Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

298
implementation. Each might have used that principle to
point out weaknesses in positions other than his own.
Lloyd-Jones, for example, would say that preachers must
accept conservative tenets of faith, like his own, in
order to "build their testimony on God's previous
self-communication." (Lloyd-Jones, solidly in the
conservative tradition, felt that the conservative tenets
themselves had been communicated by God.) Tillich would
respond with a thought precisely opposite. He said that,
in order to be faithful to God's being, one could not so
dogmatize his theology.
A consequential principle is at stake here: the
nature of truth in statements describing God. While a
lengthy answer to that question is not germane to the
matter at hand, a relevant observation helps the movement
of this study. Most Christian theologians would accept
the premise of God's infinity, his limitlessness.
And, thus, at best, human statements describe God
incompletely. But what of the validity (i.e., as
accurate descriptions of objective reality) of statements
which partially describe God? Such statements stand on
the foundations provided by various theological
traditions.'''' On the basis of their traditions,
Lloyd-Jones and Tillich could point disparaging fingers
at each other's positions. The crucial point for the
argument at hand is not the accuracy of either (or any
other relevant) position, but the fact that the argument
takes place on the basis of tradition. Lloyd-Jones would