On Revelation
I am re-reading The Idea of Revelation by John Baillie and am really enjoying the short historical reminder in chapter one.
Thinking of our our diverse conceptions today: Baillie reminds us that into the seventieth century there were two ways of knowing truth: natural and divine. Reason could ascend to truth and there God also communicated truth to us.
But in the seventieth century weight fell to reason and there were those who said revelation was impossible. Others said that revelation was for the impoverished minds who would never ascend to truth through reason, so needed revelation.
Meanwhile, you have the protestant reformation who went the other way, the cast out reason as a way of knowing truth and embraced revelation as the only sure thing; saying that with the Fall of Man the reason was lost to corruption.
As you get to the ninetieth century there is another movement that tries to take a middle way and reject both as sure ways of truth. Connected to the Romantic movement and its rejection of the domination of reason, they say that knowledge of God is not cognition, but "a variety of feeling."
The Baillie makes an interesting comment at the end of this section. He says that this group who chose to reject the polarity of revelation and reason and instead choose feeling do so assuming that revelation is still happening through these religious feelings. But by dropping the term, they actually make a way for it to be dropped without realizing.
What stands out to me is that this was a big historical debate and if you are reading along through history, the history of thought, you see context for what Schleirmacher and Ritschl are saying in rejecting reason and revelation ... in taking a subject course which they thought of as a middle way. But if you jump into our recent century, the 20th century, you see that they made the way for the common view that there is something like the hard truth of science and the soft, touchy-feely truth of religion, where nothing is verifiable and nothing is objective.
Thinking of our our diverse conceptions today: Baillie reminds us that into the seventieth century there were two ways of knowing truth: natural and divine. Reason could ascend to truth and there God also communicated truth to us.
But in the seventieth century weight fell to reason and there were those who said revelation was impossible. Others said that revelation was for the impoverished minds who would never ascend to truth through reason, so needed revelation.
Meanwhile, you have the protestant reformation who went the other way, the cast out reason as a way of knowing truth and embraced revelation as the only sure thing; saying that with the Fall of Man the reason was lost to corruption.
As you get to the ninetieth century there is another movement that tries to take a middle way and reject both as sure ways of truth. Connected to the Romantic movement and its rejection of the domination of reason, they say that knowledge of God is not cognition, but "a variety of feeling."
The Baillie makes an interesting comment at the end of this section. He says that this group who chose to reject the polarity of revelation and reason and instead choose feeling do so assuming that revelation is still happening through these religious feelings. But by dropping the term, they actually make a way for it to be dropped without realizing.
What stands out to me is that this was a big historical debate and if you are reading along through history, the history of thought, you see context for what Schleirmacher and Ritschl are saying in rejecting reason and revelation ... in taking a subject course which they thought of as a middle way. But if you jump into our recent century, the 20th century, you see that they made the way for the common view that there is something like the hard truth of science and the soft, touchy-feely truth of religion, where nothing is verifiable and nothing is objective.
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