Redeeming Our Thinking about History E-Book

Vern S. Poythress

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Why Is It Critical for Christians to Study the Past? How does knowledge of the past shape Christians' views of God, Christ's redemption, and humanity as a whole? In his new book, Vern S. Poythress teaches Christians how to study and write about the past by emphasizing God's own command to remember his works and share them with the next generation. Readers will explore concepts such as providentialism, Christian historiography, divine purpose, and the 4 basic phases of biblical history: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. By learning how to appropriately study history, believers will begin to recognize God's lordship over all events and how even minor incidents fit into his overarching plan. - Excellent Resource for Seminary Students, Pastors, and Historians: Poythress explains how to write about history, understand God's divine purposes, explore history in the Bible, and more  - Applicable: Teaches readers how to glorify God by recognizing his deeds throughout history - Biblical and Informative: Outlines 4 phases of history and connects them to Christ's redemption

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“Vern Poythress has written carefully about how a proper Christian doctrine of providence should (and should not) shape a believer’s understanding of human history. His book is particularly welcome in showing that ‘history’ includes a wide range of possibilities and that most of them can contribute (though in different ways) to Christian study of the past.”

Mark Noll, author, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind

“Can we think Christianly about history in its two senses of the events of the past and the written account of those events? Vern Poythress affirms that we can. He seeks guidance from the Bible about how the past should be understood by believers and about how Christian historians should undertake their vocation. He places God at the center of both.”

David Bebbington, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Stirling

“Redeeming Our Thinking about History continues Vern Poythress’s penetrating analysis of various fields of human intellectual endeavor. In continuity with his previous volumes, Poythress writes on why history is important and how best to read history—whether biblical or secular—in a God-honoring fashion. While capable of stratospheric thinking and communication, the author in this delightful volume simply takes the reader by the hand and leads him or her to the innumerable problems and issues of historical analysis, then resolves those vast and complicated topics. This approach taps into Poythress’s decades of examining and interpreting the Bible and presents very clear paths for readers to follow. Those insights are combined with practical principles to help us understand events in our own lives. Highly recommended.”

Richard Gamble, Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

“With a lucid brevity that Calvin might envy, Poythress covers a broad array of relevant topics in his treatment of redeeming our thinking about history. He strikes just the right balance between common grace and the antithesis as it applies to meanings, events, and people, arguing against all reductionistic approaches (such as Marxism or logical positivism) and covering matters as widespread as the unity, diversity, and uniqueness of the Bible; providence; and the limits of our understanding. He demonstrates the inescapability of a religious stance in writing history and urges that it be done from a truly biblical perspective, arguing for a multiperspectival approach that will yield the richest and most textured historical account—one that acknowledges God’s providence while remembering our creaturely limits in discerning the meaning of his superintendence of history.”

Alan Strange, Professor of Church History, Mid-America Reformed Seminary; author, The Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church in the Ecclesiology of Charles Hodge

Redeeming Our Thinking about History

Crossway Books by Vern S. Poythress

Chance and the Sovereignty of God

In the Beginning Was the Word

Inerrancy and the Gospels

Inerrancy and Worldview

Interpreting Eden

Logic

The Lordship of Christ

The Miracles of Jesus

Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God

Redeeming Mathematics

Redeeming Our Thinking about History

Redeeming Philosophy

Redeeming Science

Redeeming Sociology

Theophany

Redeeming Our Thinking about History

A God-Centered Approach

Vern S. Poythress

Redeeming Our Thinking about History: A God-Centered Approach

Copyright © 2022 by Vern S. Poythress

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Dan Farrell

Cover image: Wikimedia Commons

First printing, 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7144-2 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7147-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7145-9Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7146-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Poythress, Vern S., author.  

Title: Redeeming our thinking about history : a God-centered approach / Vern S. Poythress.  

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2021019171 (print) | LCCN 2021019172 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433571442 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433571459 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433571466 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433571473 (epub)  

Subjects: LCSH: History—Religious aspects—Christianity. | History—Methodology. 

