Introducing Evangelical Theology

Treier, Daniel J.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493416776
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

2020 Christian Book Award® Winner (Bible Reference Works) This textbook offers students a biblically rich, creedally structured, ecumenically evangelical, and ethically engaged introduction to Christian theology. Daniel Treier, coeditor of the popular Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, discusses key Scripture passages, explains Christian theology within the structure of the Nicene Creed, explores the range of evangelical approaches to contested doctrines, acquaints evangelicals with other views (including Orthodox and Catholic), and integrates theological ethics with chapters on the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. The result is a meaty but manageable introduction to the convictions and arguments shaping contemporary evangelical theology.

Part 1: Knowing the Triune God

1
The Creed

Faith Seeking Understanding

Thesis

Christian theology is a communicative practice of faith seeking understanding, in response to the Word of the Triune God accompanied by the Holy Spirit.

Learning Objectives

After learning the material in the introduction and this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Define briefly the key terms introduced here (marked with an asterisk and included in the glossary).
2. List and recognize the following: (a) David Bebbington’s four characteristics of evangelicalism; (b) two elements of Christian faith; (c) four theological contexts.
3. Describe and compare the following: (a) four basic views of general revelation; (b) four periods’ approaches to special revelation.
4. Identify and illustrate the relationships and distinctions between the following: (a) four sources for theology; (b) five theological disciplines.
5. Explain the following: (a) the contrast between Christian and modern views of faith and reason; (b) the complexity of selecting relevant biblical texts and synthesizing their theological implications for contemporary questions; (c) the holistic nature of theology as faith seeking understanding.

The Letter to the Romans offers Exhibit A of this chapter’s theme: Christian theology is faith seeking understanding. Romans provides the Bible’s most orderly account of the gospel. Yet the letter remains pastoral, not a modern “systematic” theology. Paul presents his gospel in an effort to reconcile Jewish and gentile Christians while gaining support for missionary travels to Spain. The “Romans Road” of chapters 1–8 heads toward chapters 9–11 as the gateway to its practical destination in chapters 12–16. Prompted by faith, pursuing pastoral encouragement (Rom. 1:12), Paul provides theological understanding.

Paul’s Romans road is paved by Isaiah, which, along with Deuteronomy and Psalms, preoccupies New Testament citations of the Old Testament. Isaiah advances the biblical gospel: looking back to the grandeur of creation and the tragedy of the fall, as embodied in Israel; looking forward to a new creation, another redeeming exodus. Through God’s ultimate Servant the redemption of Israel, God’s unfaithful servant, would fully reveal the identity of *YHWH—the Sovereign Creator who formed a saving covenant with Israel, and before whom every knee will finally bow.1 Romans echoes Isaiah when Paul says he is not “ashamed” of the gospel (Rom. 1:16; e.g., Isa. 54:3–5), which reveals God’s righteousness promoting faith (Rom. 1:17).

In the background is the story of Ahaz, an unfaithful descendant of King David who refused to believe that God would defend Judah. Instead, Ahaz made a disobedient foreign alliance. As a sign of God’s judgment over Ahaz and Israel’s eventual deliverance, Isaiah 7:14 announced a special child: “Immanuel,” God with us. Prior to that announcement, God told Ahaz, “If you will not believe, surely you will not be established,” or, as Augustine (354–430) read in Latin, “Unless you believe, you shall not understand” (Isa. 7:9).2 Christian theology as “faith seeking understanding” echoes the story of Ahaz’s downfall and the Christ-centered hope that followed. Ahaz was not established in God’s blessing because he did not trust God’s promise. Refusing to hear God, he was misled by apparent signs of his time. By contrast, faith is the impetus behind all Christian theology: trusting God’s Word enough to seek fuller understanding of its perennial meaning and present significance. Without exercising faith, we cannot rightly hear the Word by which to know God; without seeking understanding, like Ahaz we twist Scripture to line up with whatever delusional “faith” we have in the world or ourselves.

The present chapter examines more carefully the shape of Christian belief—what it means for faith to seek theological understanding. This chapter addresses *prolegomena: the first words with which theology indicates how it will proceed from faith toward understanding. In faith we hear God’s speech; in seeking we prayerfully contemplate the sources of this divine revelation; in pursuit of understanding we practice theological disciplines.

Faith: Hearing God’s Speech

Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17)—hearing divine revelation, its “theological counterpart.”3 In Scripture, hearing and obeying overlap enough that hearing is a metaphor for obedience. Beyond bare listening, biblical hearing begins the journey of trusting and obeying God. By modern times, however, “revelation” became a source of knowledge in the philosophical sense—one alternative among others, such as reason or observation. Soon revelation seemed like a doubtful source when compared to what people could see and what science could produce. God, humans, and the natural world became competitors in a winner-take-all contest: rather than hearing God speak through creaturely realities, many “Western” people came to think that revelation threatens their integrity, reducing them to puppets. Revelation appeared rational only if it lost its specifically Christian God and pointed to generic “religious” experience.4 Reason became a universal human project, claiming to be as neutral as possible. By proclaiming divine intervention in history, today Christian faith may seem irrational.

