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Faith and History: A Critique of Recent Dogmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

J. C. Thomas
J. C. Thomas
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religions, University of Ghana
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Extract

A great deal of modern Protestant theology looks very much like an attempt to conduct a salvage operation which is designed to make clear how it is possible to retain belief in Jesus Christ, and at the same time remain intellectually honest. For the same sceptical challenge which faces the secular historian also faces the theologian. If Christians are correct in arguing that the locus of God's revelation to man is in Jesus of Nazareth, then in order to know about this supposed revelation, it is necessary to know about a period of time in the past; it is necessary to know the history of the man's life and actions. Theologians are therefore faced with the question: how, if at all, is it possible to bridge the logical gap between statements describing what Jesus of Nazareth said and did, and statements describing the evidence for what Jesus of Nazareth said and did. The solution found to this question by theologians tends to be determined by their conscious and unconscious philosophical presuppositions; just as it did in the examples discussed above of secular critical philosophies of history.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 327 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

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