MODERN MANIFESTATION OF THE ANTI-BIBLE THEORIES IN THE FORM OF ATHEISTIC ANTI-SUPERNATURAL LIBERAL THEOLOGY. THERE IS WIDESPREAD DECEPTION BY THE MODERN LIBERAL THEOLOGY WHICH IS AN ANTI-GOD, ANTI-BIBLE, ANTI-CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT. Modern liberal theology is the most anti-Christian philosophy in church and bible colleges in the garb of academic theology. Anti-supernatural knowledge is used to suppress the revelation knowledge. With the rise of modern liberal theology in the 19th century, the liberal scholars no longer believed that Jesus was really central to the Christian faith. They looked elsewhere for the central core: the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

GROWTH OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY IN MODERN TIMES.IMPACT OF RENAISSACE AND REFORMATION - THE AGE OF REASON – THE SPREAD OF ANTI-BIBLICAL RELIGION. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement during the eighteenth century. It elevated human reason to the level of divine status. It replaced supernatural divine revelation with human reason. The movement became Modern Paganism. THE ENLIGHTENMENT INTORODUCED SOME NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND ATTITUDES. It marked the beginning of rigorous scientific growth. Nature became the primary source of answers to the fundamental questions of human existence. Science became the source of finding truth. Any truth claim had to justify itself before the court of reason. A suspicion and hostility to all truth claiming to be grounded in some kind of authority other than reason, e.g. tradition or divine revelation. During the Enlightenment man began to think that he reasons his way to God. In a real sense this was the modern tower of Babel with all the hubris that implies.

RISE OF ANTI-BIBLE LIBERAL THEOLOGIANS. During this age there arose a group of scholars who pioneered the work in biblical criticism, attacking the doctrine of biblical inspiration. They attacked the supernaturalism of historic Christianity in general and such doctrines as the trinity, the deity of Christ, the atonement, the virgin birth, the resurrection, and the existence of Satan. THIS AGE WITNESSED THE RISE OF DEISM. Deism asserted that while God was indeed the creator, He had created a universe which operated by an absolute natural law. God himself would not interfere with his creation. Hence miracles became impossible. Because the miracles would violate the inviolable laws of nature. They falsely concluded that God himself will not interfere in the affairs of the creation.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE GROWTH OF ANTISUPERNATURAL SCIENCE. The modern period in Western philosophy began with the Enlightenment. During that period people began seeking in new ways in a number of fields. For example, in the 1600s, English physician William Harvey began opening human bodies and examining them. Medical science was born based on the principle of looking and learning, of finding out for oneself what is there by rational observation. This same revolution was happening in other fields of science, too. An age of reason was dawning, and this had a deep effect on philosophers of the age.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE GROWTH OF ANTI-SUPERNATURAL PHILOSOPHY. The increase in scientific knowledge during this period in history gave rise to an increase in philosophical thinking that also considered itself scientific. Reason, rather than revelation, gained pre-eminence as a way of philosophizing. Scientific philosophizing led to empiricist, naturalist, and materialist forms of philosophy. The empiricists said that real knowledge is based on experience. The naturalists said that real knowledge is based on the natural sciences. And the materialists said that everything is matter, and real knowledge is based on the study of matter. All three of these approaches emphasized reason and scientific thinking--and took away the central role of revelation and theology in interpreting real knowledge and the nature of reality.

THE LIBERAL THEOLOGY IS ENSLAVED BY THE SECULAR PHILOSOPHY. The liberals succumbed before the worldly philosophy. They accepted the presuppositions of the anti-Bible modern philosophy. They failed to look at the secular philosophy through the glasses of the Bible. Rather they bowed before secular philosophers and secular philosophy to their own destruction. THIS GRADUALLY LED TO THE WEAKENING OF THE CHURCH, DISILLUSIONMENT OF BELIEVERS, REVIVAL OF ISLAM AND HINDUISM AND NEW AGE MOVEMENT. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." Colossians 2:6-8. Much of our modern theology is founded upon philosophical ideas from Aristotle and Plato. Theologians were trying to synthesize Greek Philosophy and Biblical Teaching. They took the Bible in one hand, and the ideas of Aristotle and Plato in the other, and put the two together to develop our Christian beliefs. There were some Early Church Fathers who did not think this was wise and argued against such a combining of Biblical teaching and Greek Philosophy. One such person was Tertullian. Martin Luther shared the same feelings toward philosophy, calling it “the Devil’s whore.”

