Monday, October 29, 2007

How Modern Should Theology Be?

Helmut Thielicke

I can really make the gospel my own only if I may believe it with my eyes open, only if my faith does not force me to throw out something, or ignore something, or forget it for a while.

Moreover, this is not merely a condition that I as a modern man have imposed on faith. Faith itself demands it. For Jesus Christ wants me totally. He wants me to belong to him with more than my conscience, my emotions, and my anxieties; He wants my reason, my knowledge, and all the areas of my consciousness as well. But if I have to repress and suppress anything that I as a scientist or historian know, if I run with the mind that is not awake and intact and able to say, "Here you have me with all I am and have, including my knowledge and my reason," then I do not belong to him totally. At most I am placing at his disposal only a part of me--my religiosity or my pious feelings.

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969) pages 15, 16.

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