THE RIGHT BOOKS

In Reinhold Seeberg’s aphorism, made early in the present century, “Miracle was once the foundations [sic] of all apologetics, then it became an apologetic crutch, and today it is not infrequently regarded as a cross for apologetics to bear.” In Miracles and the Critical Mind (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 255 Jefferson Avenue, S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503; $18.95), Colin Brown surveys two millennia of debate on the significance of miraculous occurrences, in the course of which he shows that Seeberg’s formulation, while broadly correct, is also an oversimplification.

The bulk of the book is devoted to the historical development of that debate, from the Early Church and its apologists (Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, St. Augustine), through the Reformation (Luther and Calvin), the so-called Age of Reason (Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Pascal, Locke, and Hume), and the “liberalizing” nineteenth century (Schleier-macher, Strauss, Renan, and Troeltsch), and on into the existentializing and demythologizing twentieth century (Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, and Barth, and what might be called the New Apologists —C. S. Lewis, Alan Richardson, and Louis Monden—who answered them).

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

Featured Tags

In Reinhold Seeberg’s aphorism, made early in the present century, “Miracle was once the foundations [sic] of all apologetics, then it became an apologetic crutch, and today it is not infrequently regarded as a cross for apologetics to bear.” In Miracles and the Critical Mind (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 255 Jefferson Avenue, S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503; $18.95), Colin Brown surveys two millennia of debate on the significance of miraculous occurrences, in the course of which he shows that Seeberg’s formulation, while broadly correct, is also an oversimplification.

The bulk of the book is devoted to the historical development of that debate, from the Early Church and its apologists (Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, St. Augustine), through the Reformation (Luther and Calvin), the so-called Age of Reason (Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Pascal, Locke, and Hume), and the “liberalizing” nineteenth century (Schleier-macher, Strauss, Renan, and Troeltsch), and on into the existentializing and demythologizing twentieth century (Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, and Barth, and what might be called the New Apologists —C. S. Lewis, Alan Richardson, and Louis Monden—who answered them).