My thesis, then, is an examination of John Baillie’s concept of MI. The definitive body of research on MI to-date, it takes as its primary objectives the resolution of three major research issues: (1) MI’s meaning; (2) MI’s importance for Baillie’s mediating theology; (3) MI’s importance for contemporary Christian thought.
The thesis examines the three major research issues within three corresponding divisions. What ensues is a chapter-by-chapter summary of its basic method and general conclusions. The present introductory chapter has found that contemporary Christian thought is tacitly maintaining that John Baillie’s mediating theology is without a promising concept or doctrine—this as evidenced in works which evaluate: (a)
contributions from contemporary Christian theologies in general (surveys of Christian thought); (b) ideas emphasized in Baillie’s mediating theology (revelation, knowledge of God) that are conceptually intertwined with MI’s logic (surveys of the idea of revelation);
(c) the legacy of Baillie’s mediating theology (Baillie researchers’ overall evaluations of Baillie’s thought). I have argued that the credibility of (a-c) is presently suspect, on the
ground that there presently exists much debate about what Baillie means by MI, as evidenced in competing interpretations about MI’s logic, each of whose validity is uncertain at present. Chapter 2 resolves the issue of MI’s meaning, by providing the elucidation of MI’s logic that has been perennially in need since 1939. Drawing primarily from Baillie’s thought on MI in Our Knowledge of God, I elucidate the structure of MI’s logic, identify four ways that MI functions in Baillie’s thought, and contend that MI's meaning varies, depending on how Baillie’s apologetic employs MI in service to his mediating theology. The richer and requisite understanding of MI's meaning now in-hand—prior research has tended to interpret MI’s meaning in light of only two oft functions—the thesis turns to the second division (Chapters 3-5) to engage the second research issue: MI’s importance for Baillie’s mediating theology. This move serves two major purposes: (1) It helps the reader to understand fuller MI’s meaning: guided by the now-clarified conceptual understanding of MI's meaning, including its
multi-functionality, the reader is able to locate MI and to witness its evolution within the dynamic apologetic context of Baillie’s development as a mediating theologian. This move also (2) helps the reader appreciate the concept’s importance for Baillie’s
mediating theology as a whole. Specifically, this division diachronically traces Baillie’s theological development from 1925 to 1960. An investigation of Baillie's major86 and minor, it lays emphasis on the explication of primary sources which (a) speak directly to doctrines emphasized in Baillie's mediating theology throughout Baillie's academic career—Baillie's ideas of religious experience, revelation, knowledge of God and God—
and (b) speak directly to MI's development, its ideas of mediation and immediacy, in particular. The explication and examination of this conceptual and historical interplay—
this play between Baillie's mediating theology and MI—is carried out within the context of Baillie’s Christian apologetics, in particular. Chapter 3 focuses on MI’s development in Baillie’s early childhood and formal education—experiences which would influence Baillie’s apologetic strategy and, in time, his development of MI. Chapter 4 examines the apologetic moves in Baillie’s “early mediating theology” (1925-1939: pre-Our
86In particular: The Roots of Religion in the Human Soul (1926), The Interpretation of Religion: An Introductory Study of Theological Principles (1928), The Place of Jesus Christ in Modern Christianity (1929), Our Knowledge of God (1939), The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (1956), The Sense of The Presence of God (1962), A Reasoned Faith (1963).
Knowledge of God); Chapter 5, the apologetic moves in Baillie's “latter mediating theology” (1939-1962: post-Our Knowledge of God).87
The third division (Chapters 6-9) resolves each of the major research issues: MI’s meaning, importance for Baillie’s mediating theology, and promise for contemporary Christian thought. The thesis, which has now equipped the reader with both a requisite static-conceptual (first division) and requisite historical-dynamic (second division) understanding of MI’s meaning, turns to Chapter 6 and resolves several sub-issues
concerning the meaning of MI’s descriptive epistemology. Is MI a metaphysical structure or argument for knowledge of God? Does the logic of MI essentially reduce to an
historical or sacramental model of knowledge of God? Does MI’s logic describe the mediation of knowledge of God as being a dyadic or a triadic relationship? Does MI’s logic separate faith from knowledge, or does it contend for an organic epistemological connection between faith and knowledge? Does the model’s idea of immediacy fail to express a “theological understanding” of Christian knowledge of God, or does it convey the very “logic of faith” itself? Does MI’s idea of immediacy demonstrate that Baillie’s thought advocates logical agnosticism? Does MI depersonalize Christian faith in Jesus Christ? Can MI’s logic be modeled? In Chapter 6, I systematically evaluate these manifold competing interpretations that have both evidenced and perpetuated the field’s confusion about MI’s meaning, and draw conclusions on each research issue. Chapter 7 briefly recounts the diachronic trace’s findings. Drawing from them, I weigh in on the second, major research issue, MI’s importance for Baillie’s thought: I argue that MI is the most important concept for Baillie's mediating theology. It is a conclusion which
challenges the consensus view in the research—one which has tended to limit MI’s importance to Baillie’s Our Knowledge of God (1939), save some residual effects for works such as his Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (1956) and The Sense of the Presence of God (1962). Chapter 8 centers on the third, major research issue, MI’s promise for contemporary Christian thought. My method, in brief, is to evaluate MI’s promise by subjecting it not only to the criticism of opponents whose tendency has been to dismiss, often dogmatically, two of the concept’s function dogmatically on theological grounds; but by also subjecting each of its four functions to more contemporary criticism,
87 The rationale for this scheme is addressed in the division’s beginning chapter, Chapter 3.
including that from theological and epistemological and cognitive-psychological quarters.
In keeping with the thrust of the criticism of MI, a substantially more sophisticated corpus of criticism is brought to bear on the logic of MI’s idea of immediacy, in particular. In light of the evaluation, I concede that much of the (now-substantiated) criticism of MI has been legitimate. However, as against the thrust of Baillie research, I argue that one of MI’s functions—one that has been overlooked in the literature—is a promising contribution to contemporary Christian thought. As support for my argument, and in keeping with MI’s various loci of inspiration—MI, true to the mediating
theologian’s form, draws strength from theological, philosophical, and empirical-psychological intellectual currents, I take an inter-disciplinary and somewhat unconventional approach as support my argument for MI’s present promise. This includes appeal to the concept’s correspondence with Christian theological-epistemological and empirical cognitive-psychological interpretations of religious
experience, as well as appeal to the concept’s utility value for the Christian tradition in its dialogue with postmodernity. Chapter 9 summarizes the research findings and
contributions, finishing with suggestions for future lines of research on MI.88