Book Briefs: June 20, 1960

Dispensationalism In America

Dispensationalism in America, Its Rise and Development, by C. Norman Kraus (John Knox Press, 1958, 156 pp., $3), is reviewed by Wilbur M. Smith, Professor of English Bible at Fuller Theological Seminary.

This small volume, by a member of the faculty of Goshen College, is an attempt to trace the development of the concept of dispensationalism as an hermeneutical principle used in the interpretation of Scripture. The author presents the various schemes used in dividing the period of biblical revelation from the appearance of our first parents down through the millenium, and gives major emphasis to what he calls the most influential dispensational scheme set forth in this country during the last 80 years—that used in the Scofield Reference Bible. A good deal of attention is given to early Bible conferences, even to those in which Kraus cannot discover much dispensational teaching. (These pages seem rather irrelevant.)

Emphatically opposed to dispensational interpretations, Kraus seems also to reject strongly many of the basic underlying presuppositions of American dispensationalism. He says, “The basic theological affinities of dispensationalism are Calvinistic. The large majority of the men involved in the Bible and prophetic conference movements subscribed to Calvinistic creeds” (p. 59). Multitudes of people in this country will have no objection to that. Then he says of this scheme, “Eschatologically, God’s sovereign predestination is clearly the norm” (p. 62). Again, “The second doctrine which received heavy emphasis in the system was the total depravity of man” (p. 63). Continuing his discussion on this subject, Kraus quotes with disapproval a statement which Dr. Arthur T. Pierson uttered at a conference in 1886 concerning the darker aspects of contemporary civilization, which are more evident today than when Pierson spoke. “Finally,” he says, “the dispensationalists put forward a strict, mechanical theory of verbal inspiration as a bulwark against the inroads of Biblical criticism.… They recognized clearly that revelation was by orthodox definition supernatural. They set an impassable gulf between the inspiration of genius and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” One must ask, what is wrong with that? Throughout the book, the author continues to criticize this concept of the full inspiration of the Scriptures.

What took me by surprise was his critical statement that dispensationalists placed emphasis upon “decisions for Christ,” defined as “accepting the essential concept that Christ forgives the sinner his personal offenses.”

In asserting that dispensationalists were not interested in world affairs, he says of the mission field, “One group strongly influenced by this doctrine established a mission in an area where there were thousands of refugees who were in dire need of food and clothing. They refused, however, to be involved in any ministry? of relief to these people.” Those who follow dispensational teaching have sent out thousands of missionaries into the foreign field within the century, and, for the most part, this accusation would not Ite true of them. Moreover, this particular group should have been named so we might know to whom the author refers. The slurring remarks concerning C. H. Mackintosh do not belong in a careful study of biblical hermeneutics.

Throughout this work on dispensationalism the author takes us as far back as Cocceius of the early seventeenth century. Nowhere, strangely, does he say anything about Augustine’s famous passage on the seven ages of the world, found at the end of his City of God.

In places the book shows carelessness. Although much space is given to William E. Blackstone, and the date of his birth is included, no trouble was taken to ascertain the year of his death (1935)—here indicated with a question mark. The dates for Darby’s visits to America are not complete: the fourteen months from 1862 to 1863 and the visit of 1876 to 1877 are not included. Kraus apparently depended on the article in the Dictionary of National Biography for these dates, and that source is not correct here. It is not accurate to say that “the next four” Bible conferences, following that at Niagara in 1876, were those of 1886, 1895, 1914, and 1918. Nothing is said of the conferences of 1878 and 1890. The list could have been corrected by consulting the last volume of Froom’s epochal work, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, a work not referred to here. Moreover, the most scholarly and exhaustive work ever published in this country in which this dispensational scheme is adopted is Peters’ The Theocratic Kingdom (four volumes), but Kraus seems to be unaware of it. Though he devotes an entire chapter to Dr. Scofield, his biographical material is scanty. Apparently no use was made of the only biography? of Scofield ever written, that by the late Charles G. Trumbull.

When Kraus says that of the seven consulting editors of the Scofield Bible, Gaebelein was perhaps the most influential, he is making a statement that no well-informed person would dare make, though it might be true. Some of us have searched this country for letters and notes from these co-editors that would throw some light upon the work they did for Dr. Scofield. But our efforts have been in vain. No one knows definitely what these different men contributed.

