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The Authority of Grace in the Theology of P. T. Forsyth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
‘There is one note indispensable to a Positive Gospel, and indeed supreme; it is the note of Authority.’ So wrote P. T. Forsyth in 1904 (‘The Need for a Positive Gospel’, London Quarterly Review, vol. CI, p. 81). It was a theme which dominated his thought and found a place in all his writing. He insisted that the question of authority was the basic religious question, and that the church of his time lacked power for the lack of an adequate answer to it. As far as he was concerned the answer was, in principle at least, clear, and he never tired of giving it. For the Christian authority came from experience of redemption through Jesus Christ.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1972
References
page 58 note 1 Among recent more or less popular works cf. Montefiore, H., Truth to Tell (Fontana, London, 1966)Google Scholar; Williams, C. W., Faith in a Secular Age (Collins, London, 1966)Google Scholar; Pittenger, W. N., Love Looks Deep (Mowbrays, London, 1969)Google Scholar; Robinson, J. A. T., Christian Freedom in a Permissive Society (S.C.M. Press, London, 1969)Google Scholar. For recent studies bearing more directly on the question of authority cf. Sanders, J. N., ‘The Meaning and Authority of the New Testament’, with an appendix by A. R. Vidler, in Soundings (Cambridge University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Rhymes, D., No New Morality (Constable, London, 1964)Google Scholar; Jenkins, D. E., ‘The Authority of Faith’ in Living with Questions (S.C.M. Press, London, 1969)Google Scholar. A rather different temper is found in the symposium Authority and the Church, ed. Williams, R. R. (S.P.C.K., London, 1965)Google Scholar. Edwards, D. L. surveys recent changes in attitudes to authority in Religion and Change (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1969) pp. 158ff.Google Scholar
page 63 note 1 Hunter, A. M. has given further examples of his anticipating later New Testament scholarship in ‘P. T. Forsyth Neutestamentler’ (Expository Times, vol. LXXIII, 1962, pp. 100ff)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and also in Preaching and Teaching the New Testament (S.C.M. Press, London, 1963), part III.Google Scholar
page 65 note 1 It is instructive to see how St. Paul also appeals to the experience of redemption as his basic authority when dealing with the problems of the church at Corinth. Cf. Williams, R. R., Authority in the Apostolic Age (S.C.M. Press, London, 1950), pp. 12–30.Google Scholar
page 66 note 1 See the long autobiographical aside in Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, pp. 192ff where he traces his own spiritual pilgrimage and comments on the ‘radicals’ of his day. He probably has in mind here the ‘New Theology’ movement associated with R. J. Campbell, which is not unlike some more recent popular theology.
page 67 note 1 ‘The Pessimism of Mr Thomas Hardy’, London Quarterly Review, vol. CXVIII (1917).Google Scholar
page 67 note 2 ‘Ibsen's treatment of Guilt’, Hibbert Journal, vol. XIV (1915).Google Scholar
page 69 note 1 Dr Robinson notes this criticism and offers a partial, but, I think, only partial, explanation and defence of his position in Exploration into God (S.C.M. Press, London, 1967), esp. chapter 3.
page 70 note 1 cf. Oman, J., Vision and Authority (1902)Google Scholar, and Leckie, J. H., Authority in Religion (1909).Google Scholar
page 72 note 1 Modest attempts have since been made to save orthodox and puzzled Congregationalists from the embarrassment of such a dilemma!
page 73 note 1 Brown, R. M., P.T. Forsyth, a Prophet for Today (London, 1952), p. 45.Google Scholar