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[The Christian Apologetics]: The System of Christian Truth (04)
PAUL JANG  2012-02-29 18:54:02, hit : 3,325




(5) Christian Epistemology (±âµ¶±³ ÀνķÐ)

(1) As God has self-contained being and all other being has created or derivative being, so also God has self-contained and man has derivative knowledge.

(2) In contrast with this all forms of non-Christian epistemology speak first of knowledge in general and introduce the distinction between divine and human knowledge afterwards.

(3) There are forms of non-Christian epistemology that speak of the divine knowledge as though it were wholly other, qualitatively different, from human knowledge.

(4) So there are also forms of non-Christian metaphysics that speak of God's being as wholly other, as qualitatively different, from man's being.

(5) On the question of epistemology as on that of metaphysics the Roman Catholic church again occupies a straddling position.

1) Non-Christian forms of epistemology in general.
2) Aristotle in particular.
3) Romanism assumes that God and man stand in exactly the same sort of relation to the law of contradiction. To think and know truly it is assumed, both must think in accordance with that law as an abstraction from the nature of either. The consequences are again fatal both for systematic theology and apologetics.

¨ç For systematic theology it means that truth is not made ultimately to consist the correspondence to the internally self-complete nature and knowledge that God has of himself and of all created reality. Hence man's dealings in the realm of truth are not ultimately with God but with an abstraction that stands above God, with Truth as such.

¨è For apologetics it means that the basic principle of the non-Christian conception of truth cannot be challenged. According to this most basic assumption it is man rather than God that is the final reference point in all prediction. The idea of truth in the abstract is in accord with this assumption. In fact the idea of truth in the abstract is based upon this assumption (the fall of man in paradise).

(1) Now Roman Catholicism, bound ad it is to its most basic notion of supposedly intelligent predication about being in general, is unable to place this alternative before men.

(2) It cannot challenge those who make man the center of their interpretation of life with a view that makes God the center of the interpretation of life.


(6) Christian Ethics (±âµ¶±³ À±¸®ÇÐ)

(1) On the question of ethics the doctrine of the self-contained God implies that God's will is the final and exclusively determinative power of whatsoever comes to pass.

(2) The nature of any created thing is what it is because of an act of determination with respect to it on the part of God.

(3) Created things are not identical with God nor with nay act of God with respect to them. They have a being and an activity of their own.

(4) But this being and activity is what it is because of the more ultimate being and activity on the part of the will of God.

(5) Things are what they are ultimately because of the plan of God. They are what they are in relation to one another because of the place that God has assigned them in his plan.

(6) God expresses his plan with respect to the facts and laws of nature in these facts and laws themselves. The regularity of the law of nature is due to the \"obedience\" of the facts of the created world to the behest of God.

(7) All force in the created universe acts in accordance with the forthputting of the power of God that is back of it.

(8) The particular case of the will of man in relation to the will of God calls for a brief remark in this connection.

(9) To begin with the will of man as an aspect of this personality depends for what it is ultimately upon a creative and sustaining act of God, but the will of man as an aspect of human personality is not observable except in act.

(10) For man as bound to act, God has set his program. God gave this program by way of self-conscious communication at the beginning of history.

(11) Man's summon bonum was set for him, individually and collectively. He was to subdue the earth and bring out its latent powers to the glory of God.

(12) He was to be a willing servant of God, one who would find his delight in obedience to God. His criterion for action would be faith in the truth of promise of God.

(13) If obedient to God, man would be accomplishing genuine result. The controlling and directing power of his will would be the will of God.

(14) Over against this Christian view of the will of God as ultimate is the non-Christian view of the will of man as ultimate.

1) Morality is assumed to be autonomous.
2) Man is virtually said to be a law unto himself.
3) Man may, and in many cases does, speak of God as his law-giver.
4) But then this God is a projection his own ultimate moral consciousness;
5) God is but man's would-be ultimate and autonomous moral consciousness writ large. (Socrates, Immanuel Kant)

(15) It is therefore the business of Christian apologetics to challenge the non-Christian view of morality and to show that unless the will of God be taken ad ultimate there is no meaning to moral distinctions.

(16) The Roman Catholic view of ethics is unable to do this. It has been noted that Roman virtually speaks of being in general and of knowledge in general before it speaks of the being and knowledge of God as distinct from the being and knowledge of man.

1) It is natural then that God's will cannot be made primary in ethics.
2) Roman Catholic theology ascribes to the will of man such a measure of autonomy and ultimacy as to enable it to determine man's own final destiny whether for good or for evil requiring only the assistance of God.

3) For Romanism man is himself the ultimate source of his own determinateness.

(17) The Consequence of this position for systematic theology and apologetics are again far-reaching. For systematic theology it means that the initiative is taken out of God's hand at every point of doctrine.

1) The doctrine of creation becomes a cross between the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing, ex nihilo and the pagan of the chain of being,
2) The doctrine of salvation becomes a matter of give and take between God and man; man is saved partially by grace and partially by works.

(18) For apologetics it means that the natural man is not challenges to forsake his disobedience to God in order to find rest for his soul and significance in his moral distinctions.

(19) But Roman Catholic ethics seeks to by-pass the will of God in order to his nature. But this in effect amounts to an appeal to the fitness of things in general. Such a notion of the fitness of things in general is in accord with the idea of being and knowledge in general.




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