04.01 - Revelation and Modern Theology
REVELATION
PART IV (1) Revelation and Modern Theology
ONE important change in Modern Theology in respect of the doctrine of Scripture is a reversal of the order and relative importance of Inspiration and Revelation. The old order was to use the term inspiration to include revelation; inspiration was the orthodox term for guaranteeing the divine reality of the words of Scripture as being in truth the words given by God. Modern theology is careful to distinguish between inspiration and revelation, as also between revelation and Scripture. This change is perhaps rightly traced to the teachings of Schleicrmachcr, to the distinction he was wont to make between the objective and the subjective in religion, between Christ and Christianity, between consciousness and the truth revealed in consciousness, between objective truth and its subjective correlative faith. Revelation was the essential in respect of objective truth, and inspiration was of subordinate importance. The present day tendency is to adjust the relative importance of these two factors, and to secure to each its proper recognition, which I presume was the design of the Conference in the choice of the terms of this treatise.
Revelation is not only distinct in fact and thought from Inspiration, but it is primal, determinative, and regulative, if not inclusive. Revelation is primal, and with it Scripture and truth begin. Revelation must take place before it can be recognised or truth can be received; truth must be declared ere it can be known, and truth must be recognised and known ere it can be preached or recorded. Revelation presupposes inspiration: it is connected with it and conditioned by it. Because revelation is primal and determinative it would have been more logical to have considered it before Inspiration, if only Conference had so ordered. As both terms are connected with the doctrine of Scripture considered as the revelation of God’s will to man, the order of discussion is unimportant if only we carefully discriminate between the meaning and relation of the things themselves.