Thus far we have examined some preliminary considerations involving the attitudes of some of the younger preaching brethren with whom we are acquainted. In this article, we hope to look at some of the specific concepts to which these young men subscribe. The source of information for our observations are: (1) personal discussions and/or correspondence with the brethren involved; (2) written material appearing in various religious organs and/ or privately circulated mimeographed or photocopied "treatises;" (3) conversations with fellow students or teachers who have had discussions with the brethren involved; (4) tape recordings of the brethren involved in their discussions with fellow students. We do not seek to misrepresent anyone or cast unwarranted aspersions upon the character of anyone. Our intention is simply to "speak the truth in love." Nevertheless, cries of "misrepresentation" have already come and will continue to come-thus we are ready and able to document anything we may cite in the course of these articles.

Perhaps the paramount feature of the doctrinal slant taken by our younger brethren involved in the "fellowship-unity" cult, is their particular view or approach to Scripture: it is undeniably existential! The Neo-Orthodox or existential theologian posits: It is human to err and the Bible, though unique, is human and therefore bears the word of God to us only in a broken and imperfect form. The Neo-Orthodox have reacted against the classical liberal doctrine of immanence (which in its extreme borders on pantheism) and have sought to solve the problem of authority in religion by returning to the proper foundation, revelation, but without becoming involved in a view toward the Scriptures which would require one to believe and obey as literally true the content therein. Such "believers" disproportionately emphasize the transcendence (which in its extreme borders on deism) in the same way liberal theologians have stressed immanence. It is this very emphasis that leads the Neo-orthodox "believer" to reject the propositional content of the Scriptures as invalid or meaningless. A contentless "experience with Jesus" is what matters-not a knowledge of the truth.

In the same way, our younger brethren have been misled into thinking that the content of and obedience to the Scriptures are not as important as a "personal commitment to Jesus." One brother has contended that when God chose to speak to man in "human languages" He limited Himself and could not communicate His will perfectly! In an explanation approaching profane blasphemy he pointed to Paul in the book of Romans and related, "There is a passage in this book that not less than twelve commentators differ about-Paul didn't communicate himself very well!" This, he asserted, was "proof" that God did not and could not communicate His will perfectly and consequently did of and could not expect us all to understand the Bible alike! Brethren, this is Neo-Orthodoxy pure and simple!

These younger brethren would have us believe that since we cannot know everything, we must therefore be content with the error practiced by other brethren. It is true that God is "incomprehensible" in the sense that we cannot know everything about Him, but it is intellectually and philosophically imperative that we can know something about Him! The Neo-Orthodox theologian denies that a proposition can have the same meaning for man as it does for God-"we dare not maintain that God's knowledge and our knowledge coincide at any point, he is 'wholly-other . . .' " Without becoming involved in a "dissertation" concerning epistemology (theory of knowledge) we would suggest the following: If a man knows any truth at all, he must know what God knows. A sentence must mean to man precisely what it means to God; for if he does not possess God's meaning he does; not know the meaning of the sentence! God cannot be "wholly-other" because this would deny that man was created in His image.

Our younger brethren have indeed lost sight of the fact that God is both infinite and personal. In an effort to show the immensity of the chasm between man and God and in what "great need of grace" he is, these brethren have belabored God's infinite qualities, His omnipotence and omniscience to the veritable exclusion of His personality! Because we are finite, they posit, and God is infinite, it is therefore naive to think that God could have communicated His will to us in such a way that He could expect us to understand it perfectly. To this point, Francis Schaeffer observes: "Modern man has driven a wedge between the personal and the infinite and says that personality equals finiteness. He has equated personality with limitedness. But the Christian says that the only limitation which personality intrinsically must have is that it cannot be impersonal at the same time. To say that personality must always be limited in other ways is to try to make an absolute which one cannot make. Indeed; human personalities are limited in other ways, but this is because they are created and finite, not because they are personal. Personality as such cannot necessarily imply limitedness." (The God Who Is There, p. 95).

The communication which God gave to man is true, but that does not mean that it is exhaustive. To know anything exhaustively, we would need to be as infinite as God. Consequently, though we cannot know exhaustively, we can know truly. The God who created man in His own image communicates truth propositionally to him in languages subject to grammars and lexicons, languages to be understood. We may have true knowledge, but not total, exhaustive knowledge. "We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding, that we might know Him that is true" (1 Jn. 5:20).

"In human conversation we have true communication, but it is never exhaustive. This is the . . . only realistic possibility in our speaking to one another. If we transfer the possibility of communication from the realm of human intercourse to that of the Divine-human, then the same principle applies. The biblical presentation indicates that, because man is made in God's image, the problem of God communicating to him is not of an absolutely different order from that of man speaking to man. We are finite, God is infinite, but we can understand truly." (Schaeffer, p. 97).

We can grasp God's meaning; His truth can be known. Christianity is a taught religion, the religion of a book. Only if the propositions of the Bible are rationally comprehensible, only if man's intellect can understand what God says, only if God's mind and man's mind have some content in common, only so can our religion be true and only so can Jesus mean something to us.

Truth Magazine, XVIII:4, p. 8-9
November 22, 1973