REVOLT AGAINST HEAVEN, by Kenneth Hamilton. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 193 pp. $2.45. Reviewed by Dr. Gordon H. Clark, Indianapolis, Ind.
Written in fine literary style, not
devoid of humor, and characterized
by penetrating analyses, this excellent study aims and succeeds in showing the basic influence of Schleiermacher on many modern theologians, some of whom do not recognize their inspiration.
Along the line the author makes
telling criticisms of the men he discusses. For example, demythologization is needed only if the "modern world view" is complete and
correct. But "why should not the
Christian faith contribute to our
vision of what is meaningful? Such
questions Bultmann never asks. . . .
Heidegger has to speak first so that
God may be heard subsequently."
Others who oppose Bultmann's existentialism do not agree what view
is "modern" and hence have no consensus on what is meaningful. "The
two outlooks, equally, call upon
faith to justify itself by standards set
up by the Zeitgeist, although they
differ radically in their views of
what the Zeitgeist demands."
The author also entertains the
reader by bringing into focus the
confusions in Honest to God along
with Bishop Robinson's complete
misunderstanding of Bonhoeffer.
May now the reviewer permit himself some technical criticisms? There
seems to be some oversimplification
of "Greek Philosophy," and a distortion of Augustine may be taken to
imply the total destruction by sin
of the divine image of God in man.
Also, without detracting from the
author's clear exposition of Schleiermacher, the reviewer thinks his Kantian background has been slighted
— no mention of Jacobi — and Greek
influence overestimated. Furthermore the account of Kant, given in
connection with Ritschl, is debatable because the author does not seem
to realize that for Kant God is a
heuristic principle, regulative but
not constitutive.
Coming to contemporaries, Professor Hamilton exposes the naive superficiality of Henry P. Van Dusen, and speaking of neo-liberalism in general says, "At the center of its understanding of redemption is not forgiveness of sins, but the actualizing of human potential."
The discussion of D. C. Mackintosh, Wieman, John Dewey, James,
Matthew Arnold, and R. B. Braithwaite is good, but too short. The
book as a whole is too short. Such
excellent writing should also have
been extended to cover the "God-is-dead" movement.
The final chapter, "A Voice Affirming Heaven," is a sympathetic,
perhaps over-sympathetic, account of
Bonhoeffer. At any rate, it sets up
the contrast between the revolt
against heaven and supernatural revelation.
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