant scholars of the early eighteenth century. . The fideists’ approach differs in this respect: for them God’s revelation is not essentially verbal, but active. It is the picture which He Himself has created and impressed upon His witnesses.” We know who he is because in rising from the dead he has “shown Himself to be who He is. 5:3-4, LB) Here's the point: God is at work in your life - even when you do not recognize it or understand it. Specifically, while Luther viewed the entirety of Scripture as God’s Word, he tended to “grade” the different parts of the Bible depending on the extent to which they were centered on Christ and the gospel of justification through faith in Christ. “I gotta get to the next chapter so I can be caught up on my Bible reading plan,” some might hurriedly mutter to themselves. It wants to have direct recognizability, wants to have the most absolute harmony throughout Scripture, and then it will believe Christianity, believe that the Bible is the Word of God—that is, it will not believe. . (CD I/2, 330-331). Think about what that means. You can not encounter God and remain the same. We have simply ascribed to Him what the Bible calls glory and therefore His prophetic office. Do fideists even attempt to provide meaningful answers to common objections to the Christian faith? Human religion, the relationship with God which we can and actually do have apart from revelation, is not an unknown but a very well-known quantity both in form and content, and as such it is something which has to be reckoned with, as having a central importance for all theological thinking. The Bible must be known as the Word of God if it is to be known as the Word of God. We can't force a word or phrase to strike us, we must trust that God is willing and able to meet us in his Living Word. Reason allows us to study and grow in knowledge and to make judgments about discipleship in the world. Just image what you … The abolishing of religion by revelation need not mean only its negation: the judgment that religion is unbelief. He summarizes the import of their teaching as follows. Longer-form articles covering the deep topics of the Bible and Christian lifestyle. . 9 Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, 35-36. “A real witness is not identical with that to which it witnesses, but it sets it before us” (CD I/2, 463). Then let us know how it went! Is there any place where we are really forced to ask this for the sake of the honesty and sincerity which we owe ourselves? Among evangelicals, it is popular to affirm that Christianity is not a religion but a relationship with Jesus Christ. Your relationship to God and your character are the only two things you're going to take with you into eternity. Overview. Of course, part of what God does in Christ is to speak, and fideists do not deny that revelation includes a verbal aspect. When we walk in love, we give off His scent. 20 He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart. 5:1-2). At the very heart of the apostolic witness (which accepts the Christian as the true religion) Christianity could not be more comprehensively relativised in favour of revelation, which means a crisis even for the religion of revelation. 15 Bible Verses about Ability, God's Power ... and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, ... who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. . Site by. We reviewed his argument in some detail in chapter 16; we will simply summarize the main points here. 7 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1994), 69. if you are using this for a paper use [email protected] for the author, Happy New Year: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives, 4. On what ground and with what right may we do this?” (CD IV/3/1, 72). A man might even credit all miracles and for that reason not confess the miracle. On the other hand, in another sense Christianity is the true religion, but only because God in his grace makes it so. Precisely because God wants Holy Scripture to be the object of faith and an offense to any other point of view, for this reason there are carefully contrived discrepancies (which, after all, in eternity will readily be dissolved into harmonies); therefore it is written in bad Greek, etc. If there is any Christian and theological axiom, it is that Jesus Christ is risen, that He is truly risen. God Allows Problems in Order to Test Our Hearts God may allow problems so that He may test your heart and your motives. Kierkegaard affirms quite simply that “Christianity is still the only explanation of existence which holds water” (JP 1052, 1:457), and offers two main arguments for why it is superior to all other religions. . This is why Christianity is a paradox; this explains the contradictions in Scripture, etc. Instead, the only appropriate “proof” of God’s existence is an expression of submission: “one proves God’s existence by worship . To anyone who hears his voice and opens the door he promises, “‘I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me’” (Revelation 3:20). “This is called venturing, and without venturing faith is an impossibility.” Unlike Socrates, who wagered his whole life on his own inherent immortality, the Christian is wagering his whole life on another, on Jesus Christ (JP 73, 1:28). Likewise, Barth held that God gave Job no answer to the problem of suffering, but simply asked Job to trust him: “He [God] does not ask for his understanding, agreement or applause. For God, who is creator of all creatures, and orders all things according to his unsearchable will and wisdom, is not pleased with such questionings.”6. Scripture is not just for scholars or grown-ups; it is for everyone. God's grace frees us from slavery to sin, guilt, and shame. They believe He is personally self-attesting: as people encounter Jesus Christ (through the witness of Scripture and the church), they are won to faith in him by the power of the love and grace of God that he embodies. Having affirmed that Jesus’ life is a revelation of God, and that it is such in fulfillment of the Old Testament (CD IV/3/1, 48-71), Barth asks the apologetic question: “Hitherto we have presupposed and maintained that the life of Jesus Christ as such is light, that His being is also name, His reality truth, His history revelation, His act Word or Logos. Notice that for Kierkegaard, as for Luther, Scripture is “God’s word.” To characterize Kierkegaard’s view of Scripture as merely a witness to God’s Word and not actually God’s Word would be incorrect. 11:30); and to judge wickedness (see Ps. [1] Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Do they seek to give a reason for the hope that is within them (1 Peter 3:15)? Because it is a grasping, religion is the contradiction of revelation, the concentrated expression of human unbelief, i.e., an attitude and activity which is directly opposed to faith. My wife Vicki and I have seen this powerful reality over and over again. A lot of people treat their time in the Word as an item on their to–do list that needs to be checked off. Without counting on the Holy Spirit as the only conclusive argument, even the prophet of the Exile who advanced those arguments and proofs could not have undertaken to proclaim the uniqueness of Yahweh among the gods of the nations. Other religions and that Jesus Christ scholars or grown-ups ; it is God which works you. That God is love, understand his truth, and moths have eaten your clothes God us... 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