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Continuing
LEHRE UNO \VEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER EV.-LuTH. H OMILETlK
THEOLOGICAL Q UARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. X September, 1939 No.9
CONTENTS
Page
The Reformed Doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Th. Engelder ______ M1
The False Arguments for the l\lodern Theory of Open Questions
Walther-Guebert ____ ______ .. __ 656
Die Gottesidee in heidnischen Religionen. P. E. Kretzmann ________ 666
Was Gamaliel's Counsel to the Sanhedrill Based on Sound
Reasoning? w. c. Bw:hop _ __ ____ ___ _________________________________________ 676
Predigtpniwuerie Cuer die Evangelien der Thomasius-
Perikopenreihe . __________________________________________ . _____________ 684
l\lisce1Ianea _ ______ . ____ " _ . .. __ _____________________ .. ___ .. __ .... __ .... ___ ._ .. _ 692
Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches ____________ 698
Book Review.-Literatur .. _ .. _ .... .. ____________________________________ . 711
an Predller muu nlcht alle1n ",ei-
lin, IIlIo daII et' dle Schafe unter-
.... elae. WIe lie re-o..hte ChrL-ten sollen
IeJD, IOJldem 8ucb daDeben den Woel-
fell ",."!'eft, due lie die Schafe nlcht
Ullfel1'm un4 mIt fal8eher Lehre ver-
tuebl'en und IrrtUJD elntuehren.
!Nther.
EI 1st ke1n DIq. du die loMdI
mehr bel der Kln:be bebMlt dmD
die eute Predlg1. - ApoIogIe, At1. J4,
If the trumpet atv. an uneertafn
sound who Iball prepare bImMJf to
the battle? - 1 eM.14,"
Puhllshed for the
Ev. Loth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING BOUSE, St. J .(nm, Mo.
Book Review - SJitetutUt 711
B( - ~eview - £iteratur
All books reviewed in this periodical may be procured from or through Con-
cordia Publishing House, 3558 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, Mo.
Creative Controversies in Christianity. By George W. Richards,
LL. D., D. Th. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York.
223 pages, 5%X8. Price, $1.50.
D.D.,
1938.
The book is an elaboration of the James Sprunt Lectures delivered
at Union Theological Seminary in 1938 by Dr. Richards, president and
professor of church history at the theological seminary of the Evan-
gelical and Reformed Church at Lancaster, Pa. The thesis of the book
is: "The way to clarity usually is through opposition, controversy,
strife." (P.10.) The author's premise is that the union between God
and man is disrupted and that controversies between God and man,
between Christian and pagan (or Judaistic) ideals, were inevitable.
The author discusses seven "controversies" which "created" or
clarified the great issues of life, such as the questions: Whence,
what, why, are we? What think ye of Christ? What about the
righteousness of the new heavens and the new earth? The controversies
on these points have arisen out or the qualitative difference between
God and man but shall be settled when man sees the qualitative kin-
ship between God and man as manifested in the reconciliation wrought
by Christ. "The struggle of the human in God toward man and the
striving of the divine in man toward God" will end "by virgin birth,
a term ... which contains the essence of the mystery of the redemptive
power and love of God." (P.15.)
The first "creative controversy" discussed by Dr. Richards is the
opposition of the Romanticist Socrates and the ethical monotheist Amos
over against the ideals, morals, and beliefs of Hellenism and Hebraism,
respectively. But this clarifying controversy was only preparatory to
the great clash, when God in Jesus entered into His creative controversy
with the world, when love incarnate was brought into direct opposition
to hatred incarnate, when the Gospel of love and righteousness clashed
with the Jewish concept of the Law. "The love of God in Jesus brought
Him into controversy with the world and enabled Him to win the victory
over the world." (P.54.) In this section of the book Dr. Richards offers
many striking and arresting statements, for example: "The two rocks
on which Jesus and the Jews, Christianity and Judaism, divided were
the Law and the Cross, a division that could be healed only when men
accepted love as exhibited on the cross as the fulfilment of the whole
Law!" (P.58.) But who is Jesus? The author's answer is so ambiguous
that it is negative. "Vlhat the prophets saw, the cults offered, the
philosophers thought, the people groped after and wished for - all these
things were in the Nazarene in a way and with a content never dreamt
of. . .. Therefore one cannot by science find Him, by logic prove Him,
but by obedience of faith can enter into fellowship with Him and through
Him with the Father and with one another." (P.50.) In short, you
must by your own experience learn that Jesus is "the love of God in
712 Book Review - \litctatut
Christ," the love "which binds man to man, nation to nation, into
a fellowship of mutual cooperation, sympathy, friendliness, good will."