Classification: LCC BR115.H5 P69 2022 (print) | LCC BR115.H5 (ebook) | DDC 261.5—dc23 

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019171

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019172

2022-02-02 02:52:32 PM

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To my wife, Diane

Contents

1  The Importance of History

Part 1: What We Need in Order to Analyze History

Essential Resources That God Supplies

2  Experiencing History

3  Foundations for Historical Analysis

4  Spiritual Antithesis: Darkness and Light

5  Reductionistic Historical Analysis

6  Understanding People

7  Understanding Historical Causes

8  Miracles

Part 2: History in the Bible

How the Bible Goes about Writing History

9  Unity in Biblical History

10  Diversity in Biblical History

11  The Uniqueness of the Bible

Part 3: Understanding God’s Purposes in History

Divine Purposes—and Our Limitations—in the Study of History

12  God in Biblical History

13  Cautions in Understanding Divine Purposes

14  The Value of Recognizing Divine Purposes

15  Biblical Principles Guiding Historical Understanding

16  Academic Historical Analysis

17  Pressure toward Religious “Neutrality”

18  Applying Principles from the Book of Revelation

Part 4: What Does History Writing Look Like?

Examples of Challenges in Writing about Particular Periods

19  Christianity in the Roman Empire

20  Interpreting the Reformation and Beyond

21  Histories of Other Civilizations

Part 5: Alternative Versions of How to Think about History

Competing Ways of Doing History among Christians

22  Five Versions of Historiography

23  Evaluating Providentialism

24  Other Versions of Christian Historiography

25  Perspectives on Historiography

26  Further Reflections on Providentialism

Appendix: Providence according to Mark Noll

Bibliography

General Index

Scripture Index

1

The Importance of History

Is history important? Should it be important to Christians? What is a Christian view of history? And how should Christians study and write about history? We want to explore these questions.

The Rejection of History

Some strands in modern Western culture want to forget about history. One strand of the culture says that the new is always better. So, allegedly, we have nothing to learn from the past. Is that right?

It is true that new technologies and gadgets may be better than the old ones. But that does not mean that human nature is getting better. Are our hearts any purer than those of the previous generation? Are we more righteous than the people who lived in the Roman Empire? Are we free from greed, selfishness, lust, envy, and pride? To think that we are in every way better people than in the past is a sign of arrogance.

In addition, new gadgets or trends will not satisfy the deepest desires of human hearts. If, as the Bible indicates, the deepest need of humanity is for fellowship with God, the craving for the newest things within the world will never give ultimate satisfaction.

A second strand of Western culture urges us to ignore the past because we deserve instant gratification. We become impatient with the learning process. In our impatience, we refuse to pay attention to history or to study it. We think that our desires of the moment are enough to guide us in decisions. But this urge for instant gratification is a sign of immaturity. It is childish. It is sinful. We have this urge because we, like human beings before us, are sinners. The urge is strong because many people have become mature in their bodies but remain childish in their hearts and desires. Their parents never disciplined them properly, or they rejected that discipline.

Children want things now. But if they do not mature, their childish foolishness leads to disaster.

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil,

but a fool is reckless and careless. (Prov. 14:16)

Desire without knowledge is not good,

and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. (Prov. 19:2)

We cannot trust these impulses of modern Western culture. Who can we trust? We need to see what the Bible says about history. The Bible is the word of God,1 so it gives us judgments that are faithful for all time. What does the Bible say about history and the knowledge of the past?

God’s Commands concerning the Past: Old Testament

God says that history is important, and it should therefore be important to us. In the Bible, God commands his people to pay attention to what happened in the past. He tells us to remember the past, to learn from it, and to tell the next generations about it:

Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.” And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. (Deut. 4:9–11)

When you father children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. (Deut. 4:25–26)

To you it [the deeds of the exodus] was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. (Deut. 4:35)

The larger context in Deuteronomy 1–5 reinforces these verses by its repeated emphasis on what God did in the past to bring the Israelites to the place where they now are. It contains a summary of much history; in chapter 5 in particular, it includes a remembrance of the time when God gave the Ten Commandments.

Deuteronomy 6 commands the people of God to remember and especially to teach their children:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. (Deut. 6:6–7)

Take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deut. 6:12)

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. (Deut. 6:16)

When your son asks you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?” then you shall say to your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.” (Deut. 6:20–25)

The theme continues in the next chapters of Deuteronomy:

You shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. (Deut. 7:18)

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness. (Deut. 8:2)

Psalm 78 (like some of the other psalms of remembrance) also commands the people to remember and learn from history:

We will not hide them from their children,

but tell to the coming generation

the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,

and the wonders that he has done.

