I was looking again at a book by John Piper - called Future Grace. I had just picked it up and hit upon a sentence, and I started to think about his choice of words. I have to say I am muddled in my own thinking at times, and could not write a book. I am also struggling with my own beliefs and thinking. I am probably more towards Neo-orthodox views on Scripture (and this is something I am re-thinking also). So I just was wondering about his choice of words at one point.
Anyway he writes about anxiety and unbelief in a chapter. And there is this paragraph:
The word "therapy" got me thinking. Is the action of God's Word properly termed "theraputic"?
So it got me thinking what does therapy, theraputic mean?
What I came to is that there are such practices as physio-therapy, psycho-therapy etc. For something to be theraputic it seems to assist one in doing something that would otherwise be difficult. A psycho-therapist for instance might help one to talk about an unpleasant or traumatic event they have been through.
So what I was thinking was is the action of God's Word and Spirit theraputic, or is it more like surgical, or maybe its theraputic sometimes, and more surgical (like a surgeon might cut and remove some diseased growth) at other times?
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Another thing I want to ask is what is God's Word? Is it an object, a thing? Karl Barth would say that The Bible becomes God's Word. His theological mentors - Wilhelm Hermann, Harnack, Ritschl - rejected the idea of the Bible as the Word of God written. Barth broke with his early theological liberalism.
I think the fundamentalists use the term inscripturated, The Bible is God's Word inscripturated- so its a case of God has spoken, and that word is now inscripturated. They therefore use the Bible build theological systems. But does the Bible not have a human element too? Anyway I cannot recall now exactly why years ago I moved towards the neo-orthodox view, it may just have been my thinking through about the Bible and what i had read, and that I probably am somewhat influenced by modern thought.
Colin Brown in his book writes:
Donald Bloesch has written: "The position of fundamentalists on the Bible is monophysite: it sees only one nature - the divine. In contrast, many liberal and some neo-orthodox embrace a Nestorian position - affirming two natures but failing to discern their indivisible unity."
A question I have is how does one come to have a view of the Bible as the Word of God? I mean it seems like one could ask someone "is this [the Bible] God's Word?" - you'd get different answers however from different individuals? In my childhood I asked my dad - and he answered in the affirmative - that it was. So does it come down to an authority outside the Bible?
Anyway he writes about anxiety and unbelief in a chapter. And there is this paragraph:
"So I want to stress that finding out the connection between our anxiety and our unbelief is, in fact, very good news, because it is the only way to focus our fight on the real cause of our sin and get the victory that God can give us by the therapy of his Word and his Spirit..."
The word "therapy" got me thinking. Is the action of God's Word properly termed "theraputic"?
So it got me thinking what does therapy, theraputic mean?
What I came to is that there are such practices as physio-therapy, psycho-therapy etc. For something to be theraputic it seems to assist one in doing something that would otherwise be difficult. A psycho-therapist for instance might help one to talk about an unpleasant or traumatic event they have been through.
So what I was thinking was is the action of God's Word and Spirit theraputic, or is it more like surgical, or maybe its theraputic sometimes, and more surgical (like a surgeon might cut and remove some diseased growth) at other times?
----------
Another thing I want to ask is what is God's Word? Is it an object, a thing? Karl Barth would say that The Bible becomes God's Word. His theological mentors - Wilhelm Hermann, Harnack, Ritschl - rejected the idea of the Bible as the Word of God written. Barth broke with his early theological liberalism.
I think the fundamentalists use the term inscripturated, The Bible is God's Word inscripturated- so its a case of God has spoken, and that word is now inscripturated. They therefore use the Bible build theological systems. But does the Bible not have a human element too? Anyway I cannot recall now exactly why years ago I moved towards the neo-orthodox view, it may just have been my thinking through about the Bible and what i had read, and that I probably am somewhat influenced by modern thought.
Colin Brown in his book writes:
"Barth's willingness to draw a distinction between the Word of God itself and the fallible words of the Bible leads to the dilemma in which any given passage of the Bible is true in so far as it is the Word of God and false in so far as it is the erring word of man. Barth's way out of this dilemma is to ignore it. In practice, if not quite in theory, he seems to return to the older orthodox method of treating the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God. But this approach can only be defensible if at the same time one is able to defend the veracity and historicity of Scripture in the way that older orthodox theologians did and Evangelicals seek to do today."
Donald Bloesch has written: "The position of fundamentalists on the Bible is monophysite: it sees only one nature - the divine. In contrast, many liberal and some neo-orthodox embrace a Nestorian position - affirming two natures but failing to discern their indivisible unity."
A question I have is how does one come to have a view of the Bible as the Word of God? I mean it seems like one could ask someone "is this [the Bible] God's Word?" - you'd get different answers however from different individuals? In my childhood I asked my dad - and he answered in the affirmative - that it was. So does it come down to an authority outside the Bible?
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