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Toward a Valid View of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Bernard E. Meland
Bernard E. Meland
Affiliation:
Central College, Fayette, Missouri
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Extract

Liberal Christians have affirmed their faith in religious certainty on the strength of two basic claims: namely, that Jesus revealed the character of God—a morally good God; and that Jesus revealed God's purpose for the world—a morally perfect humanity in accord with God's own character. The outlook of liberal Christianity, embracing both its theology and its ethical program, centres in its certainty concerning these two doctrines which form its sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1931 , pp. 197 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1931

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References

1 William Adams Brown, Christian Theology in Outline, p. 137.

2 Francis J. McConnell, ‘The Eternal Spirit,’ in My Idea of God (Newton), pp. 258 f.

3 Harry Emerson Fosdick, Modern Use of the Bible, pp. 187–188.

4 See Horace Bushnell, God in Christ, and W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology.

5 H. N. Wieman, The Wrestle of Religion with Truth.

6 Sherwood Eddy, Facing the Crisis, p. 68.

7 Christocentric theologians did not, however, argue this point metaphysically. They assumed it a priori in accordance with traditional Christian thinking. This position is defended in the philosophy of Personalism, which has proved to be particularly congenial to Christian suppositions. See B. P. Bowne, Personalism; E. S. Brightman, Religious Values; A. C. Knudson, The Philosophy of Personalism.

8 Smuts, Holism and Evolution, Chapter X.

9 For example, Smuts's “tendency toward whole-making”; Alexander's and Morgan's “nisus” (tendency toward deity); Whitehead's “principle of concretion” (tendency toward individualization).

10 E. S. Ames, Religion, p. 149.

11 Ames, p. 151.

12 Ames, pp. 164–165. This position calls to mind Shailer Mathews's characteristic assertion that “there must be that which is personal in a process that has produced personality.”

13 W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, pp. 135 f. The italics are mine.

14 H. H. Newman, Readings in Evolution, Genetics and Eugenics, pp. 8 f.

15 See, as examples of this interpretation, C. L. Morgan, Emergent Evolution; and, by the same author, Mind, Life and Spirit; Smuts, Holism and Evolution; H. N. Wieman, The Wrestle of Religion with Truth, Chaps. XI, XII, and XIII.