Theology beacon dictionary of theology

In the OT, to give a testimony is to repeat or to affirm, to reprove or admonish in reference to the pronouncements or covenants of God. The Hebrew root form is to bear witness (Ruth 4:7). To testify to God's action called for decision and action on the part of His people 0osh. 24:15, 22).

The ark of the covenant is called the ark of the testimony (Exod. 25:22; Josh. 4:16) because it contained two tables of stone upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments (Exod. 25:16). This became God's witness against Israel's sin (Deut. 31:26).

Some testimonies were tangible memorials or ceremonies to mark transaction and agreements. Jacob raised a heap of stones as a boundary be­tween him and Laban (Gen. 31:44-55).

Two witnesses were required to establish a charge against a person (Num. 35:30). Anyone committing a grave crime had to be denounced by witnesses (1 Kings 21:13). A sin which the prophets denounced was witnesses who could be bought for money (Amos 5:10-13; Isa. 5:23).

In the NT, testimony takes on a wider meaning of a proclamation in word, deed, or suffering. Our word "martyr" focuses on the affirmation of one's belief in the gospel by personal suffering. Stephen was stoned to death as a result of his testimony and is usually considered the first Christian martyr (Acts 6:8—7:60). Jesus is said to have been a faithful and good witness unto death (Rev. 1:5).

During the past three centuries, testimony be­came a way of telling how one came to be saved. It was a particular part of Methodist class meet­ings and has been continued by many of their conservative followers to the present time.

"Witness" has sometimes been distinguished from "testimony" as telling of God's deliverance or action in one's life in the presence of those who are unconverted. As such, testimony is con­fined to affirmation of such action among those who are already Christians.

Witnessing is at the heart of the Great Com­mission, for the Church advances by a kind of proclamation that is linked with personal testi­mony. Twice in Acts Paul tells of his conversion (in addition to Luke's narrative in chap. 9). In fact, the promised power of the Holy Spirit had effective witnessing as its primary objective and manifestation (Luke 24:45-49; Acts 1:8).

See great commission, evangelism, mission (mis­sions, missiology), preaching, soul winning. For Further Reading: IDB, 4:1864; Harmon, ed., Ency­clopedia of World Methodism, 2:2327; Lawlor, Wake Up and Witness; HDB, 743, 820-21. J. ottis sayes

Before the appearance of the Greek NT in print, differences in texts were little noted. The first printed Greek New Testaments were there­fore produced from whatever manuscripts were readily available. The so-called Textus Receptus was of this sort; it owed its preeminence to its being first on the scene rather than to the intrin­sic quality of its text.

Textual criticism began when manuscript differences were studied carefully. For unin­tentional variations (from errors of sight, hear­ing, memory, or judgment), a careful comparison of manuscripts yielded clues as to the original wording. Intentional changes, made by copyists or editors, were made in order to provide expla­nations, solve difficulties, eliminate apparent dis­crepancies, or correct supposed errors. This often produced additions to the text which were passed on to other manuscripts. The textual critic, seeking the original wording, therefore looks favorably on (1) the shorter reading, (2) the apparently more difficult reading, or (3) the read­ing which is more characteristic of a given au­thor. Across the years textual criticism has developed into a highly technical science.

The process of textual criticism has yielded a very dependable text, undoubtedly close to the original. At the same time it gives remarkable testimony to God's providential preservation of His Word through the centuries; the Church has never been without a dependable witness to the message of salvation, whatever form of Scripture it possessed at that time.

See bible, biblical inerrancy, criticism (nt), criticism (ot), exegesis. hermeneutics.

For Further Reading: Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism; Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration.

Theism is seen in contrast to deism, the belief that God is there but not here, not involved in His world. Deism overextends God's otherness (separateness) and denies revelation (God break­ing into history).

Theism, likewise, contrasts with pantheism, which overextends God's hereness (immanence). Pantheism believes that God not only is in His creation (in the sense of putting His creative stamp on it), but that He is the creation. Pan­theism robs God of His objective personhood.

