The Great Divide

"For to some the Bible is absolutely unique and from above - God given; while to others it is only outstanding and from beneath - man-wrought. To some it is, and makes ours, an indispensable revelation without which men cannot see the truth about God; it provides a final standard or court of appeal by which all claims to have found the truth can and must be judged. To others it is rather the product of the spiritual discernment of men of old, a discernment which by the same Spirit men today may not only equal but even superseded; so that a man enlightened by the divine Spirit may so discern fresh or fuller truth as to be able rightly to criticize and even to discard parts of Scripture...These different views cannot both be right. They are not merely complementary aspects of a larger whole just waiting to be united. Rather, as experience has proved, they will not mix. Nor is there hope of vital unity among us until we are afresh agreed in the conviction that the Bible, which is history, is like the Incarnation absolutely unique history, because it is also and first of all special God-given revelation."