Most modern Christian apologetics is a response to the Enlightenment and its apparent rejection of Christian revelation in favour of rationalism.
[...]
This reading of the history of Western thought has been challenged by Stephen Williams in his book, Revelation and Reconciliation. Williams argues that modern atheism has its roots elsewhere. The rejection of revelation is only a symptom of an underlying problem. The real problem is the rejection of the idea or reconciliation and all that is implicit in that idea: moral accountability to the Creator, human helplessness, and reconciliation with God through a substitutionary sacrifice. The underlying issue was not a rejection of the possibility of revelation, but a rejection of the actuality of revelation.(pp.159-161, Tim Chester & Steve Timmis, Total Church: A radical reshaping around gospel and community, IVP)
I think it is right that the Enlightenment was not firstly a rejection of supernaturalism and so revelation. I think it had more to do with rejection of authority (rather than reconciliation). Having said that, God's saving action is where his authority is most clearly demonstrated (that was what the OT writers thought, e.g. Exodus 7:5, and NT writers followed when they said that 'Jesus is Lord').
Interesting. Not read Williams but that series is good. Could you explain the link between the first and second paragraphs? (what's in the [...]?)
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I read it I wondered if you had read the book. I thought 'I should ask Chris what he thinks'.
ReplyDeleteIn the [...] there are is a fleshing out (with pretty standard examples) of how human reason was embraced in philosophy; then the churches response to it as capitulation (becoming liberal I suppose), retreating into a ghetto, or attempting to 'prove' God with reason.
Unsurprisingly Chester and Timmis don't like those responses.
I'm not sure about the argument of the whole chapter... but it was one of the most interesting ones in the book.
That should be "church's" shouldn't it.
ReplyDelete