C o n c o J l ~ i ( ] Theological Monthly AUGUST 1950 CHIVE "BOOK REVIEW All books reviewed in this periodical may be procured from or through Concordia Publishing House, 8558 South Jefferson Avenue, St. Louis 18, Missouri. ARCHAEOLOGY AND BIBLE HISTORY. By Joseph P; Free. Van Kampen Press, Wheaton, Ill. xviii + 398 pages, 8;1 X 6. $5.00. There are many books on the market on Biblical archaeology. Two features of Dr. Free's book make it a very desirable addition to this literature. In the first place, "the author seeks to follow the sequence of Bible history as a unifying thread, and to show how archaeological discoveries illuminate and confirm the successive events of Biblical history" (p. viii). A summary of Bible history is presented which begins with the creation account of Genesis and ends with the development of the Early Church of New Testament times. Wherever it is available, archaeological material is drawn upon to shed light on the events of each successive era. The second characteristic has already been indicated. In plain language the author tells us that he accepts the Bible as God's inspired Word. Hence he uses the archaeological discoveries in a constructive way to illuminate and confirm the Biblical account and not to undermine faith in its truth and reliability. Dr. Joseph P. Free is a fundamentalist, but not an obscurantist. He knows the vast literature on the discoveries in Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. He holds the Ph. D. degree from Princeton University and for ten years has carried on research work in the field of archaeology and Near Eastern studies at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. He is now head of the Department of Archaeology at Wheaton College (IlL), where he has taught for the last fourteen years, and also Archaeological Editor of the Sunday School Times. In addition he has made five study trips to Palestine, the Near East, and Europe. Admittedly a book of 398 pages cannot deal exhaustively with all phases of Biblical archaeology. Problems that have arisen from archaeological discoveries could not be discussed fully in this survey presentation. However, this reviewer believes that the space devoted to "The Question of 'Wine and the Bible'" pp.351-356, in which the author attempts to prove the Bible condemns the use of alcoholic drink, could have been used to better advantage. There are other instances of such digressions from archaeology which unfortunately also present his Reformed theology. Such a case is the statement on page 60: "Circumcision did not save Abraham or bring him and his posterity into vital relation with God" any more than baptism today saves a child or an adult; both are external 632 BOOK REVIEW 633 tokens of a covenant with God and a trust in God." A number of other doctrinal viewpoints are expressed which the Lutheran reader must reject. In spite of these shortcomings, the Lutheran pastor and Bible student will welcome this publication to his library as a handbook of valuable information. Written in non-technical language, it can also be put into the hands of Sunday school and Bible class teachers. It will serve excellently as a textbook in Bible institutes. Any history of the Bible must deal with the problems of Biblical chronology. Dr. Free does not evade them. In the pre-Abraham era he does not follow Bishop Ussher's computation. Assuming that there are many gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and Genesis 11, he concludes that "In view of such evidence of compression of genealogies, it seems safe to conclude that the creation of man took place probably sometime between 4000 and 8000 B. C. or perhaps somewhat earlier" (p. 18). In the vexing maze of the chronology of the Divided Kingdom of Israel and Judah the author does not arrive at definite conclusions but hopes that "future study may throw more light on the synchronisms" (p. 203). Thus in a table or the reigns of the kings of Judah, he lets E. R. Thiele's date for Hezekiah stand as beginning in 716. However, 2 Kings 18: 9 places the fall of Samaria (722 B. C.) "in the fourth year of King Hezekiah." It is not reasonable to suppose that the writer of K i n g ~ , who is so accurate in other data, should make a mistake :in the date of the fall of the Northern Kingdom, an event which must have made a profound and lasting impression. WALTER R. ROEHRS GEGENWART CHRISTI (Christus praesens). Grundriss einer Dogmatik der Offenbarung. Von Otto A. Dilschneider. 