1956 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 232

190

L. VERDUIN

this frantic chase after the irruptional. In a truly theistic creationism place will be given ungrudgingly to the processional dimension. It must be observed that wherever the dimension of process is in evidence there recourse to inherent potentiality is present. A glance back at the miracles of the Bible which we have just discussed will convince the reader. In the miracles there is likewise at least a token concession to inherent potentiality. This throws a significant light upon the Biblical position that the miracles were actually obstructed whenever this potential was inadequate. We read that „He could not do many mighty acts among them because of their unbelief". He whose conception of the miracle is that of an act of sheer irruption, done in lofty disregard for inherent potentiality, will have great difficulty at this point, a difficulty bom of sheer deism, a difficulty that does not give the theist any insuperable trouble. This idea of recourse to inherent potential, which in itself is but an implication of the processional dimension is well-nigh omnipresent in authentic Christianity. We meet it, for example, in the doctrine de Sacra Scriptura. The Bible is God's work and as such it has a genuinely irruptive dimension. But it just as surely has the processional dimension — which means that it did not come into being without recourse to potential inherent in the persons chosen for the writing. In His self-disclosure in the Bible God made unstinted use of the potential inherent in Isaiah and Paul c.s. Deistically slanted people, that is, people who are embarrassed by the dimension of process, would have preferred a Bible in which the human fingerprints were deniable, in which the processional dimension could be negated. But this embarrassement is a deistic hangover; the preference for a Bible done on a purely irruptional line is a decidedly ethnic trait. Persons suffering from this ethnic bias would be happier with a purely irruptive revelation — such as the Ephesians thought to have in the image of Diana that had come hurtling out of heaven one fine day, wholly apart from creaturely potential und quite unrelated to process! The Bible is not ashamed of recourse to creature and to creatural potential. The authentic delineation of the Christ of God is that of an irruption (Jesus Christ may be called the „Great Irruption"); but the incarnation was not achieved without recourse to creature and creaturely potential. This is the deeper meaning of the creedal item „born of the Virgin Mary". Men of ethnic habits have tried the formula of pure irruption here; the first heresy the Christian Church had to face

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