The Word of the Lord. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy as our brother, through the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossae. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which he hath to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel which is common to you as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth. As he also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant who is for you a faithful minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have the redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist. Thus far. Let us call upon the name of the Lord. Holy Lord God in a world in which men speak a great deal and write a great deal and have written and have spoken a great deal about thee, but not in the light of thy word. We assemble this morning in class with the one desire that thou be our teacher and whatever we study of others who have spoken and written about thee that be tested by thy very word. We think of that Thou art the Eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one only God, who does live and reign forever. We are men, conceived and born in time, who are here for just a little while, and then the day of judgment. Oh, we pray that we may be found to be in Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, having Thy righteousness, Thy holiness, partaker of Thy redemption, and partaking of Thy wisdom. For in Thee are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Be Thou our teacher also in this course. Be Thou the teacher to the students, but also to the teacher. and grant that indeed we may know we are led and taught and directed by none other except by Thee, our Chief Prophet and Teacher, Jesus Christ, in Thy name. Do Thou keep us from slipping and falling, and cleanse us from all sin, and grant us Thy Word, Thy Holy Spirit in our hearts. Bless our wives and our children today. Bless the churches that we have come from. May thy kingdom come in all the earth. And bless also this institution. For Jesus' sake alone. Amen. The course Objective Discourse aims to familiarize the student with the general developments of theology in the 20th century against the backdrop of the Enlightenment. Our requirements will be Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson. I'll just show you the book here. 20th Century Theology, God and the World in a Traditional or a Transitional Age. This is a tough book for, I would say, for most of us. Some of us will maybe just be able to devour that stuff. Grenz is a teacher, or was a teacher, I should say, at Regent College. where Paul Helm also taught some courses. I understand Paul is no longer teaching there. I've taken some courses with Stanley Grenz over the years. He's a Baptist. He wrote his dissertation on Pannenberg. If you just glance at his dissertation, that's a tough book, but Pannenberg is very tough. And if you look at the various chapters in this book and you see those names, Jürgen Moltmann and Paul Tillich and Process Theology, Bruno Karl Barth, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Albert Ritschel and the like, it's extremely tough. And some of you may think, why do we need to go through this? I think it'd be good for you to work through it. Do it with your Bible. Do it with prayer. It's a little bit of an eye-opener. I take it you are getting church history and you deal actually with all the centuries, but what we are doing here is we are zeroing in particularly on the previous century and consider various developments whereby things are theologically in the world the way they are. The other book that I discovered not all that long ago is the book by Ian Campbell, which is, I think, very enjoyable reading, and you'll love this. And I'm not asking you any assignments, but I will probably also use this for the exam. But you will enjoy reading this, and I am assigning just a number of pages from it, especially The difficulty with this book or the problem with the book is it only deals with one little facet and it's the doctrine of sin. But then you see what the men such as Karl Barth and Emil Brunner and Rudolf Bultmann have done with that doctrine and he I think gives a very good reformed a response to those men. So I think you should probably read this and enjoy this very much. The next book is by Ian Murray, Evangelicalism Divided. I think you'll enjoy that book if you haven't read it yet. It's not easy reading, but it's wonderful. Last time when I taught it, I first went through this book with our students, also in class I used, I asked the students to make a summary of the chapter and then we would go through it. I think they groaned and sighed under this one, but this was a real refreshment to read, written by a man who is of the same persuasion. Now Stanley Grenz is not entirely of, he's not reformed, and yet I have enjoyed his classes very much as a man who really has his Bible open right with his lectures, but of a little different caliber. The other book that I am suggesting that you work through is Douglas Gruthuis, or Gruthuis, Truth Decay. Are you familiar with the book? They're all in here, Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism. I think it's good to have at least one work that helps you work through postmodernism. That's no joy to work through as such, but you see the evidence of it all around you. I see it back in Canada more than in the United States. In the United States, we still have a number of public figures who really dare to stand up for the truth, whether they are judges, supreme judges, but in Canada, we essentially don't have that. We do have them in the background at work, but if you ever end up in Canada or in another nation, you may find that And this is what you see all around you. And then I had hoped to do also Wells, but I don't know if I can do it. It's not available. But maybe you have the book. Do you? It's in the library. Now