Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Karl Barth: Not A Reliable Guide To Spiritual Truth

1Jn 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

On Karl Barth Stephen Macasil says in part (read the whole post):

Quote:

Many evangelicals, including those supposedly opposed to the emerging church movement might assume that Karl Barth was reliable as a guide to spiritual truth. They may read some of his works and agree with him prima facie as he speaks of God’s revelation in Christ, the redemption/reconciliation through Christ, etc. They may even take Barth to represent orthodox biblical Christianity believing he defends Christ’s “literal” resurrection according to the Scriptures. But as Cornelius Van Til noted, “The fact is, however, that Barth does not submit himself to Scripture as a direct revelation of God.”

...But he finds the resurrection in a Scripture which he asserts to be ‘full of obscurities and indissoluble contradictions.’

...This is a prime example of the nonsensical irrationality Barth smuggled into contemporary Christianity. It would not merit much attention from biblical Christians had it not become so widespread in its influence among those that profess faith in Christ. The intellectual investment in Barthianism and the endorsement from seminaries, universities, churches, pastors, and laypeople has given a false perception that Barth’s interpretation of Christianity is indeed consistent with the Christianity revealed in the Scriptures.

In order to do Barth justice, we must either accept his theology as a whole or reject it as a whole, for that is what he wanted. It is therefore a mistake of ignorance for one to say that on some doctrines Barth is essentially sound and on others unsound. What Barth wanted the followers of the Reformation to do is learn to reinterpret the creeds of Christianity - Christologically. This may sound like a good and noble enterprise at first, that is, until one learns that“Christologically” must be in his sense of the term, and not the sense in which Scripture teaches.

End quote.

Well said, Stephen!

If only people would take such a bold stand against present-day false teachers, instead of trying to pick and choose what they like, while keeping the false teacher within their embrace.

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