A far more exhaustive and thorough work on this subject has been done by Dr. Daniel P. Fuller in, “The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,” his dissertation for the Th.D. degree at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

WILBUR M. SMITH

Mauriac’S Faith

The Son of Man, by François Mauriac (World Publishing Company, 1960, 158 pp., $3), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, Chairman of the English Department, Wheaton College (Illinois).

The day before I began reading this book I had read Albert Camus’s The Stranger, a novel which comes to the depressing conclusion that the universe manifests nothing more than a “benign indifference.” The author of The Son of Man, another distinguished Frenchman, while as unhappy as Camus about what man has made of man—or, as M. Mauriac puts it, about “human ferocity”—nevertheless is very sure of the benign purposiveness of life because of a loving Heavenly Father. In particular M. Mauriac, now 75, writes to express his fidelity to Christ, as he says, “in the evening of my life.”

It is a book that reminds one of Saint Augustine, something of an ode of praise mixed with confession, comment upon life, and memories of 64 years as a professing Christian. One comes upon such quietly splendid passages as the following: “There is no encounter in which we do not encounter Him; no solitude in which He does not join us; no silence where His voice is not heard deepening, rather than troubling, that silence.” Though he writes as a pronounced Roman Catholic (the publisher describes him as the world’s most distinguished Roman Catholic writer), he also speaks with modesty and does not gloss over ecclesiastic error and particularly the effort of using spiritual advantage to gain temporal power.

Evangelicals will be interested in M. Mauriac’s objection to the attitude of Christians who complacently resign themselves to the idea that most of the human race is eternally damned. A great anguish, says he, which is transmuted into love for others “liberates us from an obsession with personal salvation, not in respect to what is essential but in respect to what is morbid.” He believes that the correct and fruitful attitude is the vibrant conviction that Christ really did die for all men.

M. Mauriac’s background includes membership in the French Academy, in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his winning of the Nobel Prize in 1952.

CLYDE S. KILBY

Christian Statesman

The Spiritual Legacy of John Foster Dulles, by Henry P. Van Dusen (Westminster, 1960, 232 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Frederick Brown Harris, Chaplain of United States Senate.

America desperately needs this prophetic volume. In the present global battle between liberty and slavery, it is like a clarion call for the side of freedom. When one turns to the last page of its chapters, he is constrained to reverent gratitude. As we approach the first anniversary of the passing of John Foster Dulles, the impact of his legacy as mirrored on these pages will make us hear once more the clear voice of a great Christian statesman.

In all the strategic posts in which he served the nation and the world, as he faced national and international problems, Dulles held steadfastly to the belief so beautifully expressed by Frances Haversall, “Reality, reality! Jesus Christ, I find in thee!”

In the fulfillment of the Master’s formula, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” he saw the healing of humanity’s open sores, as that principle girds the needy earth. He declared that any attempt to fence privilege in, will result in disaster, inside the fence and out.

To him atheistic totalitarianism was malignant because it violates the dignity of individual man as a child of God. In words uttered from his father’s old pulpit in Watertown, New York, he declared, with reference to the spiritual legacy left us by the fathers, “Surely, it is our duty not to squander it, but to leave it replenished so that we, in our generation, may bequeath to those who come after us a tradition as noble as was left us.” Here in a volume that will grip the hearts of thousands of Americans is that noble heritage as he has left it, enriched by his own dedication.

At the end of his notable career, Dulles’ flag-draped casket rested near the altar in Washington Cathedral, surrounded by the sacred symbols of the faith which had mastered him. The reader is moved by perhaps the most impressive part of the memorial service—the moment when a voice from the high point uttered words which the family had requested to be used. The ancient words from the book he revered seemed as new as that afternoon’s sunshine streaming through the jeweled windows. The immortal beatitude of the First Psalm formed a fitting frame for the portrait of this twentieth century statesman: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night.”

FREDERICK BROWN HARRIS

A Catholic President?

A Roman Catholic in the White House, by James A. Pike (Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1960, 143 pp., $2.50) is reviewed by Joseph M. Dawson, former Executive director, Joint Committee on Public Affairs of the United States.