this is good reading. If I had to choose between these two, I'd say give me this one. But I want you to work through this one. Partly because, maybe I'm telling you my age, but when I attended the seminary, these were the great theologians in the 60s. And we studied some of their own works. And I'm not asking you to read Karl Barth's Kirchliche Dogmatik, a certain section, and I'm not asking you to read Rudolf Bultmann. We had to do that in those days. But I do think it's important that you have some acquaintance with it. One way of doing some of it also is if you read, for example, a biography on a man like J. Gresham Matheon, written by Ned Stonehouse. if you ever have time to read a book like that, it's very helpful. Because these men struggled through the development of that particular century and they rose up and stood against it and I hope to share some of those things with you too. Because that will be the difference that I will that I'm intending for this course in the previous time I zeroed in more on Stanley Grenz and we did a lecture on postmodernism and we did Ian Murray but I think going over contemporary theology we need to realize that there also was a very good development and if you take for example this book that was written in the previous century I don't know which course it is, is it on theology proper and Professor Bickey teaches that. This is a very good book. It was published in the previous century and a man like Paul Helm has stood up to the great philosophers of the previous age and the current age and whatever Paul Helm has written, Paul Helm being a Baptist He doesn't say that he's a reformed Baptist, but he did say to me when I questioned him once, he says, Lawrence, I'm reformed and I'm a Baptist. I'm not a reformed Baptist. And you probably understand that. But this is very good material. All the books in this series are very worthwhile, but I think this is one of the better ones. This is not an easy book. But do, I'm not telling you what to do for Dr. Beeky's course, but, If you can grasp his argument, which is essentially a philosophical argument, but you'll notice that he is in line with the scriptures. Here you have 10 sermons for the congregations. This is a book that gives sermon material, at least I think. Well, let me not get off topic. But what I'm trying to bring out in this course is that that there have been men in the previous century that you should also be reading and I hope to make a case for that. Let me move on and I don't know yet, I have to discuss with Jerry. Jerry says, why don't you photocopy a chapter in this? I was thinking maybe one of you should go to Baker Book House and see if it's available or I can go to Baker Book House and see if it's available. because David Wells has been a good man. And in a sort of simpler way, yet it's a very profound book, but this is readable. You can, you know, when you say to your wife, I'm leaving my study or my little room, and I'm just gonna sit with you and I'm gonna just read an enjoyable book. Then you can read this. Then you can read, this is okay too. Then you can read Ian Murray, as long as you have a pencil with you, and you can read Ian Campbell. OK. Wonderful. It's in your hand. What I'm suggesting, and I am not entirely settled in my mind that my evaluation will be based on class participation, which will include, I say, a 10 minute presentation. You see, it's a one hour course. I think it should be a three hour course, but I'm not arguing with the seminary. I really think you At least I found when I came into my ministry, and I had majored at Calvin Seminary in the field of the New Testament, and my love really was for New Testament studies, Old Testament studies, Biblical studies. I came into the church and I realized that I was weak in my systematic theology. in my knowledge of philosophy, because I found that in the congregation, there's a lot more of current thinking that is impacting our people. And you can pick that up, but you need to know where does this come from? And from that angle, I think going through these materials will be helpful for you. And if down the road in the ministry, you say that course with Lawrence Bilks on contemporary theology was a waste of my time, I hope that by that time you will have picked up a few other books of the same interest, because to know the underpinnings of today's thinking is very crucial. There's one more illustration, then I'll get into my lecture. For my own work in the field of ethics, I had to I may have told you this in my class on ethics, I had to study the philosophy, the history of philosophy. It was a pain in the neck, I thought. Aristotle, and memorizing his book, and from the Middle Ages. And so I went through the exam, and Professor Velema said afterwards, what do you think of it? I said, you could have flunked me for this course. I didn't enjoy this at all. But I said to him, I did learn something from it. What did you learn? I learned how to think critically. And that's the purpose of this course. Think critically. I'm thinking of class participation, 10-minute presentation on one of the authors, especially in Grant's book, and you can use the other sources for it as well, as well as other sources. I say 10 minutes because we only have 50 minutes. Five-page papers on the book by Murray and Groothuis for a 20%, and then I would expect those papers due by April the 15th, and I do that partly to help you to get your work done. I dislike, you know, I taught a course with Professor Staub at the seminary here, and he was the only professor, he never lost his school, never. He simply said, I expect you here in time. Nobody ever came late. Because he says, if you're late, you don't need to come. And he said, you don't walk in with coffee. Now, you may walk in with coffee if the school allows for that. But it was the only class where students would not walk in with coffee. And he said, there