Saturday, March 14, 2015

[Some remarks on the] estimation of Horace Bushnell by Earnest Trice Thompson

Based on what H. Shelton Smith wrote in a book, "Faith and Nature", Thompson recognizes that Bushnell is attributable to the development of four ideas:

1) the philosophy of divine immanence
2) the idea that regeneration is a natural process rather than the work of a supernatural agency
3) inherent goodness of the natural man (prompting Dr. D.C. Macintosh to say, "Bushnell did more than any other preacher to discredit the old-fashioned teaching, 'You must be born again")
4) the debilitating conception...of Jesus as an example, ... as a moral teacher, Jesus who is human as we are human, and divine in somewhat the same sense that all mankind is divine, a pure ethical comprehension of his person

Thus Thompson states, "To return to Horace Bushnell is impossible and, of course, not desirable.

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