(T)he essential step in sound theologizing is to bring all views—one's own as well as those of others—to the touchstone of Scripture. (175-176) … Our first task must be to test all the words of men by the authoritative Word of God. (183-184)
Liberalism was an attempt to square Christianity with these anti-supernatural axioms. … It reduced grace to nature, divine revelation to human reflection, faith in Christ to following His example, and receiving new life to turning over a new leaf; it turned supernatural Christianity into one more form of natural religion, a thin mixture of morals and mysticism. (298ff)
The Evangelical is not afraid of facts, for he knows that all facts are God's facts; nor is he afraid of thinking, for he knows that all truth is God's truth, and right reason cannot endanger sound faith. He is called to love God with all his mind; and part of what this means is that, when confronted by those who, on professedly rational grounds, take exception to historic Christianity, he must set himself not merely to deplore or denounce them, but to out-think them. (401-404)
The very quantity of books to read and facts to master with which the twentieth-century man is confronted encourages him to think broadly and superficially about much, but hinders him from thinking deeply and thoroughly about anything. (417-418)
How should we set about discovering just what this word of God is? By what channel exactly is it mediated from the past to the present? From what source may we gain authoritative guidance as to what God has and has not authoritatively said? When Christian opinions differ, where should be the final court of appeal? This is the problem of authority. (589-591)
(Argumente des theologischen Liberalismus) Like all human products, Scripture is uneven. One part contradicts another; some parts are uninspired and unimportant; some of it reflects an antiquated outlook which can have no relevance for today. … Scripture, tradition and reason should be regarded as coordinate authorities, neither being set above the other two. But the formula is unworkable; what happens when they clash?
A Christ who permits His followers to set Him up as the Judge of Scripture, One by whom its authority must be confirmed before it becomes binding and by whose adverse sentence it is in places annulled, is a Christ of human imagination, made in the theologian's own image, One whose attitude to Scripture is the opposite to that of the Christ of history. (810-812)
(T)he Bible itself must fix and control the methods and presuppositions with which it is studied. (920)
(I)t is entirely natural for sinners to think of themselves as wise, not by reason of divine teaching, but through the independent exercise of their own judgment, and to try to justify their fancied wisdom by adjusting what the Bible teaches to what they have already imbibed from other sources… (941-942)
Leave man to guess God's mind and purpose, and he will guess wrong; he can know it only by being told it. (1267-1268)
(W)ho can come to faith in Christ if he knows none of this? No considerations could show more plainly the complete inability of man to 'make do' in his religion without a spoken word from God. (1277-1278)
(T)he Bible is an interpretative record of sacred history. (1293)
Our approach must be harmonistic; for we know at the outset that God's utterance is not self-contradictory. (1522-1523)
The difference between faith in God and all other attitudes of trust derives from the unique character of its object—the Creator who declares mercy to His sinful creatures. (1606-1607)
The ground of faith, then, is the recognition of man's word as God's word. How does it come about? Through the work of the Holy Spirit, opening and enlightening the 'eyes' of the mind. (1637-1638)
Unscriptural ideas in our theology are like germs in our system. They tend only to weaken and destroy life, and their effect is always damaging, more or less. … (T)he Church will not finally lapse from any part of the biblical faith. God Himself will maintain His own truth. (1722 / 1740f)
Scientific criticism for the Christian, therefore, must mean the effort to understand and appreciate Scripture as what it is—God's truth in writing. (1807)
(W)arm piety, exalting strong emotion at the expense of clear-headedness and urging that it is more important to feel rightly than to think rightly. (This attitude, of course, was encouraged in the nineteenth century by the work of Schleiermacher.) (1847f)
God forbids Christians to lose interest in His world. (1871)
Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms. (1905)
20 Zitate aus … Fundamentalism and the Word of God