He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children. (Ps. 78:4–6)

God’s Commands concerning the Past: New Testament

We see a continuation of this concern for the past in the New Testament. The New Testament often presupposes that we already know about what God did in former times in the Old Testament. It concentrates on telling us what God has done more recently, in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The four Gospels are books of history, the history of the life of Christ. The gospel, the good news of Christ, which is at the heart of the New Testament, is about history. Here is a crucial summary of the gospel:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor. 15:1–8)

The gospel is not focused on personal psychology—words or techniques to make us feel good. It does not primarily come to us in the form of a manual for living or a series of guiding questions for better understanding ourselves. It is not focused on religious ritual. Benefits of various kinds do come to those who have received reconciliation with God. But the gospel, the good news, announces events that happened in the past, in the death and resurrection of Christ. It is about events, events in history. To believe the gospel means to hear about and then believe things about events in history. Specifically, we have to believe that God raised Christ from the dead. God calls us to trust in Christ because of what he accomplished. God commands us to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15; Acts 17:30–31). By implication, God commands us to pay attention to history. History is indispensable in the Bible and in the Christian faith.

The New Testament affirms the divine authority of the Old Testament (Matt. 5:17–20; John 10:35; 2 Tim. 3:16–17; 2 Pet. 1:21). But it also affirms that the Old Testament continues to be relevant, rather than saying that we can ignore it as if it were simply the “dead past.” The relevance is seen in the widespread New Testament quotations from the Old Testament and in specific affirmations of its continuing relevance (Rom. 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:15–17; 2 Pet. 1:19). The apostle Paul appeals to the history of the exodus and points out that it includes examples for us:

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. (1 Cor. 10:6)

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Cor. 10:11)

Hebrews 11 instructs us by appealing to the heroes of the faith, who are part of the historical record in the Old Testament. Hebrews 3–4 indicates that we should learn from the events that occurred when Israel was in the wilderness. Paul exhorts Timothy to read the Old Testament publicly (1 Tim. 4:13) and apply himself to studying it (2 Tim. 3:15). These affirmations about the Old Testament as a whole obviously include the historical records in the Old Testament.

Instruction in History

The New Testament, like the Old Testament, affirms the importance of instructing children in the Christian faith: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). This includes instruction in the Old Testament. God’s commandments to parents in the Old Testament continue to be commandments for us in the New Testament era of the history of redemption. When we are united to Christ by faith, we are incorporated into the stream of the history of the people of God. We become heirs to the promises made by God in the Old Testament (2 Cor. 1:20). Christ is an Israelite, of the line of David (Matt. 1:1–16). When we are in Christ, we become part of the spiritual people of God. First Corinthians 10:1, addressed to a church with Gentiles as well as Jews, speaks of the people of Israel as “our fathers.” Spiritually speaking, the Israelites have become our ancestors, and the Old Testament patriarchs are our patriarchs, our spiritual fathers. We stand in a line of historical continuity with them. Their history is part of our history.

In sum, we must pay attention to God’s deeds in history. And we teach our children to do it. We do it because God commands us to do it. If we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we do it also because of inward motivation from the Spirit. We see that the record of God’s works is good for our souls.

Why is it good for our souls? We may not know all the reasons why. Through the Holy Spirit, God works to transform us in ways that are deeper than what we see. The Holy Spirit uses the Bible in this transforming work (John 17:17).

Though there is mystery in the work of the Holy Spirit, we can observe at least some of the ways in which the history of God’s deeds empowers us to grow spiritually.

Ways in Which History Serves Christian Growth

First, reading history in the Bible expands our view of God. He is not a God who entered the scene of history yesterday. He has been working for ages and ages. He is the everlasting God (Ps. 90:1–2). He was faithful to individuals and generations before us (Pss. 105; 106; 107; 145). He is wise beyond imagining. His power is displayed in creation and in his miracles. His wisdom and truthfulness are displayed in the consistency of his plan for redemption as he works from age to age.

Second, reading history in the Bible expands our view of Christ and his redemption. God gives us pictures of redemption in the Old Testament. These are anticipations and foreshadowings of the climactic redemption that comes in Christ. These anticipations include acts of redemption in history. God saved Noah and his family from the flood (Gen. 6–8). Through Joseph, God saved his people from famine (Gen. 50:20). Through Moses, God brought the people out of Egypt. These acts of God in history foreshadowed the great act of God, when he sent Christ into the world. Christ redeemed us from sin, death, and the power of Satan. The Old Testament records deepen our appreciation for who Christ is and the meaning of what he has done.

