1956 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 239

TOWARD A THEISTIC CREATIONISM

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in common use in American theological controversy, will be used by us as a synonym of the word irruptive. 3) The controversy between „Liberalism" and „Fundamentalism" in America can be best understood as a tug-of-war between a theology in the signature of process and a theology in the signature of irruption. Horace Bushnell (1802—1876), often and'rightly called the father of the America can be best unterstood as a tufj-of-war between a theology in day with his book ,,Christian Nurture" (1847), a book that is a wellreasoned attack upon the ictic theology of his times, and, an equally well-reasoned defense of the processional dimension of God's redemptive work. Although the forces of icticism resisted Bushnell valiantly, so that Bushnell was deposed, the new theology in the signature of process gradually won out. American Fundamentalism in turn is a rebellion against processionalism and a return to the old icticism of pre-liberal times. 4) It is highly significant that the Bible has a way of flashing the processive before our eyes at the very moment when we think to see Him engaged in the irruptive. For example, when Paul is converted on the Damascus Road we are in the presence of a transaction in which the irruptive is evident enough; but, the heavenly Voice speaks of process the while, the long process of Paul's „kicking against the pricks". Or, to illustrate this point further, when Elijah mopes under the juniper bush because Jehovah has not come through wit a sufficiently effective irruption, then Johovah points out to the Prophet that He is not in the wind nor in the earthquake but in the .,still, small voice". And the Prophet is sent on a mission in which the processional dimension is prominent enough; he is told to go to anoint, and so prepare for future leadership, various men in various places for various tasks, one of them a heathen king! 5) It is hard to escape the impression that some of the criticism levelled against Professor Janssen a generation ago in Christian Reformed circles in America was the result of a deistic quirk on the part of those who criticized him. He made much of the ,,east wind" in the record of the crossing of the Red Sea — a reprehensible thing to do indeed, if our faith feeds solely on the irruptive. 6) At this point it is well to recall the brave insight of Dr. Abraham Kuyper when he said ,,dat de Scheppingsoorkonde van de Schrift het dramatisch optreden van nieuwe wezens eer afsnijdt dan aanbeveelt. Er staat dat 'de aarde voortbracht het vee on het kruipend gedierte', niet dat ze door God als stukken op het schaakbord, op den aardbodem worden nedergezet" (Cf A. Kuyper, Evolutis, rectorale rede 20 oktober 1899, p. 49). Kuyper's words may be translated: „The creation saga of the Scriptures precludes rather than encourages the idea of a dramatic appearance of new beings. We read that 'the earth brought forth cattle and creeping things', not that they were deposited on the earth by God the way one puts chessmen on a chessboard". This is a tidy repudiation of what we have called deistic creationism; it is a neat rebuke for any view in which process and the exploitation of inhering potential are not given their rightful place. 7) The first thing the Genesis account tells us as it begins to relate the story of mediate creation (at Genesis 2 : 1 that is) is that the Spirit of God was „brooding" upon the waters. The figure is that of a mother bird as it coaxes life out of that upon which it broods. Surely this language does not connote an irruptive as much as it does a processional activity, one in which exploitation of inherent potential is certainly a feature. 8) Dr. J. Lever of the Free University of Amsterdam thinks it „likely that as God created the initial forms of life he made use of already present chemical combinations and their characteristic qualities". 9) Dr. J. Lever, standing at this very juncture, has written that it

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