Personal Knowledge

Yet Christian *faith is “firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us.”5 Faith is a personal form of knowledge: knowledge, because God’s benevolence has a meaningful history; personal, because we apprehend God’s benevolence toward us.6 Hence Christian faith involves both the public truth of God’s speech—“the faith”—and the personal response of trust and loyalty.7 Faith as trust relates the future to the past: biblical faith anticipates, based on a history of faithfulness, the fulfillment of God’s gracious promises (Heb. 11:1, 6). Faith as loyalty relates the past and future to the present: biblical faith responds to God’s self-communication over time, expressing itself in obedient love (Rom. 1:5; Gal. 5:6; James 2).

Accordingly, faith involves the whole person—intellect (belief), affections (confidence), and will (trusting loyalty). Its characteristic posture is prayer, calling on the Lord’s name (Rom. 10:9–13). Such prayer is trinitarian: the Spirit prompts believers to call on God as Father with confidence that in Jesus Christ they are beloved children (Rom. 8:14–17). Genuine prayer includes being broken over sin and seeking the *shalom—peaceful flourishing—of all creation. In calling for repentance, the Old Testament prophets establish the proper connection between faith and love: good works are an expression of faith, not a condition of God’s favor, yet genuine faith includes grief over sin. Persisting in idolatry and injustice eventually raises this question: Are such “believers” really calling on the Lord with trust and loyalty?

Faith seeks understanding because believers await the unseen fulfillment of God’s promises. Tensions inevitably arise between faith and modern reasoning, which operates by sight. Believers cannot avoid dealing with the way the world currently runs, since divine revelation addresses all the relationships defining our lives—not only communion with God but also harmony with other humans and the rest of creation. Thus, Christian theology cannot give up the connection between divine revelation and human reason, as if God communicates only inner experiences or ideas with no implications for the rest of life. Yet God’s self-communication involves particular actions in creation and salvation, beyond what human reason could figure out on its own. Because seeing is not yet fully believing, to know the True Way of Life we must listen to God’s Word, led by God’s Spirit.

Tensions between faith and modern reason tempt theologians to treat “prolegomena” as nontheological words spoken before beginning to do theology. Sometimes “apologetics” among Protestants and “fundamental theology” among Catholics become nontheological prolegomena. These approaches try to demonstrate theology’s intellectual credibility according to external methods and standards. Instead, truly Christian theology begins by faith and seeks to understand the gospel’s distinctive logic and divine mystery. Prolegomena must be the first theological words in doing theology. Theological prolegomena seek initial clarity about the proper response of rational creatures to divine revelation. Prolegomena articulate what conditions enable, and which criteria settle, Christian teaching. These prolegomena already introduce the Triune God’s perfect character and gracious action. God’s actions in creation and redemption speak volumes; God’s words are living and active.

Divine Self-Disclosure

*Revelation is God’s self-disclosure—communication to establish communion with us. Revelation is “the eloquence of divine action.”8 This eloquence echoes at various times and places from creation until the completion of redemption. God has spoken to everyone in some ways, and to particular people in special ways, which Scripture records to share with others. Hence divine revelation goes beyond the eloquence of all divine activity; as the Creed claims in its third article, God the Holy Spirit has spoken specifically “through the prophets.” This book does not fully address the revelatory authority of Scripture until a later chapter, when it returns to the Holy Spirit’s work in detail. For now, *communicative action offers a helpful concept for integrating revelation with the rest of God’s activity: God’s speech actively establishes covenant relationship with us, while this saving activity communicates what God is like. Hearing the good news of God’s mighty grace is at the heart of understanding divine self-revelation.

This revelation addresses two barriers to knowing God: finitude and fallenness. *Finitude means that human beings have inherent limits that render us incapable of knowing the Infinite God on our own. The Creator graciously condescends to speak with us. God condescended initially by creating us with capacities for fellowship, as bearers of the divine image. Now, having fallen, humans have rendered themselves incapable of truly knowing and representing the Creator. Although God eloquently condescends, we refuse to listen and fail to understand. Hence the fullness of God’s self-disclosure involves our salvation. The Holy Spirit helps us to hear God’s Word in Jesus Christ, interrupting our self-destruction and interpreting God’s work on our behalf.

Seeking: Contemplating God’s Revelation

Human finitude and fallenness partially correspond to the widespread distinction between “general” and “special” divine revelation. So-called *general revelation focuses on God’s self-disclosure in the gracious activity of creating and providentially sustaining the cosmos. Created to bear God’s image, humans have a calling to represent God in the world. This calling opens us to divine self-communication and obligates us to obey divine commands. *Special revelation addresses our need to know God as Redeemer, not just Creator, through the Spirit’s ministry of the Word at particular times and places. For humans have failed to hear God’s speech in faith and to represent God in loving obedience. After the fall, God must not only unveil the divine character but also remove the veil covering our eyes. Sinful humans often seek to fill a God-shaped void in their hearts, but they stumble around blindly until the Light of the world shines upon them.

“General” Revelation in Creation

The physical world, the cycles and flow of history, personal conscience, cultural expression, social orders—traditionally understood, these may somehow be vehicles of general revelation. But modern debates emerged about how the Christian understanding of God should specifically relate to broader theism. Thus, current approaches to general r...