Anything James A. Pike, formerly Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, now Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, has to say is apt to be read with respect. He is not one to avoid discussion of controversial questions, whether the subject is birth control or abolishment of capital punishment. What he has to say on the religious question in current politics, as with everything he has to say on other questions, is well considered and courteously expressed. The judgment just recorded is generally held as proved by the fact that at least two national magazines, Life and Reader’s Digest, have published condensations of this book.

As a former Roman Catholic he should be well informed as to the exact attitude of the Church. If one looks for any resentment or vindictiveness in this book, he will be disappointed. The findings are not presented as personal opinions, but thoroughly documented and reasonably offered.

The gist of Bishop Pike’s discussion is that the official position of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries, and now asserted, is that the Church is above the State, but that many American individual Catholics agree with the American view of Church-State separation. He says it is not bigotry to state the official Church attitude, but the plain duty of the citizen to decide whether any candidate for public office up to that of the presidency will yield to the official directions, or independently act in accord with American principles. Thus he leaves the question of a Roman Catholic in the White House suspended. “It depends,” he says. This means that every voter owes it to himself and to his country to inform himself and decide conscientiously and intelligently.

JOSEPH M. DAWSON

John’S Gospel

The Gospel According to St. John, by R. V. G. Tasker (Eerdmans, 1960, 237 pp., $3), is reviewed by Merrill C. Tenney, Dean of the Graduate School, Wheaton College (Illinois).

Compact yet comprehensive is this new commentary in the Tyndale Bible Commentaries on the Gospel of John. Gauged for the student whose time is limited and who is not interested in technicalities, it affords a satisfying treatment of the major points of interpretation. The comment is contained in a continuous exposition, with italicized quotations woven into it, which is both readable and faithful to the biblical text.

Important textual variants are noted and evaluated in the light of recent manuscript evidence. Although the commentary is not primarily theological, its doctrinal position is eminently satisfactory. Special notes on interpretation of words and phrases clarify the more obscure passages. The general introduction to the Gospel, marked by acute scholarship, tends to the view that John the son of Zebedee was “the ultimate authority behind the Gospel, which was issued with his approval though he may not have been the actual writer of it.” Tasker does not attempt to identify the amanuensis, although he mentions a late tradition that it was Papias. He is convinced that it was published not later than the last decade of the first century, and he champions unequivocally the truthfulness of John in presenting Jesus as the divine Son of God.

For quick reference or for a study help this commentary can be warmly recommended.

MERRILL C. TENNEY

Bonhoeffer Image

The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, by John D. Godsey (Westminster, 1960, 299 pp., $6), is reviewed by J. Theodore Mueller, Professor of Doctrinal and Exegetical Theology, Concordia Seminary.

Besides the painstaking, scholarly work of its author, who at present is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Assistant to the Dean at the Theological School of Drew University, and its excellent make-up by the publishers, this unusual book has three outstanding features recommending it to the reader: (1) A gripping biography of an ardent member of the German Confessing Church who opposed Nazi tyranny during the Hitler regime; (2) many important data and insights into this heroic resistance movement, which cost Bonhoeffer his life shortly before the Americans captured the disreputable Himmler prison camp; and (3) the personal faith and theology of the youthful, yet most promising, theological professor, which is the proper scope of the writer’s exhaustive investigation.

Dr. Godsey is fully capable of a work of this nature since he has studied at the University of Basel, Switzerland, where Karl Barth was one of his teachers. Furthermore, he has mastered the complex modern German theological language as proved, for example, by his idiomatic translation of the titles of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s numerous works. The reviewer has noticed only a minor inadequacy at this point, namely, the translation of Bonhoeffer’s Vergegenwärtigung neutestamentlicher Texte with “The Making Present of New Testament Texts.” The word Vergegenwärtigung in such cases is equivalent to “Study” or “Consideration.” But this is a secondary matter. The author has appended a comprehensive bibliography of “Primary Works,” “Works about Bonhoeffer” and “Related Works,” most of which he had to read in the original. It might not be superfluous to add that the book was approved by the Theological Faculty of the University of Basel upon the recommendation of Karl Barth and another faculty member, which is attested by Professor Oscar Cullmann, Dean of the Faculty.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was only 39 years old when he suffered death. Many of these years were spent in the service of the Christian Youth movement, the ecumenical movement, active resistance to Hitler, pastoral and educational activities in England and America, and finally in Nazi imprisonment. Little time therefore remained for Bonhoeffer leisurely to develop a theological system of his own, though his writings evince an amazing assiduity in theological projection and composition. Emerging from the Ritschlian school of Adolf Hamack, then attracted by the Luther renaissance movement of Karl Holl, and lastly influenced by Barthian existentialism, Bonhoeffer gradually developed an original theology of his own. Under the circumstances much of his writing remained fragmentary, as the author shows, but there is no contradiction between Bonhoeffer’s earlier and later theological fundamentals, though there is a difference of orientation in his later theological thought. The writer describes Bonhoeffer as a believing Christian whose chief interest lay in Christology and who sincerely believed in Christ’s deity and vicarious atonement.

