John Nevin:
But to be thus living and vigorous, our theology must be more than traditional. It must keep pace with the onward course of human thought, subduing it always with renewed victory to its own power. Not by ignoring the power of error, or fulminating upon it blind ecclesiastical anathemas, can theology be saved from death; but only by meeting and overcoming it in the strength of the Lord. Now this requires, in our day, a legitimate regard in this form to the errors of Germany in particular. For it is preposterous to suppose that in the most speculative portion of the whole Christian world these errors stand in no connection with the general movement of the world’s mind, or that they do not need to be surmounted by a fresh advance on the part of truth as being only the dead repetition of previously vanquished falsehood.
Typical readers of the Journal may be troubled by the book’s reliance on modern theologians. The book defends the Apostle Paul against charges of manipulation (pp. 140-144), and mentions Luther and Calvin favorably. But for answers to peculiarly modern and postmodern concerns, it goes to Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Vincent Brümmer, Pannenberg, Jüngel, Rahner, Reinhold Niebuhr, and especially Moltmann. As a result one cannot tell where the book stands on issues that divide orthodoxy from mainstream modernist theology. But I believe that one should give the book the benefit of the doubt. Modernist theology in all its forms is built on the presupposition that we must make peace with modern thought forms and mainstream historical-critical research. With few exceptions, these cultural traditions are to be left intact, and theology can perhaps still carve out for itself a space alongside them by deepening and supplementing the whole. Insofar as modern thought and mainstream biblical research have built themselves on modernist foundations, Thiselton’s book calls for a thorough-going transformation, even crucifixion and resurrection, of both foundations and superstructure. So the book implicitly points toward a radical critique of modernist theology.
The book’s reliance on modernist theology may also be seen as an indirect comment on the limitations of orthodox scholarship. The orthodox have seldom engaged modern thought in depth except by way of denunciation. So whom should the book cite? Thiselton emphasizes affirmation and common grace where he can, and uses the language of neoorthodox writers in places where it formally matches orthodoxy.