THE LIBERAL THEOLOGY IS THE ANTI-SUPERNATURAL RATIONALIST THEOLOGY. Also known as modernism, this is the major shift in theological thinking that occurred in the late nineteenth century. The major distinctive is the desire to adapt religious ideas to modern culture and modes of thinking. Liberals insist that the world has changed since the time Christianity was founded so that biblical terminology and creeds are incomprehensible to people today. Liberal theology is anti-revelation philosophy of the world. The spirit of the secular world and secular philosophy produced the modern liberal theology, which in turn is cleverly making the church to dance to the tune of secular world. Modern liberal theology is rooted in rationalism. MODERN THEOLOGY IS AN ATTEMPT OF THE SPIRIT OF RATIONALISM TO DOMINATE THE BIBLICAL FAITH. The modern theologians who are the agents of the secular rationalists tend to idolize and absolutize human reason and scientific method, and elevate them above the clear witness of the Word of God.  They do not permit the human reason to be guided by the Biblical revelation. Their methodology is rationalism which is nothing more than a polished IRRATIONAL ARROGANCE OF THE FALLEN MAN.

A rationalistic theology which is preoccupied with intellectual concerns will PERVERT CHRISTIAN FAITH BY CONFORMING IT TO THE SECULARISTIC, HUMANISTIC AND MATERIALISTIC WORLD-VIEW and academic norms of the day. Since modern liberal theology is skeptical about the invisible dimensions of the Biblical world view, it gradually degenerates itself into AGNOSTICISM AND ATHEISM. The influence of rationalism in theology caused the emergence of THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM which led to the rejection of Biblical truth. This situation provided a suitable ideological platform for the growth of “ECUMENICAL” THINKING (false unity movement which denies the distinction between the believers and unbelievers) in the Church circles. Unsuspecting and credulous intellectuals get easily sucked into theological liberalism.

THE LIBERAL THEOLOGIANS BECAME THE CAPTIVES OF THE DECEPTIVE PHILOSOPHIES OF THE WORLD. In the final analysis, modern liberal theology cannot be distinguished from the worldly philosophies and any other religion in the world in its quest for God. This religious Liberalism involved a commitment to a central set of theological and religious propositions which radically redefined the traditional Christian terms to give them new unbiblical meaning. LIBERALISM WAS RATIONALISM. But a Rationalism that was not the direct result of unbelief. Rather, it sprang from men who would hold to their Christian convictions in the face of a rising onslaught of unbelief which they perceive they were powerless to withstand. It was a movement arising from within the church and characterized by an effort to retain the essence of Christianity by surrendering those features that were no longer considered defensible in the modern world. They just succumbed to the world. 

ATHEISTIC ANTI-SUPERANTURAL LIBERALS DENY MIRACLES. Anti-supernaturalism is the foolish presupposition and belief in the impossibility of miracles. They will also claim that this their belief does not require any proof. So this belief proves to be foolish and arrogant. SOME OF THEM FOOLISHLY DENIED THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL WITH NATURALISTIC INTERPRETATION. Liberals perfected the art of explaining naturalistically the miraculous elements in the gospels. Since miracles had ceased to be believable, a natural explanation was always preferred to explain away the miraculous. They attached no religious importance to the resurrection of Jesus. For them it is unimportant whether the death and resurrection were real or apparent. Schleiermacher himself believed that Jesus' resurrection was only a resuscitation and that he continued to live physically with the disciples for a time after this event. OTHERS FOOLISHLY DENIED THE HISTORICITY OF GOSPEL MIRACLES. They provided the mythological interpretation of the gospels. According to this view, the miraculous events recorded in the gospels never occurred, but are the product of religious imagination and legend. And hence, they require no historical consideration and explanation.

SCIENCE, PHYSICS AND LOGIC DISPROVE THE LIBERALS. Only an atheist can deny the historical possibility of miracles. Because even an agnostic must grant that, if it is possible that a transcendent, personal God exists, then it is equally possible that He has acted in the universe. The presupposition against the possibility of miracles survives in theology only as a hangover from the atheist and Deist age perspectives. And every logical person should abandon such views. ATHEISM AND ANTISUPERNATURALISM STAND DISPROVED BY EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS. The creation had come to be regarded as the world-machine governed by eternal and inexorable laws. Indeed, this complex and harmoniously functioning system was thought to constitute the surest evidence that God exists. It is only in the works of physics that satisfactory proofs have been found for the existence of the sovereign intelligence. Physics proves that the world is no longer a God; Rather it is a machine with every possible feature, created by the almighty God, manifesting His attributes in the created order.

NATURAL LAW CANNOT EXCLUDE MIRACLES. In the context of the natural laws, some tried to deny miracles by characterizing them as violations of the laws of nature. They consider miracles as a contradiction in terms. But that is why it is miracle, God suspending these laws when he wishes. The false Deist worldview did not allow God to act in the world. Natural law can be used as a description, not a prescription. This does not mean that it cannot serve as a basis for some predictions. But our formulation of a natural law can never be so certain as to be beyond any reformulation in the light of new observed facts. Thus an event cannot be ruled out simply because it does not accord with the regular pattern of events. The advance of modern physics over the Newtonian world-machine is not that natural law does not exist, but that our formulation of it is not absolutely final. The laws of nature are thus not 'laws' in the rigid, prescriptive sense, but they are merely inductive generalizations. This would appear to bring some comfort to the modern believer in miracles. Because he can argue that the formulation of natural law is never final. So all must consider the reality of the event, even if it does not conform to all the known natural laws.