2 Baende. Erster Band: 294 Seiten, 6 X 9. Zweiter Band: 364 Seiten. Preis: DM.24. C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Guetersloh. The only European notice of this two-volume dogmatics which has come to our attention is the enthusiastic review article by Prof. C. T. Thomson of Edinburgh in Evangelical Quarterly, April, 1949, p.133. We are rather surprised that German theologians have apparently ignored this dogmatics, since it deals particularly with problems of immediate significance for German theology. Dilschneider is oriented in the theology of the Barmen Confessional Synods of 1933 and 1934 with the Barthian watchword: "Man muss auf die Brueder hoeren, denn in diesem Aufeinander-Hoeren hat der Heilige Geist der Kirche ein Neues geschenl.::t." (Incidentally, Dr. Geo. Merz, an early exponent of this view, has recently corrected this shibboleth by the significant addition: "Man muss auf den Bruder hoeren, Vlena er Ganes 'Yi art spricht.") Dilschneider h o l d s ~ h a t the Church is held captive on the one hand by Lutheran confessionalism and on the other by the "orthodoxy" of Dialectical theology. The Church, however, cannot break this Babylonian captivity by a repristination theology and a return to the sixteenth century confessions, because every 634 BOOK REVIEW generation must interpret God's Word in the light of its own tensions between faith and doubt. In our opinion the thesis of this dogmatics can be summarized as follows: Every period of the Church's history has been confronted by Christ as the \'Vord. In the Old Testament, Christ was present realiter, e. g., in the burning bush, in the Rock which followed; in the days of His flesh, Christ was present personaliter; and today He is present spiritualiter, 2 Cor. 3 : 17. Man is therefore always confronted by the Christus praesens, and this encounter with Christ leads not only to a tension between doubt and faith, but also to an existential and dynamic confession. The present impasse in theology can therefore not be solved by a return to the First Article of our Creed -which was an issue in the Old Testament -nor even to the Second Article -the central problem of the sixteenth century -but by taking seriously the Third Article, the doctrine of the "Spirit." Dilschneider develops this theme in three parts. The first part (I, 29-176) is of a historico-dogmatic nature in which the author attempts to establish his thesis that the creeds were formulated as the believer's solution of tensions between faith and doubt brought about by man's encounter with Christus praesens. In the second part (I, 179-280) he discusses the essence of Christ's revelation in the Old and NevI Testaments, a revelation of the Christus praesens. The third part (II, 9-363) is devoted to the real theme of this dogmatics, namely, that Christ is present post Christum earnis spiritually, namely, in the operation of the Holy Spirit, in judgment and grace, in the form of the Church, in Word and Sacrament, and finally in eschatology. The entire work is intended to be "a theology of the Third Article." It is quite evident that the author of this dogmatics is seeking a solution of the dilemma which confronts German theology, whose golden calf of theological problematics and philosophical speculations, of Higher Criticism and blatant Liberalism has now been pulverized, and in being compelled to drink their former idol the Germans no longer ask: Where is the gracious God? but rather: Where is God? The author's answer is: The Church of today must orient its theology in Christus praesens, in as real and meaningful a presence of Christ as His presence in carne. In developing this theme the author makes many overstatements and draws many unwarranted conclusions. Nevertheless, he also presents many basic truths in such a gripping manner that the American Lutheran theologian will derive much benefit from a study of this work. We shall therefore endeavor to present a synopsis of Dilschneider's dogmatics, rather than an extensive cnuque. First a word as to Dilschneider's dogmatic method. The Christus praesens in every period of human histoty resu.lts in a tension between faith and doubt, between tentatio fidei and confeJSio fidei, Dogmatics must therefore study the particular form in which this tension confronted man in the various periods of the history of dogma. In Abraham's case the tension resolved itself in an "existential confession" of monotheism. BOOK REVIEW 635 In the case of Peter the tension between faith and unbelief (exemplified in Matt. 16:16 and v.22) is finally resolved in the New Testament confession of Christus-kyrios, the paradoxical confession that the Crucified is Lord over sin and death, Rom. 10: 9; Acts 2: 36. In the ancient Church the tension between faith and unbelief revolved about the problem of monotheism versus polytheism as it came to a head in the controversies concerning the true Godhead of the pre-existent Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Church solved this tension in the Nicene Creed. A little later the twofold nature of the incarnate Christ became the focal point of this tension and the Chalcedonian Creed expressed in an existential manner the solution of this tension. In the Lutheran Reformation everything revolved about the question: How can man find