More "Uncommon" Sense on the creed!
Friday, 22 June 2012 On the virgin birth: or, why it's better to say the creed than to criticise it Ben Myers (http://www.faith-theology.com/2012/06/on-virgin-birth-or-why-its-better-to.html) I got an email from someone the other day about a post I wrote (seven years ago!) where I cast aspersions on the "historical" value of the New Testament's virgin birth narratives. I sent a reply email, and since I felt ashamed when I read that old post, I thought I'd reproduce my reply here: Barth's famous discussion of the virgin birth is in Church Dogmatics I/2, the section on 'The Miracle of Christmas'. Barth always insists that acts of divine revelation are 'not historical'. But he doesn't mean they never happened. All he means is that revelation is a unique event, an act of God. It's not part of the normal historical sequence, it doesn't belong to a chain of cause-and-effect, and so there's no use trying to verify or disprove i...