is no grace if you don't hand in your paper in time. Now, I think that's a little extreme. But I'm telling you, April 15th is the day. Get it done. and then a take-home exam, and I hope that you have to work hard for the course. If you look on the next page, then I only have five main headings, and we have 13 classes, I believe, but we'll spend some more time on some, and when it comes to Neo-Orthodoxy, we'll take up men such as Barth, Brunner, Bultman, and the like. But I'm thinking today of an introduction, the parting of the ways, background of 18th century rationalism, 19th century liberalism versus orthodoxy and evangelicalism, and then the struggle Princeton, the result. So today I will zero in particularly on the first part. I prepared this lecture and it's a new lecture for me for today because I'm doing it, as I said, just a little differently. And I actually have headed my lecture, a little differently from the syllabus, by calling it The Impact of the Enlightenment. Movement that gained ascendancy in the 18th century Europe. Actually started in Germany, if you wish. There's a debate on that. And I'll pick up some of those ideas as we do go along. Maybe what you should know is that the basic thought to the enlightenment is that the supernatural has been denied. And the all-sufficiency of human reason was affirmed. It preserved belief in God and the dignity of man, but it denied doctrines such as the incarnation, the miracles, original sin, Related, of course, to the scriptures being the word of God, that being denied. And you will see that comes through loud and clearly in this course. But that's the heading of this lecture, the impact of the Enlightenment. And over against that, you can say reform theology. You can also say the whole theology from the early church on. with some major departure in the Roman Catholic Church, but even in the Roman Catholic Church, generally speaking, we have always emphasized the relationship of history and Kerygma. We've always emphasized that the great facts of salvation have taken place in history. The only begotten Son of God who is in the bosom of the Father, he became incarnate, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. This took place in the days of Caesar Augustus. He lived, he suffered, he died, the third day he rose again. And that latter part took place in the days of Pontius Pilate. And yet that relationship between history and Kurukma has become one of the major problems in theology. And especially in the previous century. But that goes back to the centuries leading up to that myth, symbol, Sega have been invented to take the place of history in relationship to the Kurukma. Sure. Myth, symbol, Sege have been invented to take the place of history in relationship to the Kurugma. And today I'd like to dig up the background to the rise of those problems, particularly in the 18th century and we often talk about 18th century as the age of rationalism and the 19th century as the age of liberalism. You will know the terminology that I use in this course to describe reform theology but Christian theology prior to the Enlightenment was a theology from above, was a Christology from above. And when it came to the application of the redemption of Christ, a theology from above, if you think even of words of Jesus to Nicodemus, he says, except a man be born from above. That's actually what it says, anno. So it's a theology from above, The Son of God, second person of the Holy Trinity, had become incarnate of the Virgin Mary through the miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit. And that supernatural activity of God in history has been confessed throughout the centuries. All of history was understood to involve the activity of God and history was regarded as history. But God was at work, was active in history. But the Enlightenment attacked that whole notion. And that attack continues unabated in our day. While historic Christianity recognized the action of God in history, it did regard real events in history as basic to the Christian gospel, a real incarnation in the fullness of time. The virgin birth from Mary at Bethlehem, the historical life of Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea, crucifixion in Jerusalem on that Friday, resurrection from the sepulcher, the tomb, on the third day, and forty days later, the ascension to heaven. Those historical events really happened. The gospel is based on the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ. And if you go back to early church history, and I take it all of you have taken early church history, Most of you have, and some of you will. So, for a moment, I'll take you to early church history. But you will know that in the early church history, there were the great ecumenical councils, and they really dealt with these things. And they argued over what I'm talking about now, that the Kurukma took place in real history, or is rooted in real history. But when the Enlightenment came, The early ecumenical council's pronouncements were rejected in the name of historical objectivity and theology without presupposition. The Enlightenment rejected the true deity of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, as confessed by the first ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325, which confessed the true deity of Jesus as homoousios with the Father. And homoousios is being of one substance with the Father. In whatever sense, the Father is God, the Son is God. They share the one Godhead with the Holy Spirit. That's the teaching of the Nicene Creed. And by the way, in my previous congregation, most of the time in the last couple of years, I used the Nicene Creed for the confession of faith in church. Now I'm in a new situation. and they are used to the Apostles' Creed, and I gladly make use of it, but I think there is a certain strength in the Nicene Creed, an emphasis also on the Scriptures, that all