a gracious God? And Luther's answer to this question became the existential and dynamic center of his entire theology. But according to Dilschneider these three great confessional periods are insufficient for today, particularly in view of the fact that modern man has rejected the unified Weltanschauung of the Middle Ages and has turned to a philosophy which is a religion not only sine Christo, but actually contra Christum. Dilschneider holds that the philosophies of a Kant, Lessing, Hegel, Fichte (man is the measure of all things), the emasculated Christianity of a Schleiermacher (a dogmatic with Jesus, but without Christ), the scientific method of Haeckel (his Weltraetsel, intended to be a program for the enlightened man of today has become the obituary of the twentieth century), the Entmythologisietung advocated by Bulu:nann and Hirsch (Biblical scholarship must eliminate all the mythological elements of the New Testament) -all these trends in natural science and philosophy of the past four hundred years have brought the old tension of faith and unbelief before the Church in a new form. The central problem today is: What is the relation of God to man? Here according to Dilschneider is the focal point of modern man's tension between faith and unbelief, and therefore a dogmatics for modern man must have as its Leitmotif the solution of this tension in the doctrines of ecclesiology and eschatology, in other words, the Christus praesens confronts man today in the truths expressed in the Third Article of our Creed. These truths must become dynamically existential. He therefore rejects the speculative method of the RitschlHarnack tradition and considers also the Lundensian eros-agape Leitmotif as inadequate. Both in his opinion fail to do justice to the dynamic which is present in the tension between "Glaubensangefochtenheit und Glaubensbewaehrung im Glaubensbekenntnis." Dilschneider's method is in our opinion a good example of both the strong and the weak points of German problematics. Problematics usually stresses some neglected point in a doctrine, but does it in such a one-sided manner that other important points recede into the background. A dogmatic method which fails to recognize that the tensions and their solution are essentially always the sa.lne will fail to solve the very problems which it raises. 636 BOOK REVmW Dilschneider makes a plea for a new theological orientation in which a "theology of revelation" is so presented that the great soteriological facts bring modern man into an encounter with the Christus praesens, be that Christ present in the Old Testament, in His incarnation, or in the New Testament period. In other words, Dilschneider wishes to treat all theology from the Trinitarian viewpoint, in which each of the Three Articles of the Christian faith receives its due recognition. In developing this, Dilschneider becomes very speculative at times. However, when one considers that German Liberalism and Neo-Orthodoxy move in philosophical patterns, one can understand, at least to a degree, why conservative theologians in their rebuttal resort to problematics. On the basis of 1 Cor. 10:1-4 Dilschneider speaks of a real revelation in the Old Testament, real (res) in contrast to personal. He finds the realis praesentia of Christ in the pillar of fire, in the Rock, and calls this the "offenbarungsmorphologische Charakter" of the Old Testament. He holds that the "word of the Lord" (dabar), found 112 times in the Prophets, is a soteriological activity. The word (dabar) is not to be identified with the Hellenistic logos, but is really the act of revelation and not a static knowledge. No doubt in contrast to Barthian theology Dilschneider finds the revelatory act of God during the Old Testament in the work of creation and in the history of Israel, so that the dabflr or the Johannine logos is conceived of as the center of creation. In other words, in creation Christ meets man realiter, not personaliter. This is for him the morphology of Christology, in which Christ is first "Gestalt," inasmuch as He reveals Himself in the activity of creation; in which Christ is furthermore the "Inhalt," as Christ is revealed in soteriology, and, finally, in which Christ is "Gewalt," as revealed in eschatology. Dilschneider feels that creation is a revelation of Christ, for in creation Christ takes on "the cosmic force of a servant." The travail (Rom. 8: 22) is a revelation of Christ's suffering (Second Article) and the final consummation of the world an eschatological revelation (Third Article). In his personal revelation the same Christ groans in the Garden of Gethsemane, even as the entire creation groans (Rom. 8:22). But the "cosmic Christ" will strip off the weakness of creation and reveal Himself spiritualiter in eschatology. Dilschneider sees history as God's revelation when interpreted by God's dabar, for it shows man not only