Theism stands in direct opposition to atheism, the belief that there is no God (atheism: a = against; theos = God). In our century the late Bertrand Russell, the British mathematician and philosopher, was an intellectual leader of athe­ism.

Christian theism differs, too, from polytheism, the belief in many gods, as in Hinduism, the re­ligion of countless divinities.

Theism also separates itself from agnosticism, the belief that one cannot really know if there is a God (agnosticism: a = against; gnosis = knowl­edge).

The most powerful proponents of theism in our time, by virtue of their appeal to the modern mind, do not work with historic theistic proofs (as noted above) so much as with inferential ma­terials and contemporary images. This is seen in the writings of Francis Schaeffer, C. S. Lewis, Sheldon Vanauken, et al. Such authors are read widely not merely because of their "popularity"; in point of fact, their works are characterized by depth of insight and a remarkable breadth of knowledge. That very depth and breadth, co­gently expressed, make their apologetic literature challenging and prove that one vast segment of modern man is seriously concerned to find the truth about God. One cannot read C. S. Lewis' Problem of Pain or Mere Christianity, for example, without careful attention.

Couple these apologetic works with the testi­monial and devotional literature coming off the presses, and one begins to understand the mind­set of contemporary man. The sensory and tech­nological, whether understood in depth or on the surface, spills over into Christian literature. Actu­ally, contemporary Western man does not so much ask, Does God exist?—he often assume that—as he asks, What kind of a God exists? And how can He help me live a meaningful and co­herent life?

Christianity teaches that God is Spirit 0ohn 4:24)—self-aware, free, and not made of parts as something material. He is omnipresent—that is, everywhere. He is unchangeable and unchang­ing; He is not passive but active; He is dynamic: He can create and move and do and achieve. Practically, this all means the God who is there is also here, involved in His world and ever ready actually to help His children.

See GOD, TRINITY (THE HOLY), SPIRIT, PERSONALITY OF GOD, DEISM, PANTHEISM.

Theistic evolution is quite plainly in radical op­position to all the fundamental teaching of bibli­cal Christianity. God did not use evolution to finish a good work; He did not surrender the cre­ative process to the chance and randomness pos­tulated by evolution.

Evolution is essentially development from innate processes out of prior materials that appeared by chance and random variations, through natural selection, not under God's direc­tion.

From the very beginning the hypothesis of evolution has failed. In 1859 Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, which over­turned the world of thought, shifted the whole attitude of science, and caused upheaval to the very foundation of religion and morality for his followers. He wrote that life had not been cre­ated in distinct kinds, but had developed in all its variations, including man, from a single cell.

He was in error in the big three issues. In the first place he wrote that natural selection could improve indefinitely. Geneticists now agree that once selection within a species has reached ho­mozygosity (a pure state), then selection has no further influence. Secondly, Darwin thought that



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life had been spontaneously generated. Many scientists have tried to generate life without suc­cess. Life comes from preexisting life which was created as it is revealed in the Bible.

Darwin missed it in the third big one by stating that acquired characteristics were inherited. This issue has been proven false many times and is perhaps the greatest blow to Darwin and evo­lutionists today. If acquired characteristics were inheritable, then evolutionists would have at least one working basis for organic evolution. They are now leaning heavily on mutations and chromosomal aberrations as the answer for evo­lution, which do bring changes within species, but harmful in most cases.

God did not use such a failure as organic evo­lution as a method of bringing into existence His world. As evolution fails, so theistic evolution fails. The failure of evolution as an alternative for origins strengthens our faith in Him as Creator. "In the beginning God created" (Gen. 1:1). The existing universe and the different kinds of plants, animals, and man did indeed arise through separate acts of special creation by God; so theistic evolution has no place in truth. The Christian ideal hopes for a concentration on na­ture that leads not away from but toward God.

See DARWINISM, EVOLUTION, CREATION, CRE­ATIONISM, MAN.