Third, reading the Bible expands our view of humanity. God’s record in the Bible shows humanity both in acts of righteousness and acts of wickedness, in integrity and sin, in courage and cowardice, in wisdom and foolishness, in faithfulness and treachery, in purity and impurity, in kindness and cruelty, in help and oppression, in life and death. The history in the Bible shows us a variety of personalities and cultures, united by the reality of a common humanity. We are all made in the image of God; we are all fallen and in need of redemption.

Each of us is unique, but all of us can see analogies between our lives and the record of what others did. We can learn about ourselves and also about others. We acquire wisdom.

Proverbs says that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Ps. 111:10). Wisdom grows as we pay attention to the instruction of God himself, and then the instruction of those who were wise before us. But it can also grow through paying attention to life. Proverbs itself invites us to look at examples in life (see, for example, 7:6–27).

History gives us innumerable cases to study, which enable us to explore human nature. We learn about human nature and about ourselves as human beings. We may ask, “What would happen if human beings were to make a crucial decision to go to war or to surrender, to travel or to stay in one place, to lay up resources for the future or to consume them now or give them away?” We learn by seeing what happened as a result of this or that decision recorded in the historical records of the Bible. We learn what it means to obey God or disobey, to do our duty or neglect it, to act with integrity or selfishness, to live life wisely or foolishly.

Finally, reading the history in the Bible leads to praising God and glorifying him. This praise of God is the goal of human existence. Knowledge of history contributes, because if this knowledge is healthy, it increases our love for God and our praise of him. We see God working. We see his wisdom, power, kindness, justice, compassion, and mercy—we see all his attributes. To understand God rightly also leads to growth in our love for him. We praise him specifically when we learn about specific ways in which he has worked in the events of history.

History, then, is important and vital. It is vital because God says it is. We can also see that it is vital when we see some of the benefits of studying it.

History outside the Bible

So far, we have been focusing on the history recorded in the Bible. That is what God is talking about when he commands us to remember what he did and to teach our children. In his wisdom, God has given us a collection of many events about which the Bible tells us. Though the Bible talks about many events, it does not mention explicitly all the details about the whole history of the world. In the Bible, God gives us what we need, but not everything about which we might be curious.

So what about other events that are not recorded in the Bible? Could we study them as well? They do not have the same central place in God’s instruction that the Bible itself occupies. But we can see that some of the principles that apply to records in the Bible also apply, by analogy, to events outside the Bible.

To begin with, God rules all of history, all events whatsoever, not just the events recorded in the Bible. So his wisdom, power, goodness, kindness, and other attributes are displayed in all things that occur. We can praise God for his work in making the most distant galaxies, even though we did not know about them until they were found in the twentieth century. Likewise, we can praise God for his governance of the history of France, the history of Ecuador, and everything that we find out about in modern history books.

History outside the Bible can serve us in ways similar to those we observed above. We can grow in knowing the God who rules history. We can grow in appreciating the depth and breadth of Christ’s redemption. We can expand our view of humanity. We can grow in our self-understanding by comparing ourselves with people from the past. We can expand our praise.

But when we deal with history outside the Bible, there are also cautions. The historians who study and write about this history are fallible people. So we have to sift what they write.

Let us then consider more thoroughly the challenge of studying history and writing about it. Let us consider this challenge particularly in the context of sin. Sin has contaminated human work since the fall of Adam. And this contamination extends to academic work, including the work of studying history. What do we need in order to study history, and in what ways do we need caution because of sin?

1  See John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010); and Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948).

Part 1

What We Need in Order to Analyze History

Essential Resources That God Supplies

2

Experiencing History

What is history? How should we write about it? How should we read about it and experience it? These are significant questions. How should we respond?

The Challenge of God and of Christ the Lord

Christ is Lord of all of life,1 including how we think about and deal with history. Historians everywhere are obligated to submit to his universal rule (Eph. 1:20–22; see Acts 17:30–31). So it is worthwhile trying to think about a Christian view of history and how we write about it.2

Above all, a Christian view takes into account who God is. He is the single most important one to take into account. God rules history. Moreover, he has a plan for history, a plan that encompasses its overall shape and all the details (Isa. 46:9–11). In the Bible, God shows us the outworking of his plan for the whole of history. The first act takes place when God creates the world (Gen. 1). He also creates mankind (1:26–30), but mankind falls into sin (Gen. 3). The rest of the Bible focuses primarily on God’s works of redemption, which rescue us from sin. God gives us promises for the future. We look forward to the time when God will raise people from the dead and create a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1).