(pp. 52, 64.) The great controversy which Christ brought will continue
as Christian love tries to conquer the selfishness and hatred of the world.
What Dr. Richards describes as the essence of Christianity is, of course,
only its fruit. But we have seldom read anything on the character and
the implications of Christian love which has been written more beauti-
fully or in such trenchant and epigrammatic language.
The third creative controversy was ushered in when Paul brought
Christianity into conflict with Hellenism and Judaism. This chapter
traces in a very interesting way the many controversies of Paul with
Greek philosophers and Judaizing teachers. Paul broke down the wall
of partition between Jew and Gentile - the author does not mention the
vicarious atonement - when he "showed that Christianity is the end of
the Law, of philosophy, and of cults, because it is love - the kind of
love which does not deny philosophy or mysteries but fulfils them."
(Pp. 93, 94.) The fourth section deals with the controversies in the
early Church concerning the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and the fifth,
entitled "Quest for a Christian Metaphysic," with the Monarchian and
Christological controversies. The position of Dr. Richards theologically
is probably best expressed Ln the following: "It is not enough that Jesus
said what He said and did what He did; but what He said and did will
have authority for us when it is the expression of the infinite and eternal
God. We need 111.0re than the facts of faith; we need the assurance
that the facts of faith are the revelation of the Absolute of the Universe.
We need a Christian metaphysic. The men in each age who have best
understood the Gospel have always been the first to interpret it in terms
of the thought of their time!" (P.153.) The following statement of the
Second World Conference on Faith and Order, 1937, has our author's
full approval: "We acknowledge that all who accept Jesus Christ as
Son of God and their Lord and Savior and realize their dependence on
God's mercy revealed in Him have in that fact a supernatural bond of
oneness which subsists in spite of divergences in defining the divine
mystery of our Lord." (P. 154.) The sixth chapter discusses the conflicts
of the Middle Ages. At the beginning of this age we find the view that
uniformity in religion, theology, philosophy, the rule of life, and politics
is the ideal. The end of the Middle Ages was ushered in by the conflict
which resulted in elevating the individual and advocating diversity.
The final section of the book deals with such irreconcilable contra-
dictions as those of Erasmus and Luther; Hegel and Kierkegaard;
Schleiermacher and Barth. The author believes that Barth has a definite
message for am' age but at the same time is certain, "that only an act
of omnipotent grace can turn the American philosopher and theologian
from the method of Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Troeltsch to the way
of Kierkegaard and Barth." (P.217.)
The author has covered a vast field in the history of dogma in a novel
and highly interesting manner. The text itself and the biographical
notes are a clear indication of the author's wide and deep reading in
Book Review - 53iteratut 713
the field of Christian thought. While we differ with the author regarding
his major premise and his Reformed theological background, the book
offers stimulating, enriching, challenging reading, because it is a store-
house of information and is exceptionally well written. F. E. MAYER
Modern Humanism and Christian Theism. By Elias Andrews. Zonder-
van Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Mich. 232 pages, 5%X7%.
Price, $1.50.
Professor Andrews is lecturer in philosophy at Pine Hill Divinity
Hall in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has written a criticism of humanism
which states the main tenets of this popular philosphy and offers an
appraisal from both the philosophical and the theological standpoint.
Modern HU1nanism and Christian Theism is a volume well worth more
than a mere cursor