God's wrath, but the history of Israel in particular speaks of a deliverance from sin. This highly speculative presentation may be meaningful for European theologians, who are under the influence of Kant, Ritschl, or Barth, or have followed the HarnackHirsch tradition, which ruled out the Old Testament as the dynamic Word of God. American Lutheran theologians have a much more direct way to find Christ in the swaddling clothes of the Old Testament. In the New Testament a metamorphosis (Gestaltswandel) in the revelation has taken place. Dilschneider maintains that an ontological Chris-BOOK REVIEW 637 tology which emphasizes the person and the natures of Christ, likewise a soteriological Christology which places all emphasis on Christ's work, must make room today for a morphological Christology. On the basis of 2 Cor. 3: 17 Dilschneider argues that Christ died to be the Lord and that this Lordship is at the same time a "living in the Spirit." Christ confronts us today as "the Lord the Spirit," so that the Church today truly has a morphological Christology, since it has Christ of the First, the Second, and also of the Third Article. The important question for Dilschneider now is: What does the Christus praesens proclaim to us? How and where does He do it? God's jadah, 1 Cor. 8:3, is a creative act whereby we know Christ as Lord. This creation means that a person is a new creature in Christ. In developing this thought, justification is repeatedly referred to, but it appears to this reviewer that it must recede into the background. Dilschneider presents some excellent insights into the work of Christ as completely forgiving man's guilt and sin; for example, in contrasting the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran view of justification he describes the Roman view as "Begnadung" and the Lutheran as "Begnadigung," and wishes to distinguish sharply between justification and sanctification lest one fall into the Roman error. The little word "and;> in the phrase "justification and sanctification" may become fatal, either by identifying the two, as Rome does, or by completely separating the two, as may happen in dead orthodoxy. According to Dilschneider, Christ is present today spiritualiter, not only in judgment and grace, that is, in the doctrine of justification, but also in the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ in Word and Sacrament. It is at this point where, in our opinion, Dilschneider's problematics is least helpful. If we understood him correctly, he holds that the ecclesia is Christus praesens spiritualiter for this aeon. In the Church through Word and Sacraments He confronts us as the suffering Servant and the exalted Lord. In the Third Article the soteriologically accomplished work of the Second Article becomes an existential reality. It seems that Dilschneider states in highly philosophical terminology what Luther stated so simply: "In welcher Christenheit das Heilige Geist mir taeglich und reichlich aIle Suenden vergibt." The author is much more lucid when he discusses the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments as Christ's only means to engender faith. Here he takes issue with Reformed-Barthian theology. The value of Dilschneider's dogmatics lies in its emphasis on pneumatology, ecclesiology, eschatology. But we question his method; at least we find it difficult to follow him when he states in conclusion that the Three Articles are problems of a cosmic, a physiological, and a morphological Christology, and that of three the last is today most relevant, since it shows us the form (morphe) in which Christ confronts us through the 638 BOOK REVIEW Church and the Word. We believe that Dilschneider's concern can best be met if we take seriously Luther's theology as epitomized in his expo-sition of the Creed in the Large Catechism. F. E. MAYER THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCHES. By James H. Leuba. The Beacon Press, Boston. 1950. 219 pages, 5Y;z x8Y;z. $2.75. The purpose of this posthumously published work is to demonstrate the need for the Church to surrender its proclamation about "prayer, sacraments, talk about God and His only Son, who died on the Cross for the redemption of our sins" (p. 168). The method which the author employs is to prove, by means of surveys among various groups, that historic Christianity is irrelevant to modern man. Both the purpose and the method are extremely suspect. The author seems pathetically unaware of what Christianity is. And his method seems to presuppose that God is standing for election by a show of hands. In short, the title of the book is deceiving, and the contents of the book would date it as an antiquated naturalism rather than the theological work it pretends to be. ]AROSLAV PELIKAN MARRIAGE Is WHAT You MAKE IT .. By Paul Popenoe, Sc. D. The Macmillan Company, New York. 221 pages, 5Y4 X8. $3.00. \'Ve find