The book is divided into four chapters, three of which present Bonhoeffer’s biographical experiences from 1906–1931, 1932–1939, and 1940–1945, together with his theological responses during these three periods. In the fourth chapter the author presents his own theological evaluation of this eminent German theologian, whose life was cut short by his continued witness to what he regarded as the truth. As the reader lays aside this stirring book he deeply appreciates the author’s conclusion: “The life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is finished, but his influence on the Christian church is steadily extending around the world” (p. 279).

J. THEODORE MUELLER

The Restoration Ideal

The Restoration Principle, by Alfred T. DeGroot (Bethany Press, 1960, 191 pp., $4), is reviewed by James DeForest Murch.

Dr. DeGroot makes a distinguished contribution to the growing literature authored by left-wing Disciples of Christ who are restive under the traditional biblical Restoration idealism of a world-wide movement now some 5 million strong. In this volume he favors a “restoration principle” unlike the formula conceived and promoted by Thomas and Alexander Campbell. The Campbells envisioned a united church to be achieved through “a restoration of the New Testament Church in doctrine, ordinances and life.”

From a well-documented three-chapter study of the Ante-Nicene fathers, the author deduces that these worthies favored no return to apostolic doctrine and practice; saw no uniformity in primitive church organization, polity, order of worship, requirements for church membership, ways of behavior as tests of fellowship; nor any commonly-accepted “way of salvation.” His citations are admirably chosen for his purpose and given authoritative values for modern times.

There is an extensive survey of historic restoration movements (Albigenses, Cathari, Humiliati, Anabaptists) and a critical evaluation of restoration elements in Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Methodism, the latter appraisal reminiscent of the 1951 Charles Clayton Morrison lectures at Disciples Divinity House. Dr. DeGroot agrees with Dr. Morrison that classical “restorationism” is an “illusion” which has hindered rather than aided the ecumenical cause. Then follows a sophisticated analysis of Disciples’ history which exalts the leadership of Barton W. Stone and discredits the restoration idealism of the Campbells. The historic “plea” of the Disciples is eliminated as a serious and valid contribution to current ecumenical conversations.

The restoration principle which Dr. DeGroot ardently espouses is definitely not doctrinal or biblical. It is rather ethical and mystical. He would restore “rapturous identification with the heartbeat of the Creator”; “the ends, aims and purposes rather than the means” of early Christianity; “the optimism and expectancy” of the apostolic church; and the recapture of its “conquering spiritual life.” He believes the Disciples should affirm, cultivate, and enlarge the unity that already exists in the universal church and accept the qualified judgment of sincere Christian leaders in determining essential worship and life in the Coming Great Church.

JAMES DEFOREST MURCH

Defense Of Relativism

Relativism, Knowledge and Faith, by Gordon D. Kaufman (University of Chicago Press, 1960, 153 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Butler University.

Courage and competence characterize this brief but vigorous defense of relativism. Very few relativists face the basic objections so squarely as does Dr. Kaufman. But to discuss his answers at all adequately would require a review many times the size of his book.

Relativism, he acknowledges, is supposed to founder on the genetic fallacy. It is accused of moving illicitly from descriptive to normative statements; or, conversely, it introduces nonlogical criteria into the knowledge situation. Finally, relativism cannot account for itself, that is, relativism is always asserted as an absolute truth.

External relativism, which is based on actual discrepancies among different cultures, succumbs to these objections; but, asserts the author, internal relativism, following the lead of Dilthey and Ortega y Gasset, in which the thinker sympathetically accepts the norms of foreign cultures, does not.