For Further Reading: Smith, Man's Origin, Man's Des­tiny, 167-84; Hoover, The Fallacies of Evolution; Clark, Darwin: Before and After DWIGHT J. STRICKLER

1. The ontological argument (from the Greek ontos, "of being") is a statement of the basic as­sumption of the rationality of existence. This mode of argument was first clearly stated by An­selm (1033-1109) and was characteristic of the great medieval system of Christian philosophy known as Scholasticism. It was later restated by Descartes (1596-1650), one of the formative thinkers of 17th-century rationalism.

For Anselm, the name God stands for the most real being there is. By definition God is the Being than which a more real one cannot be conceived. Therefore, to understand the name correctly is to understand that God does in fact exist, for what we think of as most real, we must think of as re­ally real. The human mind can conceive of a per­fect being, and a necessary part of this perfection is that this perfect being should exist. The idea of perfection includes the idea of existence. A per­fect being cannot not be. That which does not exist is less than perfect. Since therefore we can have the idea of a perfect being, that being must exist.

Descartes argued similarly, pointing out that to think of a right-angled triangle is to think of it as having a hypotenuse; you cannot think of a right-angled triangle as not having one. Like­wise, you cannot grasp what "God" means unless you grasp the fact that He cannot not exist.

Some have suspected this argument of being a kind of verbal trick. Others have denied that it has logical force, regarding it simply as an asser­tion that God ought to be thought of in a certain way. But many Christian thinkers have seen that there is something at stake in this pattern of rea­soning, for it gives logical expression to the radi­cal inescapability of God. It expresses the fact that thinking cannot rid itself of a relation to reality. Whatever names might be substituted for God, there is always a final reality whose nonexistence is unimaginable.

2. 
   The cosmological argument (from cosmos, "world") attempts to answer the question "Where did the world come from?" It can be stated as fol­lows: "Everything that exists must have an ade­quate cause. The world exists. Therefore the world must have an adequate cause." The name for this adequate cause is God. The cosmological way of reasoning holds that we cannot doubt the ultimate foundation of the cosmos. We can, of course, doubt any particular version of it, but this very doubting presupposes the foundation itself. Here cosmological reasoning overlaps onto­logical reasoning. The difference is this: The on­tological argument says that if we think of an ultimate foundation of everything, we must think of it as real. Cosmological reasoning de­clares that the cosmos constrains us to think of an ultimate foundation and points us in that di­rection. The Bible contains expressions of such an argument (e.g., Ps. 19:1-4; 94:9; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:19-20). It was given most notable philo­sophical form by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74).
   
3. 
   The teleological argument stresses some­thing still more specific about the ultimate reality. It derives its name from the Greek feZos, the "goal," "end," or "aim" of a process. It argues for God's existence from the appearance of design or purpose in the universe, because a sense of ratio­nal purpose in the development of the natural world speaks of an origin in an intelligent mind. Thus God is seen not merely as the ultimate
   
4. 
   
   

4. The moral argument is associated with the teaching of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant questioned the validity of the traditional Scho­lastic arguments. He held that pure reason cannot prove the existence of God. Instead, he rested the case for God's existence upon the "moral ought," stressing the universal fact of moral awareness. This way of reasoning finds God not in the "top of the mind" but in the "bottom of the heart." It is argued that there is within the heart of man a majestic voice which tells him he ought to do what he knows to be right (although one's per­ception of what in fact is right will vary, de­pending on background, experience, tradition, etc.). Since this moral ought is universal, it must have an ultimate source or Author. God is thus one of the three postulates of the practical reason (freedom and immortality being the other two).

These are the four major historical ways of reasoning about God. Theology recognizes that everyone cannot be argued into believing in God; belief is more likely to precede rather than follow an understanding of these arguments. Yet these ways of reasoning, with their varying degrees of cogency for different individuals, do help to clar­ify the meaning of God for the thinking mind. Though they cannot compel belief, they can clar­ify what is involved in believing and thus make one's belief (or even unbelief) more authentic.

See god. attributes (divine), apologetics, the­ism, epistemology.

