Evangelical Theological Method

Five Views

Stanley E. Porter, Steven M. Studebaker, Stanley E. Porter, Steven M. Studebaker

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780830852086
• eBook ISBN: 9780830886005
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

How should one approach the task of theology? The question of methodology is increasingly one of interest among theologians, who recognize that the very manner in which we approach theology informs both the questions we ask and the conclusions we reach.

This volume in IVP's Spectrum Multiview series brings together five evangelical theologians with distinctly different approaches to the theological task. After presenting the approaches—which include appeals to Scripture, context, missions, interdisciplinary studies, and dogmatics—each contributor responds to the other views.

Emerging from this theological conversation is an awareness of our methodological commitments and the benefits that each approach can bring to the theological task.

Contributors:

• Sung Wook Chung
• John R. Franke
• Telford C. Work
• Victor Ifeanyi Ezigbo
• Paul Louis Metzger

Spectrum Multiview Books offer a range of viewpoints on contested topics within Christianity, giving contributors the opportunity to present their position and also respond to others in this dynamic publishing format.

FIVE VIEWS OF
EVANGELICAL
THEOLOGICAL METHOD

Bible Doctrines/
Conservative Theology

CODIFYING GOD’S WORD

SUNG WOOK CHUNG

INTRODUCTION

This chapter explores the theological method of conservative and traditional evangelicalism, which is characterized by systematizing and codifying God’s Word according to its topics and themes. This approach presupposes that the Scripture of sixty-six canonical books is inspired (theopneustos, God-breathed) by the Holy Spirit. This affirmation entails that the ultimate author of the Bible is God and thus it is the inerrant and infallible revelation of the triune God. As the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) affirms, the Holy Scripture as the Word of God written is “the rule of faith and life.”1

On the basis of this foundational insight, conservative evangelical theologians have endeavored to formulate Christian doctrines from the Holy Scripture. Codification or systematization of what the Bible teaches about crucial doctrinal topics has defined the task of their theological work. In other words, the topical and thematic approach has traditionally been the central character of the task of doctrinal systematization from the perspective of conservative evangelical theology. So in the conservative evangelical tradition, doing systematic theology has been identified with organizing God’s Word into a system of doctrines in accordance with essential topics of biblical instruction. Conservative stands in relation to progressive evangelicals, who have critiqued the propositional approach to theology. This essay generally uses the shorthand term evangelical theology to denote the conservative approach to theology, although it recognizes that the evangelical tradition includes diverse approaches to theology.

The process of codifying God’s Word usually takes several steps, from biblical exegesis to writing catechisms, confessions, creeds and works of systematic theology. Before explicating this approach in more detail, I will draw a historical sketch of this traditional method of theology.

HISTORICAL SKETCH

The Bible and topical approaches. First of all, it is very important to appreciate that the canonical books of Holy Scripture employ a topical and thematic approach in giving us divine instructions. I believe that we should rediscover and reemphasize this insight. Above all, Jesus Christ made the best use of topical approaches in his teaching and preaching ministry. The best example of Jesus’ topical approach is the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5–7. According to Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught and preached about major topics and themes including the law (Mt 5:17-20), murder (Mt 5:21-26), adultery (Mt 5:27-30), divorce (Mt 5:31-32), oaths (Mt 5:33-37), love for enemies (Mt 5:38-48), giving to the needy (Mt 6:1-4), prayer (Mt 6:5-16), fasting (Mt 6:16-18) and so on. The Sermon on the Mount exemplifies the topical and thematic organization of divine truths.

Several biblical authors also adopt topical and thematic approaches. The apostle Paul is the best model for this. For example, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul uses the phrase “about a [certain topic].” In 1 Thessalonians 4:9, Paul states, “Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other” (NIV). In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, Paul says, “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (NIV). After saying this, Paul continues to explicate the second coming of the Lord and the future destiny of those who fall asleep. In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, Paul states, “Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (NIV). Again, after saying this, Paul keeps on giving instructions about why the parousia cannot surprise believers and how they should prepare themselves for the Lord’s second coming.

The writer of Hebrews also employs a topical and thematic approach. In the first two chapters of Hebrews, the writer deals with the deity and supremacy of Jesus Christ, comparing him with angels. In Hebrews 4–8, the writer discusses the superiority of Jesus Christ as the high priest over the Old Testament human priests. Hebrews 9–10 delineates the superiority of Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice over the old covenant sacrificial system. On the basis of these discussions, Hebrews 11 explicates the theme of faith, and Hebrews 12–13 expound the Christian life. In addition to these, we have numerous other examples of biblical writers’ use of topical and thematic approaches in conveying divine revelation. Even if we recognize that there are various ways that truth might be presented, basing our approach on the way that the Bible presents divine truths provides the strongest foundation. Thus we can conclude that the topical approach is the most basic and fundamental manner of instruction of divine truths because it is deeply embedded in the entire Bible.

Patristic age. During the patristic age, church fathers also made the best use of a topical and thematic approach in their theological and apologetic endeavor. For example, Irenaeus of Lyons, who is regarded as the first theologian of the history of redemption/salvation (Heilsgeschichte), formulates his major theological writings—Against Heresies and Proof of the Apostolic Preaching—topically. Athanasius of Alexandria employs a topical approach as well. Against the Heathen and Incarnation of the Word of God, his two major theological works, show his employment of a topical approach that codifies and systematizes God’s word to formulate doctrinal theses. In a similar vein, Augustine of Hippo also adopts a topical approach in his major theological writings.