As justification, Dr. Kaufman sketches an epistemology. Knowledge exists on several levels. One must therefore, in epistemology as in life, begin with the precognitive and preconscious basis of knowing and give a genetic account. The lowest level is called Erleben, for the German term is much clearer than any English word; “it is almost impossible to describe this level without using language that implies much more than is intended … the best that can be done is to use the words we have and hope that the intended meaning can be apprehended” (p. 31, n. 3). “We ought not to speak of consciousness, or even experience, as present here, for there is no distinction of subject from object … there is only Erleben. We never directly observe this level” (p. 68).

Now, there may be secondary flaws in Dr. Kaufman’s defense of relativism. For example, he assigns an exaggerated role to language. Although words are merely “particular noises” (p. 99), he gives language the function of producing distinctions in thought, instead of allotting to thought the production of distinct words. Universal relationships are made possible by words, and the concept of validity or truth has reference to society and its language system. Apparently relativism is based on the universal principle that people always speak before they think.

But if this is a secondary difficulty, perhaps the basic trouble lies in the genetic account of knowledge. To postulate an unobserved, an indescribable, an unexperienced and unconscious “level”—“the idea of level should not be taken thus literally” (p. 42, n. 1)—a level named by the undefined and therefore meaningless term Erleben, and then to assert that knowledge emerges from it, gradually and somehow, is not an explanation of knowledge, but the lack of one.

On the other hand, where the author is definite, as in his views of language and of the historical conditioning of “truth,” it is hard to see that he has escaped the initial charge that relativism is always asserted absolutely.

GORDON H. CLARK

Obscure Narrative

Dear and Glorious Physician, by Taylor Caldwell (Doubleday, 1959, 574 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Robert Paul Roth, Dean of the Graduate School, Lutheran Southern Seminary.

It would seem that the historical novel would be a most felicitous medium for the propagation of the Gospel. Literary license, however, must be limited by historical integrity. Poetic fantasy must never degenerate into the cheap fantastic. Taylor Caldwell’s Dear and Glorious Physician purports to be a historical novel about Luke. The evangelist is pictured as having a miraculous power to heal which is surprising even to himself and which is climaxed when he brings a girl back from death. Luke is driven by an unremitting power to find meaning in a God who brings death to his own creatures. Grieved over the death of a childhood sweetheart, Luke dedicates his life to defeat this unknown God by cheating Him through the practice of medicine out of the deaths He would claim. Gradually it becomes apparent to him that it is this very God whom he has been fighting who is the God of life and healing.

When he comes to realize this he sets out to compile a record of the events surrounding the revelation of the unknown God who came to the Jews and was crucified under the command, by coincidence, of Luke’s brother. It was from him that Luke gleaned the story of the passion. The author is at her wooden worst when she describes Luke as an enquiring reporter with pencil in hand going to Mary and James and John and collecting information about Jesus.

The book must be critically examined because it purports to show how the Gospel of Luke came to be. Surely a novel about Luke may confront the supernatural, indeed, every great writer from Shakespeare to Melville has mixed history with the mysterious beyond; but the message of the Church should not be clouded with obscurantist superstition. Luke, however, is made to come to the service of Jesus purely by this path, rather than the historically authenticated way of the worshiping community of believing and proclaiming Christians. The one thing we know about Luke historically, that he was associated with Paul on his missionary journeys, is not even mentioned by the author.

It was the preaching of the worshiping Church that transmitted the historical record preserved in all our Gospels. If any reconstruction of history is authentic it is the story of a worshiping community under the guidance of the Spirit transmitting the good news as the risen Christ lived and worked among them and made himself known to them in the breaking of bread. Caldwell’s Luke never meets such a worshipping community. Her book is neither historical nor novel. It is the old bookseller’s formula of banal frippery designed for sentimental readers who love neither art nor the Gospel but rather the mystic might of the obscure.

ROBERT PAUL ROTH

Man’S Search For God

Pictorial History of Philosophy, by Dagobert D. Runes (Philosophical Library, 1959, 406 pp., $15), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry.

Rune’s Pictorial History of Philosophy is a useful companion volume to his Dictionary of Philosophy, most valuable of his books. This new work contains almost 1,000 portraits, photographs, and illustrations germane to biographies of the great speculative thinkers from ancient to contemporary times. Unfortunately Judeo-Christian religion is sketched simply as a phase of man’s search for God, along with the other world religions, without any grasp of the principle of special divine revelation.