Israel's unique relationship to God as His cho­sen people essentially formed the foundation for the development of OT thought: "You shall be my own possession among all peoples ... and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exod. 19:5-6, RSV). Yahweh, as king, would "reign for ever and ever" (15:18). Even though the theocracy was later governed by an earthly king, his reign was mediatorial, for he served as the Lord's anointed. Ultimately, on "the day of the Lord" all rule will yield to God's sov­ereign reign, "and the Lord will become king over all the earth" (Zech. 14:9, RSV).

The kingdom of God in the NT reveals the de­velopment of the concept of theocracy. The Mes­siah is of the house of David, and He has brought near the reign of God. He has estab­lished a kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36), and of which there will be no end (Luke 1:33). Though He has ascended to the Father un­til the fullness of times, He will one day come in His kingdom (23:42), and the earth will recog­nize that He is "the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15, RSV).

Theocracy allows no place for secularism. All regulations of society are essentially theological. All human accountability is ultimately to God. History itself is moving inexorably toward His appointed conclusion.

See divine sovereignty state (the), kingdom of god.

For Further Reading: Bright, The Kingdom of God; Gray, "The Hebrew Conception of the Kingship of God: Its Origin and Development," Vetus Testamentum, 6:268-85; Vriezen, An Outline of Old Testament Theology, English ed. (1958), 227-31. WILLIAM B. COKER

THEODICY. See evil.

THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE. In Christian theol­ogy language possesses a significance beyond its ordinary function in communication. In the the­ology of the gospel, John described Jesus as the "Word" (Gr. logos), meaning the bridge by which God communicates himself to mankind. Theol­ogy is a compound word, combining theos, "God," with logos, "word," describing those things which comprise the entire field of study about God and His revelation.

Theological language requires great precision. Language is a complex phenomenon. A word may be given a univocal meaning, or it may be interpreted equivocally. This means it may have one meaning, or it may have several meanings depending on the intention of the speaker or the interpretation of the hearer. Language is formed from images, concepts, signs, and sounds.

Theological language participates in all the characteristics of language. It is not divine or an­gelic speech. Nevertheless, it is distinctive be­cause it speaks about God. It is sometimes



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referred to as "God talk" by philosophers. Lan­guage which speaks of or describes empirical ob­jects is not adequate to speak about God. There is a visual and verbal correspondence between the word table and the physical object, at least on the level of common sense. Such a correspondence does not exist between the word "God" and the Reality who created the world. Therefore, theo­logical language is particularly conceptual and symbolic. Theological language seeks analogies or comparative pictures with which to describe the supernatural realm. A parable may be de­fined as an "extended analogy" which pictures some aspect of God or spiritual insight. For ex­ample, in the parable of the prodigal (Luke 15), the father represents the love of God the Father. An analogy may be defined as "a word made flesh." When ideas are clothed in persons, the ideas become understandable. By looking at Jesus, "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), we see God in a veiled expression—God incarnate.

From the beginning of the Church's history, and especially in the era of the church fathers (up to the sixth century), theological language has possessed crucial significance. Using philo­sophical language drawn from the Greeks, the fathers reconstructed and redefined this lan­guage to convey to their age the meaning of Christian faith. The important concepts of God as "person," the Trinity, the divinity and human­ity of Jesus Christ, and many more received their major theological formulation. Tertullian was the first to use the word Trinity. The term person (per­sona) originally meant "face" or "mask," but it be­came an analogy of the personhood of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, signifying unity in trinity, not diversity in trinity.

Some persons are so convinced of the inade­quacy of theology to express divine truths that they fall back on a mystical union with God, while an extreme form of linguistic analysis (log­ical positivism) rejects theological language as nonsense. Either of these leaves the Church in virtual, if not complete, silence about the faith. This is an abdication of responsibility and in op­position to the Church's mandate to be a wit­nessing community in the world.

See POSITIVISM, EPISTEMOLOGY, METAPHYSICS, THE­OLOGY COMMUNICATE (COMMUNICATION), TESTIMONY (WITNESS).