Material Theology -Sources of Theology - Origin of Faith

First off everything has already been written.  The source of everything is the Word of God itself. Then comes the revelation given by God.  That revelation is then moved from every generation to generation but always keeping the path.  The path goes through Christ Jesus the hope of glory.  John 6:29 -- this is the work of God that you believe in Him.

God, Himself, in the last analysis, must be the only source of knowledge with regard to his own being and relations, theology is therefore a summary and explanation of the content of God's self-revelations.  There are, first, the revelation of God in nature; secondly and supremely, the revelation of God in the scriptures, and third, the revelation of in supernatural spirit activities.

To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God that to God, Himself.  To know God without is impossible; there is no knowledge without Him who is the prime source of knowledge.  God's faith is not limited, it is available to those who are willing to pay the price and learn who to attain it.  The price of the high calling is to forsake all and everything to be taught by the Holy Spirit.

Revelation helps reason and conscience, but it is not a substitute for them.  Authority adds something to the truth communicated.  The thing added is the personal element of witness.  This is needed wherever there is ignorance which cannot be removed by our own effort, or unwillingness, which results from our own sins.  In Christianity, I need to add to my own knowledge that which God imparts.  Reason, conscience, church, scripture are all delegated and subordinate authorities; the only original and supreme authority is God, Himself, as Christ, who is only God revealed and made comprehensible by us.  All legitimate authority represents the reason of God, educating the reason of man and communicating itself to it.  man is made in God's image: he is in his fundamental capacity, as a son of God, and he becomes so in fact, and fully, through union with Christ.  Behind all evolution of our own reason, stands the "Supreme Reason of God."

Conscience, ethical ideals, capacity for admiration, sympathy, repentance, righteous indignation, as well as our delight in beauty and truth, are all derived from God.  I believe that there is no other principle for dogmatics than Holy Scripture.  I also hold that knowledge comes directly from scripture, but from faith acting on the whole revelation of scripture.   Faith must always be acted out.  The clues are in your trusting God for the results.  The Church can never be the total direct authority.  It only gives the believer a place of information, fellowship, and experiencing the victories of ours.  Conscience, ethical ideals, capacity for admiration, sympathy, repentance, righteous indignation, as well as our delight in beauty and truth, are all derived from God.  The revelation of God's glory through believer's (Romans 8:19-29):

19: For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 

20: For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;

21: because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

22: For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

This maintains that there is no other principle for dogmatics that Holy Scripture.  Yet he holds that knowledge never come directly from scripture, but from faith.  Revelation is addressed to the whole man, that is, to the will of man, and it claims obedience from him.  Since all Christian knowledge is mediated through faith.  It rests on obedience to the authority of revelation, and revelation, and revelation is self-manifestation on the part of God.

The scripture is the final standard of appeal.  The same divine Spirit who gave both revelations and insight is still present, enabling the believer to interpret the one by the other and thus progressively to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Because of our finiteness and sin, the total record in scripture of God's past communication is a more trustworthy source of theology than are our conclusions from nature or our private impressions of the teaching of the Spirit.  Theology, therefore, looks to the scripture itself as its chief source of material and its final standard of appeal.

There is an internal work of the Holy Spirit by which the outer hearing of the Word of God is made rhema in the inner man.  Its truth and power are manifested to the heart.  Scripture represents this work of the Spirit, no as a giving of new truth, but as an illumination of the mind to perceive the fullness of meaning which lay wrapped up in the truth already revealed.

Christ is "THE TRUTH" (John 14:6); in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid (Colossians 2:3) the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you (John 16:14).

The incarnation and the cross express the heart of God and the secret of the universe; all discoveries in theology are but the unfolding of truth involved in these facts.  The Spirit of Christ enables us to compare nature with scripture, and scripture with nature, and to correct mistakes in interpreting the one by light gained from the other.  Because the Church as a whole, by which I mean the company of true believers in all lands and ages, has the promise that it shall be guided  "into all truth" (John 16:13), we may confidently expect the progress of Christian doctrine.

Christian experience is sometimes regarded as an original source of spiritual truth.  Experience, however, is but a testing and proving of the truth of faith that is objectively contained in God's revelation.  The word "Experience" is derived from experior, to test, to try. 

Christian consciousness is not "Norma Normans"' but "Norma Normata".  Light, like life, comes to us through the mediation of others.  Yet the first comes from God as really as the last, of which without hesitation we say: God made me, through we have human parents.  As I get though the service pipe in my house the same water which is stored in the reservoir upon the hillside, so in the scriptures I get the same truth which the Holy Spirit originally communicated to prophets and apostles.  Man's nature is not an organized lie, yet his inner consciousness has been warped by sin, and though once it was an infallible guide to truth and duty, sin has made it very deceptive.  The standard of infallibility is not in man's consciousness in any matter is contrary to the Word of God, we must know that it is not God's voice within us, but the devil's. 

God is the ultimate authority, but there are delegated authorities, such as family, state, church.  But the highest authority available for men in morals and worship is the truth concerning Christ contained in the Christian scriptures.  What the truth concerning Christ is, is determined by (1) the human reason, conditioned by a right attitude of the feelings and the will; (2) in the light of all the truth derived from knowledge, including education; (3) in the light of the history of Christianity; (4) in the light of the origin and development of the scriptures themselves.  The authority of the generic reason and the authority of the Bible are co-relative, since they both have been developed in the providence of God, and since the latter is in large measure but the reflection of the former.  This view enables us to hold a rational conception of the function of the scriptures in faith.  This view, further enables us to rationalize what is called the inspiration of the Bible, the nature and extent of inspiration, the Bible as history -- a record of the historic unfolding of revelation; the Bible as literature -- a compound of life -- principles rather than a book of rules; the Bible Christocentric -- an incarnation of the divine thought and will in human thought and language.

The faith to do whatever God asks, when He asks, How He asks, no matter what it looks like How it sounds.  The important thing is no matter what anyone says or thinks that Faith.

P.S.

To my brothers and sisters in California, you are making a grave mistake by trading holiness and biblical morality for 30 pieces of silver.  The spiritual growth and safety of every person that is following out of sense of church loyalty, this will not fly with God.  You can't declare that you are following leadership.  I am praying that your loyalty to God is stronger than your following men and women that have fallen into greed, power, and sexual immorality.  A title they give you would not work for God.

1 Corinthians 12:2-3

Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony got to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everyone else did it?  It's different in this new life.  God wants us to use our spiritual intelligence, to seek, to understand as well as we can.  You can't at this late date become a slacker to the integrity of Jesus Christ.  You need to ask God are these the right leaders that are leading "we pentecostals".

Remember money, power, and sex are terrible masters.


Pastor James P. Norman Jr.
Artesian Well Church