June 14 1999

ARTICLE TOOLS

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We Believe: Recovering the Essentials of the Apostles' Creed
Michael Horton
Word, 258 pp.; $18.99

Correctly understood, orthodoxy builds and tends a fire that will drive out the darkness and safely warm the body and soul," writes Michael Horton, "even in the most gloomy weather." In the gloomy religious climate of our postmodernist world, Horton offers both a lucid and provocative work that shows the relevance of the Apostles' Creed for the contemporary church and a poignant defense of historical orthodoxy from a Reformed perspective. In this short space, let me examine but a few key themes.

In line with Christian tradition, Horton affirms a God who is both all powerful and all loving, who knows and controls the future. He critiques those who say God is vulnerable and limited in knowledge: When God acts, "it is out of strength, abundance, self-sufficiency, and freedom, not out of weakness, lack, dependence, or constraint."

Horton also vigorously defends traditional language about God: "Instead of projecting our modern experience of patriarchal societies and impoverished fatherhood on religion, we must allow the biblical story to reorient our very notions of fatherhood and power."

One recurring theme is Horton's confidence that Christianity can be confirmed and supported by historical investigation: Referring to Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension, he writes, "Their historical character is what makes the religious truth claims valid."

But can the claims of Christian faith concerning Creation, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection be fully confirmed and supported by historical investigation?

I acknowledge there is some empirical evidence for biblical historical events. Yet the source of our faith is the Spirit acting ...