this a very interesting and helpful book on marriage counseling. The publishers introduce it thus: "The honeymoon is over and you find yourself face to face with the reality of marriage -and it isn't at all what you expected. You suddenly begin to see faults in the person you have picked for a life-long partner and it begins to look like your marriage is not really a partnership either! And what do you do now? ... Dr. Popenoe for over twenty years has been providing satisfactory solutions to these problems, and now in this book he passes on to the lay reader the many principles which he has found helpful in solving common marital problems." The author himself says in the preface: "Most of the failures in marriage are unnecessary; they could be prevented by proper education before marriage. Even lacking such education, they can be prevented by a reasonable amount of effort, intelligently directed, after marriage. "Husbands and wives often fail because they do not try to succeed. They are not willing to give to marriage the same study and determination that they would give to a job in the business or industrial world. Others are willing and anxious to make a determined effort, but do not know how to apply this effort effectively. "This book is intended to give them some of the necessary know-how." A special feature of this volume is the great number of case histories used by the writer to illustrate and drive home his points. It must be borne in mind that the viewpoint is that of psychology, not of Christianity. The Christian element in such counseling will have to be supplied by the pastor himself. O. E. SOHN BOOK REVIEW 639 TOWARDS CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY. By Stafford Cripps. Philosophical Library, New York. C. 1946. 101 pages, 51hX8%. $2.00. This book, though written in the closing months of World War II, is reviewed now because it is one of the most explicit statements of the Socialist assumptions concerning the Christian religion and as such at opposite poles from the literature spearheaded at the moment by John T. Flynn and Carl McIntyre. Sir Stafford Cripps played quite a part before World War II in the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship Through the Churches and was vocal for many years in Anglican lay movements seeking to realize social aims through the Christian religion. He feels that the Christian Church has failed to offer the stimulus necessary for social gains of peace. "We could indeed afford to give our scientists a rest, if our religious leaders would take up the task of bringing our moral and spiritual progress into line with our material progress" (p. 31) . Repeatedly he qualifies the method: "That is not to say that the religious leaders should go into politics, but rather that they should be prepared quite fearlessly to lay down the Christian principles which are to be followed, leaving it to the lay-men and women to interpret those principles in terms of political action" (p. 30). He does not hesitate to attack the profit motive, again qualifying by distinguishing between two categories of private property: "The first is constituted of all those articles that are required for personal use and enjoyment, such as the home, the garden, furniture, pictures, musical instruments, clothing, and so forth, the possession of which does not affect the relationship of the individual to other· individuals. . .. The second category is quite different in its incidence upon human relationships. This category includes the ownership of land and of any means of production other than for personal use. This class of property does alter the relationship between individuals, because it puts one person in the power of another" (p. 58). He sees three ways of dealing with the problem of property: "The first is to accept the danger and to attempt to moderate or eliminate it by the conversion of all people to true Christian ideals in human relationships, so that the danger is overcome by the goodness of the individual, to work for the state of affairs in which every landowner and employer conducts his affairs according to true Christian principle. The second is for the community or State to step in and so regulate conditions of tenants and employees as to remove as much of the danger as possible. In other words, for the-State to protect the individuals against what is recognized as the inevitable dangers of the situation. This method can of course be employed side by side with the first .... The third alternative is to remove the danger by abolishing all types of private property that give one individual power over another, and to place that property in the hands of a democratically controlled State ... the democracy controlling the State's actions must be imbued with the Christian spirit" (pp. 59-61). Sir Stafford Cripps is able in recognizing factors in the diagnosis of modern