In sum, God gives us an outline for all of history. He tells us what history is about. In the modern West, people in the elite places in culture have largely ceased to pay attention to God’s instruction in the Bible. That is a grievous mistake. God intends that his instruction in the Bible should form a foundation and guide for all of life (Ps. 119:105). That includes our thinking about history. If we do not pay attention, we are sinning against God.

The Bible serves as the primary starting point for understanding history as a whole. As we observed in the previous chapter, the Bible gives us much instruction about historical events. But what do we do when we begin to study events that it does not explicitly record?

A Small Piece of History

For the purpose of illustration, let us begin at a smaller, personal level. Each one of us is embedded in a stream of historical development. Here is a piece of my personal history.

Some years ago, in the period 1976–1981, I lived through events that had larger significance, at least in my own eyes. The history consisted in a major controversy at Westminster Theological Seminary over the views on justification held by Professor Norman Shepherd.

The faculty members conducted internal discussions for more than a year. Despite many good intentions, they ended up divided. In 1981, Dr. Shepherd was dismissed by the board of the seminary. The whole experience was painful for everyone.

Compared with the whole history of the world, this piece of history is tiny. Yet it drew enough interest to produce several written accounts of the events.3 What did it mean to write a history of these events? Some of the accounts found problems in Shepherd’s views; some found problems in the views of his critics. All the write-ups were in some ways only summaries of a complicated series of discussions and other events. Could there be a definitive account?

As I look back at that period, I see how impossible it would be for a historian to understand thoroughly every aspect of the controversy. And without understanding, one could not write the fullest and deepest account. Only God understands this piece of history completely.

Human study of the controversy is especially challenging because of the interaction of issues with people—multiple people. I heard everything said by every one of the faculty members in each of the faculty meetings in which I participated. But I did not understand thoroughly the personal motivations or the complex backgrounds that each person brought to the discussion. In detail, each person had his personal story, which can never be fully recovered by later historical research. In addition, there were a number of official meetings of subgroups in which I did not participate. There were private conversations as well.

I ask myself, “How might a historian fare in his research into this matter?” The controversy produced a number of written documents, some of which are now public.4 The written documents, together with Shepherd’s publications, give some taste of the issues and viewpoints that the faculty discussed. But the written record is sparse in comparison to the reality of the full process of unfolding events. The richness of that process, and of the human beings involved in it, is not recoverable. It is not explicable.

Perhaps one or more faculty members kept a detailed journal during those days. But not one of us had anything like a superior, godlike knowledge that might have allowed us to understand all the points of view thoroughly from the beginning. That was why we had to have the discussions in the first place.

I did not keep a journal. But if I had, I still would have been incapable of discovering and expressing the complexity and mysterious depth even in my own personal participation. Such journals, if they exist, would of course be of great value to a historian. But, rightly appreciated, they underline rather than dissolve the enormous complexity in the events themselves.

The point is that no one except God himself understands thoroughly even a comparatively small piece of history. I certainly do not. With respect to the Shepherd controversy, I could produce a summary of some of the main issues. But what strikes me with overwhelming force is how little I know. I was a full participant, and yet I find so much that I cannot fully explain. The extensive character of my participation results in making me more aware of the complexities and mysterious depth that belong to even a single person, as well as the complexities in the interactions among people.

Larger Pieces of History

What, then, is it like to write about some larger piece of history? For example, what is it like to write the history of a single American presidential campaign? In recent presidential elections, more than 100 million Americans have voted. Each voter has his own motivations and views. The complexity is overwhelming. The historian has much archival material to guide him. But in a sense, it is too much, because he cannot read everything or review all the related audio and video. How can anyone write an adequate account?5 Likewise, what is it like to write a history of World War II?

A number of writers have commented on the disparity between what we can know and the full complexity of what happened. C. S. Lewis aptly sums it up:

He [every human being] is bombarded every second by sensations, emotions, thoughts, which he cannot attend to for multitude, and nine-tenths of which he must simply ignore. A single second of lived time contains more than can be recorded. . . . The past . . . in its reality, was a roaring cataract of billions upon billions of such moments: any one of them too complex to grasp in its entirety, and the aggregate beyond all imagination.6

With big pieces of history, such as an American presidential election or World War II, we might expect that the write-up would concentrate on what we might call “external,” public, large-scale markers—that is, the major events. For a presidential campaign, we would look for major debates, major positions, major strategies, major publicity, and major ways chosen to organize the vote. And then there are the votes themselves, in primary elections and in the general election. For World War II, we would expect major dates, with discussion of battles, government decisions, military supply, and alliances. But these major movements take place only through the movements of many individuals, including “little” people—every soldier, every radio operator, every secretary, and every factory worker, especially those producing supplies for war.

But in addition to the “external” side of history, history involves each person as a full person. Everyone has an inner life, an inner depth. World War II depended on the personal decisions of heads of state, on the motivations of individual soldiers, and on the national will of the citizens—for example, the corporate determination of the British people not to surrender.

So any historian must select. He must decide when to stop doing research, because there is always more. And then he must decide what is important enough to include in his book or article, which can only summarize the large amount of information in his possession. What is important depends on the focus. We can imagine a history of World War II focusing on military maneuvers, political decisions, diplomacy, economics, reporting on the war, or attitudes among the citizens of various nations. Or there could be a focus on the biography of a major participant—Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, or Dwight D. Eisenhower. We can also consider historical accounts of the time period of World War II that focus on other themes, such as the economic, social, cultural, and technological developments in various rural areas, cities, and nations, including Third World countries.

Challenges

These pieces of history illustrate some of the challenges of writing about history. The most basic challenge lies in understanding a piece of the past. No human being can understand all of the aspects or all of the depth. We confront the reality that God has a plan that is being worked out in all events. But why is he doing what he is doing in detail? Much remains mysterious.

In addition, the process of writing about history involves choices. The most basic choice consists in choosing the piece of the past about which one writes. There are millions of pieces. Why pick a particular one?7 Once that choice is made, the writer has to make innumerable choices about which details to include. When a reasonable amount of information is available, only a tiny proportion can be included. And the writer must choose a point of view. With World War II, will it be military history, diplomatic history, political history, economic history, or some combination? Then, how will he organize the overall discussion so as to help readers understand the whole in a coherent way? There has to be a sense of the whole if the piece is to have more interest than a mere chronicle, listing one event after another.

We long to find meaning in history. But what is this meaning, if only God knows the whole?

What Is History?

We may say at this point that we are using the word history in two senses. First, it can mean the unfolding of past events in time and space. Second, it can mean a human study and recounting of past events. In this book, we use both senses. They are interrelated and interdependent. Outside of personal memory, the past becomes accessible to us only if we study it. Conversely, if we study or recount the past, it is because the past has events that happened and that are in focus. Otherwise, we might as well write fiction.

People can speak of the “history of the solar system” or the “history of animal life.” But the people we call “historians” usually concentrate on human history, involving the interplay of circumstances with human intentions and actions. It can focus on prominent, powerful people and their deeds, but it can also focus on quite ordinary people.

Three Aspects in History

If we want to understand history, we inevitably must bring together three aspects: (1) events, (2) people, and (3) meanings.

Events. First, we must have events. Without events, there is nothing to talk about—no public basis for illustrating meanings and knowing people.

People. Second, we must have people. Without people, we will convert history into physics and chemistry. One modern view of the world is philosophical materialism, which says that the world is reducible to the motions of material particles. All the complexities to which ordinary people attend are just complicated configurations of the particles. According to this view, particles are bouncing off each other in a causal sequence. Some collections of particles, which we call human beings, are very complex. But human meanings are really illusory, because the reality belongs only to the particles. This approach is an extreme view, but it illustrates the importance of being able to account for human meanings.

We not only must have human agents who are actors in history, but also human agents who are interested in studying history. If we are looking for a written description of events, we must have at least one person who does the research and writing. That is to say, we must have some person who is a historian.

Meanings. Third, we must have meanings. Without meaning, we have a mere list of events. Or, in the extreme, we have events without even a list, because even a list involves verbal description that is interpretive in a minimal way, and thus involves meanings.

People who write history deal with all three aspects. But how can they consider even one aspect without already being people who intuitively have some conception for all three? They must come to their research and their reflection already having some sense of what it means to find or give meaning to historical events. They must have some personal experience about events and their causal connections, and experience of other human beings with their complexity as human actors.