Written by Kjell Johannes Tveter, Professor Emeritus
Thursday June 9th 2016


Many things are changing in our society today. For ordinary conservative Christians the homosexuality debate has been what has occupied minds and thoughts most recently. I am personally concerned about the cause of the development we see in Christendom. The reasons for this we find on the philosophical and theological level: Thoughts and ideas have consequences. It is not indifferent what our opinions are.

Is it theology that affect the philosophy - or the other way around? By looking at developments in The Norwegian School of Theology. Menighetsfakultetet. (MF) it becomes apparent that it is the theology that is influenced by the prevailing philosophical view. MF was established in 1907 to counter the influence of modern liberal theology.

Today MF is a center for a modern view of theology, and is proud of it. The same development that MF has undergone, we are now at other theological institutions such as the NLA and Ansgar .

From very credible hold I have been told that undergraduates in theology have ended up as atheists. So something is wrong, terribly wrong.

Liberal theology has its origin in its view of miracles. Schleiermacher was influenced by Spinoza and found it impossible to believe in miracles. He was in a way the origin of what we designate as methodological naturalism which means that everything that happens in nature should exclusively be explained by naturalistic methods - that is, by nature lover and random natural processes.


The approval of MF as a scientific institution has led to an emphasis on a scientific approach to theology. It is what gives prestige. The Bible must be investigated scientifically - whatever that means. It will be utterly wrong if it is to be evaluated by naturalistic principles.

One should be considered in the same way as other classic literature. One examines the influence other cultures in the region may have had, and so on. It must be understood from its context - also based on the situation in our own time, and interpreted is today interpreted with the aid of modern theology.

Such an approach is either considered reasonable because it is believed that the Bible is not the Word of God, or will lead to the Bible is not being regarded as God's infallible word. It contains human words. And it should be understood from in light of this. A pastor wrote in the daily newspaper: "Present people can not live by rules etched in stone tablets thousands of years ago."

This leads to the message of the Bible is to be understood and accepted by the human mind and reason.*

Our reason is to determine what we should accept about the Bible. This means that our reason is set higher than the Bible's message. Our reason is then in reality the highest authority.

God actually comes in second place. Our reason have therefore become an idol - that we actually obediently follow.

This view of the Bible is in conflict with a conservative view of God. The image of God is seriously reduced.

Personally, I have trouble understanding the development of such a reduced image of God out of what we currently know about our reality. We know in fact that our whole mind-boggling universe has been created by the effects of an intelligent creative power. Our universe was created from nothing. Almost all the major philosophers that we read about and attempt to understand, did not know this.

We should keep this in mind when we read their works. Knowledge of this would certainly influenced their philosophy. Moreover, we know that life requires information - large amounts of detailed, specific and targeted information that only an intelligent creative power can generate.

My knowledge of modern research - both in biology and cosmology - has given me a new understanding of God's greatness. The word omnipotence has gained a new dimension - and leads automatically to that today I understand in an entirely different way than previously what it means that God is not only holy, but thrice holy. I have no intellectual difficulty believing in a God who, in different ways reveals Himself to humans and has caused them to write exactly what we need to live righteously before Him.

If God can fill a single cell in my body with information corresponding to a few thousand books, containing exactly the specific information that is necessary for my body to keep alive and functioning, then I am convinced that He makes sure we humans become aware of the rules we must obey and the offer from Him that we must accept, for us to live forever in a new and flawless world without grief, without tears, without evil and without the evil one. We have been carefully instructed that the road there is narrow, so narrow that there are few who choose it.

The first question mankind received was "hath God said?". That question has mankind lived with ever since. What does God say today - to you and me?

Translated from the Norwegian newspaper 'Dagen' with the aid of google translate. Original article can be found here.

Highlighting something I think is important;

Quote:
A pastor wrote in the daily newspaper: "Present people can not live by rules etched in stone tablets thousands of years ago."

This leads to the message of the Bible is to be understood and accepted by the human mind and reason.

Our reason is to determine what we should accept about the Bible. This means that our reason is set higher than the Bible's message. Our reason is then in reality the highest authority.

God actually comes in second place. Our reason have therefore become an idol - that we obediently follow.

This view of the Bible is in conflict with a conservative view of God. The image of God is seriously reduced.