Medieval age. Medieval theologians follow the topical and thematic approach to theology that the church fathers established. However, medieval scholastic theology—pioneered by Anselm of Canterbury, finding its climax in Thomas Aquinas, and consummated by Duns Scotus and William of Ockham—deviates in harmful ways from the tradition of formulating biblical doctrines through codifying God’s Word by incorporating Aristotelian logic and other philosophical arguments, including neo-Platonism, into theological work. As a result, there was serious doctrinal confusion and distortion within the Roman Catholic Church in the late medieval age.

The Reformation. During the sixteenth-century European Reformation, Reformers such as Martin Luther (1484–1546), Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), Ulrich Zwingli (1483–1531) and John Calvin (1509–1564) recovered the topical approach for doing theological work by returning to the principle of sola Scriptura. They scathingly criticized the doctrinal errors of medieval scholastic theology, reemphasizing the Bible as the only material source of the knowledge of God. More than anyone else, Melanchthon made an indelible impact on the restoration of the topical approach, which codifies and systematizes the Word of God in accordance with major doctrinal themes and subjects. His Loci Communes (Common Places or Common Topics) is an excellent example of the so-called loci approach, namely the topical approach, in Christian theology. John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is another superb example of a topical and thematic codification of God’s Word. In the first edition of the Institutes (1536), Calvin discusses major doctrinal themes, including the law, faith, the sacraments, Christian freedom, ecclesiastical power and political administration. The first edition of the Institutes was expanded into the last edition (1559), which was almost five times larger than the first edition. The last edition also takes a biblically based topical approach that formulates biblical doctrines through codifying and systematizing the result of exegetical work on the Word of God. For this reason, Calvin’s Institutes should be taken as a “systematic theology,” methodically arranged in accordance with crucial topics of the Christian truth.

Post-Reformation Protestant dogmatics. From 1564 (the year of Calvin’s death) to 1800, both Lutheran and Reformed theologians were engaged with confessional dogmatics, exemplified by Lutheran Johann Gerhard’s Loci Communes Theologici and his Reformed counterpart Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Although they basically followed the theological method that the first-generation Reformers had established—the loci approach to theology—they pursued a new theological method, which was geared toward preserving the dogmas of the church (the official theology recognized by an organized church body). As a result, the confessions and creeds of organized ecclesial bodies, because they were reductionistic or tended to privilege particular theological traditions, began to have a disproportionate impact on Protestant dogmatics. In some extreme cases, the principle of sola Scriptura was eclipsed in the name of the preservation of the traditional dogmas of the church. Protestant dogmatic theology was accused of ossified and reified dogmatism without creative and dynamic reformulations of biblical doctrines on the basis of fresh results of exegetical work on the Scriptures.

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries. With the rise of neo-evangelicalism in the latter half of the twentieth century, the topical and thematic approach to theology began to be rediscovered and retrieved, with a renewed commitment to the principle of Scripture alone. Among the major evangelical theologians dedicated to the theological method of codifying and systematizing God’s Word are Millard Erickson (1932–), Gordon R. Lewis (1932–), Bruce Demarest (1937–) and Wayne Grudem (1948–). On account of these evangelical systematic theologians’ achievement, the topical and thematic approach remains the most popular and dominant method of theology within the circle of evangelical theology. I will discuss the contributions of these theologians below.

THE AIM OF THEOLOGY

What is the aim of theology from the perspective of evangelical theology that adopts the topical and thematic approach to formulating Bible doctrines by codifying God’s Word? In other words, why do we engage in the theological task? I will answer these questions by presenting the primary and the secondary aim of theology. There is a fundamental consensus among evangelical systematic theologians that knowledge of God is the primary aim of theology.2

Definition of theology. In order to begin to understand the aim of theology from the perspective of evangelical theology, we have to first understand what theology is and why it is important to do theological work. First of all, in English, theology is composed of words referring to God and theological discourse. Theology derives from the Greek theos (God) and the Greek logos (study) to mean “the study of God” or “the science of God.” Here logos can also mean “logic,” “word,” “reason” and “discourse.” Theology is related to the word or discourse of God. It also means reasoning about God. Therefore theology has traditionally been seen as creating discourse about God. In the Chinese and Korean contexts, theology is referred to as 神學 (shen xue in Chinese and shin hak in Korean). Here the word 神 (shen) means “God” and 學 (xue) means “to learn.” In an East Asian context, therefore, theology means learning about who God is, what God does and what kind of a relationship God has with human beings.

In the context of this discussion, we need to raise a crucial question. It is connected with the fact that we cannot find the word theology in the Bible. One should be able to find theological concepts, including the word theology, within the Bible if one’s theology aims to be truly faithful to biblical revelation. However, it is not necessarily “unbiblical” for evangelical theologians to employ terms and concepts that are seemingly extrinsic to scriptural revelation. The key question is, “What is the nearest equivalent term for theology in the Bible?” It is important to appreciate in this context that, although the Bible does not employ the word theology, it is not difficult to find an eq...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Method in Systematic Theology: An Introduction - Stanley E. Porter and Steven M. Studebaker
• Part One: Five Views of Evangelical Theological Method
• Part Two: Responses
• Contributors
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for Evangelical Theological Method
• About the Editors
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright