“Long before the neo-orthodox theologians thought of saying that faith is an encounter with a divine person rather than assent to a proposition, preachers who ought to have known better taught that faith is trust in a person, not belief in a creed…Today it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to find a minister – a conservative minister – who does not believe and teach that one must have a ‘personal’ relationship with Christ in order to be saved. But what that ‘personal’ relationship consists of is either not made explicit or, when made explicit, contradicts what the Bible teaches about saving faith…"
“‘Trust in a person’ is a meaningless phrase unless it means assenting to certain propositions about a person…As for having a ‘personal’ relationship with Christ, if the phrase means something more than assenting to true propositions about Jesus, what is that something more?...Surely ‘personal’ relationship does not mean what we mean when we say that we know someone personally: Perhaps we have shaken his hand, visited his home or he ours, or eaten with him. John had a ‘personal’ relationship with Christ in that sense, as did all the disciples, including Judas. But millions of Christians have not, and Jesus called them blessed: They have not seen and yet have believed….Belief of the truth, nothing more and nothing less, is what separates the saved from the damned."
“Saving faith is neither an indescribable encounter with a divine person, nor heart knowledge as opposed to head knowledge…Mindless encounters and meaningless relationships are not saving faith. Truth is propositional, and one is saved and sanctified only through believing true statements…"
“The anti-intellectual cast of virtually all modern thought, from the university chair to the barroom stool, controls the pulpits as well. It is this pious anti-intellectualism that emphasizes encounter rather than information, emotion instead of understanding, ‘personal’ relationship rather than knowledge. But Christians, Paul wrote, have the mind of Christ. Our relationship to him is intellectual. And since Christ is his mind and we are ours, no relationship could be more intimate than that…This recognition of the primacy of the intellect, the primacy of truth, is totally missing from contemporary theology.”
John W. Robbins, foreword to Faith and Saving Faith by Gordon Clark, 1983