these things happened according to the Scriptures, but this is at least the first point that was rejected by the Enlightenment, the deity, the true deity of Jesus as being of one substance with the Father. the Enlightenment also rejected the decision of the second ecumenical council in Constantinople in 381 that council of Chalcedon in 381 in Constantinople I should say in 381 especially rejected the teaching of Docetism, which concerns the humanity of Christ. And the Council of Constantinople affirmed the full humanity of Jesus Christ. Now what is remarkable is that the Enlightenment was very interested in the humanity of Jesus, but not in the humanity of the Son of God, because the council in Constantinople affirmed that Jesus was true God and true man, which we spell out in our Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day, So the Enlightenment rejected that decision of the Second Ecumenical Council. Then the Enlightenment also rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. that council of Chalcedon confessed that Jesus Christ was homoousios with the father as to his deity so of the same substance with the father as to his deity but Chalcedon in 451 also confessed that Jesus is homoousios with us as to his humanity so both There are more details to that, but I will leave that out for some clarity's sake. The point I'm trying to bring out is that the Enlightenment rejected this dogma because it was considered incompatible with the historical perspective of the Enlightenment. Now you will remember that the patristic dogma, Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, was accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, was accepted also by the Greek Orthodox Church, the early ecumenical councils. The difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church was a difference that arose with regard to the filioque. Is that a terminology that you are familiar with? And you will know that the filioque clause was not in the original document, but it was added and then the conflict came in the year 1012. Now the churches of the Reformation, both the Lutherans and the Calvinists, accepted the patristic dogma of the early councils. Remarkable thing is that there were, in the days of the Reformation, those who did not agree with the early ecumenical councils. And if I can just mention the name, for example, of the Sophoceneans. I don't know if you're familiar with the Saucinians. Actually the teaching of Saucini, I think his name is S-O-Z-Z-I-N-I, and he wrote several books that deny the orthodox views of the person and work of Christ as well as the Trinity. his teaching became that of what is called the Minor Reformed Church of Poland the Minor Reformed Church of Poland and later on it was summarized in the Rakovinian Catechism in 1605 the remarkable thing is that for example uh... that church is no longer there to my knowledge but the influence of uh... Socinianism is all over America. In the movement of the Unitarians, for example. Goes right back to Sicinius. And you may know that the Unitarians reject the doctrines of the Trinity, as well as the deity of Christ. The Unitarians also deny the need for atonement. And their argument is, well, God is good, and on the basis of God's goodness, all will be well. Maybe I should mention something that we often don't think about because in our congregation we will encounter a lot of Arminian thinking. And our people picked it up from contemporary works by preachers on the radio. But the Arminians who claim to be in line with the traditional dogma on the Trinity and Christology they have tended to weaken those dogmas along Socinian ways. But you see that especially when liberalism came. And it's remarkable that liberalism is a development within the Protestant churches. That's noteworthy. It's sad, but it's true. I should also mention that Protestant scholasticism, late 16th and 17th century development, did indeed bring in some different emphases as a result of its synthesis with Cartesian rationalism. You know, that's a little bit of a difficult term, but you probably know a little bit about Rene Descartes. Again, what they do is they bring, like I said, Paul Helm is a philosopher. And he knows his philosophy, he is able to tackle the philosophers, but Paul Helm is a man who thinks by the word of God. I may differ with him on the baptism of believers only and not their children, but you will find him to be a man who goes by the word of God. But a man like Rene Descartes introduced philosophy as the glasses by which to think. And then you come to such statements that intrigue philosophers, I am because I think. I think he even went as far as saying, I am because I doubt. But then philosophy becomes the footing for everything else. And that's been sort of a problem with Protestant scholasticism in certain branches, because that scholastic tendency within Protestantism tended toward a one-sided intellectualism, which did not do justice to the historical basis of the Christian faith. Evidence supports the contention that prior to the Enlightenment, the significance of history for the Kerygma was denied and neglected. But even though it was already there, the real attack came from the new presuppositions of the Enlightenment. Generally speaking, in the centuries prior to the Enlightenment, theologians were convinced that the Gospels give us absolutely reliable information about Jesus. They recognized the historical basis of the Kurukma and saw no particular problem in that position. during the two centuries prior to the Enlightenment, New Testament studies of the Gospel were largely concerned with paraphrasing the four Gospels, harmonizing the four Gospels. A New Testament in those days, so two centuries before the Enlightenment, New Testament exegesis was looked upon as a handmade to the study of dogmatics. And if you read, I referred you to the, not the autobiography, but