CARL F. H. HENRY

Study In Depth

The Atonement and the Sacraments, by Robert S. Paul (Abingdon, 1960, 396 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Addison H. Leitch, Professor of Theology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

For some time now, I have been trying to discipline myself in the number and quality of notations that I drop into my filing system. After years of reading I have stored up entirely too much material ranging from irrelevant to useless. In an attempt to control my note taking, therefore, I have adopted a standard: nothing will be noted unless it absolutely “forces” itself into my files after the most rigid possible screening. I mention my standard to introduce one fact: Professor Paul’s book, “The Atonement and the Sacraments,” has compelled me to record either in my book of quotations, or in my lecture notes, or for my files, more than 60 different items. In short, he has enriched my theological library with this significant and great book.

He discusses exactly what the title says: the Atonement and the Sacraments. One would think that by this time most of us, especially we who are in the ministry or in teaching, would have read just about everything germaine to such subjects. But it is surprising and therefore gratifying to discover that Dr. Paul has something fresh and valuable to say. As theories of the Atonement, he lists the following: Moral Influence (Abelardian or Exemplarist); Mystical; Penal Substitutionary; Ransom (Patristic or Classic); Rectoral; Sacrificial; and Satisfaction (Anselmian or Latin). We may possibly have different titles and listings of our own, but the ones that he uses completely cover the field. His careful analysis of all the views with particular interest to their historical settings plus a keen appreciation of the values of each are to me the great features of the book. I am in complete agreement with the approach he takes, namely, that there are values in every view, but no summation of views can plumb the total possibilities of what took place when Christ died for our sins.

In addition to the excellence of his treatment of the Atonement, there are other values to be discovered. I like the way in which so-called secondary authorities are brought into the account and given their rightful place. One would expect good coverage on Abelard, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and even Aulen. But here is a book in which we pick up the contributions of John Owen, McLeod Campbell, Bushnell, Rashdall, Westcott, Caird Denny, and Vincent Taylor. Professor Paul is enthusiastic about P. T. Forsyth and Donald Baillie, and so am I. Better yet, we are given brief biographical sketches on most of the men. The book will thus serve as excellent reference material and, unlike most reference books, highly readable. One becomes aware as he moves through the volume that as an historical treatment of a whole catalog of material the writer is able to build up interest, excitement, and climax. Just the plain reading of the book apart from any ore one might wish to mine is profitable experience.

The reason the subject of the Atonement leads to the subject of the Sacraments is, of course, part of the thesis and certainly one of the features of the book. In all the theories of atonement the author is trying to make plain to us the necessary ethical implications and applications of the Atonement itself apart from any theories about it. He believes that the content of the act as over against any theoretical discussion of it can be mediated to us most surely and directly not by words but by sacrament. His reasons for establishing such a thesis are sound and serve as the chief interest in the book, although less than a fourth of the volume is actually given over to the two dominical sacraments. In treating the sacraments from the standpoint of his thesis, even in a short treatment of less than 100 pages, he has an amazing number of fresh insights.

It would be hard to classify Professor Paul as orthodox or liberal in his views of the Atonement and Sacraments. I should judge him more liberal than otherwise. On the other hand he has much to say in support of satisfaction, substitution, and the penal characteristics of the atoning act. He apparently agrees that any view of the Atonement which leaves out such terms is superficial. At the same time his criticism that much of popular orthodoxy has so treated penal satisfaction as to create a kind of split in the essence of the Trinity (as if somehow the Father is full of wrath while the Son is full of love) is a valid one. In facing the danger he is correct, I think, in emphasizing Paul’s words, “God was in Christ.…” With such concern and emphasis I am in complete agreement.

I would give one word of criticism at this point. Dr. Paul wants a penal theory without a penalty. He wants to remove any idea of a victim in the process. In so doing his book is only sound as far as it goes. What gives rise in many of our minds is a matter which the author does not touch, namely, the-wrath of God. This is a biblical term, a concept very close to the meaning of “the cry of dereliction” on the Cross. In an otherwise excellent treatment, with clear-cut emphasis on the profundities of the Atonement, the author has missed the point that makes the whole question even more profound.

ADDISON H. LEITCH

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.