the biography of Gresham Maitchin, then you will notice that Stonehouse quotes Gresham Maitchin on this point. For my part, Maitchin says, I have always regarded the study of the New Testament to which I've given my life as ancillary, that is a handmade, to that other department, namely dogmatics. New Testament has its own methods, he says in that book, quoted by Stonehouse, but ultimately its aim should be to aid in the establishment of that system of doctrine that the scriptures contain. That's the old view. Now let me zero in a little bit more on the Enlightenment and I will apologize for some of the names that I will use here. What was now that Enlightenment? Given some of the background, The Enlightenment was that early 18th century movement that tried to secularize every department of human life and thought. So the early 18th century movement which tried to secularize every department of human life and thought. It was a revolt, not only against the power of the institutionalized church, but also against religion as such. The Enlightenment forces appear to be especially powerful in our own day, as secularism has been advancing. The philosophical presuppositions of the Enlightenment were those of rationalism, of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. L-E-I-B-N-I-Z. G-W are his initials. Gottfried Wilhelm. Lived from 1646 through 1716. I grew up for some years as a boy in Amsterdam. Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher. I think there is the Spinoza Street in Amsterdam. There is the Spinoza Society even today in Amsterdam. Spinoza was a Jew, very interesting, was excommunicated. was excommunicated from the synagogue and was in his thinking, maybe I can simply summarize it by saying he was essentially a pantheist. I'll leave it at that with regard to Spinoza. Maybe I should say that his view is that the Bible was written in a manner of unreflected irrational man. They have a taste of what these men thought. So that's on the one hand the philosophical presuppositions of the Enlightenment were those of rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz And on the other hand, the empiricism of John Locke, who was a deist, you may know. Now if deism is your religion and you become an influence for a whole movement and it's incredible how these men, because you and I would say they would have influence only among just a few people, they really were very much, very powerful in their thinking and advocated what they did. So I mentioned John Locke, I should mention also Berkeley and I should mention David Hume, George Berkeley, an Irish philosopher, perhaps the most brilliant philosopher of his age, and David Hume. These two opposing strands of thought, were somewhat miraculously woven together by Immanuel Kant, the great philosopher of the Enlightenment. He lived from 1724 through 1804, and he distinguished The noumenal realm, a noumenal being the realm of perception. M-O-U-M-E-N-A-L, the noumenal. in Kantian philosophy that which can be the object of a purely intellectual intuition. These are some of the tough words maybe in the lecture. But he distinguished the noumenal realm from the phenomenal realm. And phenomenon, the phenomenon is a fact, something that occurred or a circumstance that was observed. So he distinguished between the noumenal and the phenomenal realm. And the practical reason from the pure reason. And the practical reason he called then faith and pure reason. This Kantian distinction is basic for most of modern thought, and it is crucial for the subject of faith and history today. I reject Kant's thinking. I do, and I had to study it in my college years in modern philosophy. I had to read it in German even, which I thought was a very difficult exercise for me. But while I reject Kant's distinctions, I do contend that his perspective is basic for understanding the developments of modern theology with respect to the question of, for instance, the historical Jesus. let me just go on for a brief moment according to Kant the noumenal realm is the realm of God freedom and immortality only the practical reason or faith has access to this noumenal realm the phenomenal realm on the other hand is open to sense perception and is controlled by pure reason It is only with respect to this phenomenal realm that the sciences are concerned. Modern natural science, historical science, indeed all the modern sciences are rooted in this Kantian distinction of the noumenal and phenomenal realms and the practical and the pure reason. And the distinction made by some modern theologians between history and Geschichte, those two German words, also reflect Kantian distinction. Maybe I should say Kantian dichotomy. And are you familiar with the history and Geschichte distinction? I'll have to deal with that. How much time is there? It's gone. What if I start next week with that? Yeah? Is this bearable for you? It's basic. You will notice that once we begin to see what the underpinnings are of the men that you will study, and over against that, we are working on the translation of a systematic theology from the Dutch van Genderen and Velema, which is an 800, we hope to complete that this year. And I hope to actually give you a little bit of a summary in one of the lectures. When that systematic theology appeared in the 90s, I think it was 94, one of the major criticism was that it did not have a prolegomena. It did not have a philosophical underpinning. And if you think back to Calvin, Calvin didn't have a philosophical prolegomena. Luther did not have. Do we need it today? But that's the argument. For you to be scientifically up on par, you need to have philosophical underpinnings. And our argument is what we need is not philosophical underpinnings, we need the underpinnings of the word of God. And we stand in the tradition of the of the early church and we hold those high. Let me just mark my notes sort of at this point.