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Systematic Theology Posts

  • December 20, 2011 by Matthew Mason

    Kantzer Lectures Online

    In September, Prof. Bruce McCormack delivered the third series of Kantzer lectures: “The God who graciously elects: seven lectures on the doctrine of God.” I was sorry to miss them, being in the wrong city and unable to watch the live streams. Happily, the audio and video are now available online. McCormack is undeniably brilliant but also, shall we say, provocative, both as an interpreter of Barth and in his own constructive dogmatic work. Judging from what I’ve read of his, and from the reports I’ve heard of the lectures, he’s also something of a theological pugilist. I suspect I’m going to enjoy the lectures, learn from them, and disagree in something like equal measure.

    Categories: Doctrine of God | General | Matthew Mason | Systematic Theology

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  • November 4, 2011 by Matthew Mason

    principles of systematic theology

    In an article in the International Journal of Systematic Theology (‘Principles of Systematic Theology’, IJST 11.1 [2009]: 56-71), John Webster argues that theological prolegomena depend necessarily on the material theological content of a system. The ontological principal of theology is God the Holy Trinity; the external cognitive principal is the Word of God; the internal cognitive principal is the redeemed intelligence of the saints.

    Given that God is the ontological principal, the primary matter of theology is God himself; only secondarily is it concerned with the works of God (all things in God). Thus, theology is really all about the Holy Trinity in its inward and outward movements, and the best order for a system of theology is bipartite: first God in se, then the works of God, with the divine missions as the hinge between the two.

    Here are a few of my favourite moments from the article.

    Systematic theology ‘is the rational work of the children of Adam who are only slowly learning what it is to be the children of God.’ (71)

    On why a theological system is possible, indeed necessary:

    God is one; all other things are held together and have their several natures in relation to God and are known in that relation. Systematic intelligence is fitting, and it is appropriate to attempt a consistent overall presentation of Christian teaching, in which the infinite divine archetype is echoed in finite ectypal modes of intelligence (66).

    But that does not mean a system could be exhaustive, first because of who God is:

    God is infinite and ineffable, and so indeterminable, not exhaustible by any finite system of manifest objects (67)

    And also because of our limitations:

    Panoramic perception is unattainable to those still in via, not in patria, especially since they are not yet fully reconciled to the object of their contemplation, still learning how to see and love what they see (67).

    Or, less technically:

    Excessive systematic pretension is most effectively arrested by dogmatic rules: God’s life is infinitely abundant, we are not yet fully the friends of God, a theological system is no more than one staging-post on the mind’s ascent to paradise (67).

    So, theology should be done

    repentantly, under the guidance of the prophets and apostles and the tutelage of the saints, and with prayer for the Spirit’s instruction (66).

    Again,

    Avoiding such missteps is largely a matter of art, informed and directed by the principles of theology, deeply internalized, and by immersion in the texts and though patterns of the Christian tradition. In terms of the construction of a systematic theology, these principles will be best expressed by the substantial presence of exegesis, showing that Scripture is doing real work, not simply furnishing topics to be handled in a non-scriptural idiom or proofs for arguments constructed on other grounds. Scripture must be the terminus ad quem of systematic theological analysis, not merely its terminus a quo. Similarly, conceptual inventiveness, so central to the systematic enterprise, must go hand in hand with conceptual transparency, since the systematic concepts are simply windows through which we may glimpse the biblical landscape and its ultimate horizon in God. (70)

    Categories: General | John Webster | Matthew Mason | Systematic Theology

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  • February 21, 2011 by Matthew Mason

    church and salvation

    The order of the article on the Spirit in the Apostles’ Creed raises an interesting question:

    “I believe in the Holy Spirit,
    the holy catholic church,
    the communion of saints,
    the forgiveness of sins,
    the resurrection of the body,
    and the life everlasting.”

    Church first, then salvation. But a quick glance at the volumes on my shelf that might loosely be called systematic theology in the Reformed tradition (Calvin, Turretin, Bavinck, Hodge, Heppe, Berkhoff, Frame), to say nothing of confessional documents like the 39 Articles, Belgic Confession, Second Helvetic Confession, and the Westminster Standards, indicates that each one deals with the application of redemption first, and then the church.

    At one level, I have no great objection to this Reformed tradition. In some ways it’s a logical order, a number of these dogmatics and confessions teach the maxim, “no salvation outside the church,” and of course the boundaries between discussions of ecclesiology and soteriology are far from watertight. But it’s raised a question in my mind: what would a Reformed dogmatics, and more particularly a reformed soteriology, look like that followed the order of the creed.

    Categories: Ecclesiology | General | Soteriology | Systematic Theology

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  • February 21, 2011 by Matthew Mason

    The Triune Acts Ad Extra: Person and Work of Christ

    The external works of the Trinity are shaped by the truth of the maxim opera ad extra trinitatis indivisa sunt, as well as by the ordered relations of the Persons ad intra. Jesus’ incarnation, life, sufferings, death, and resurrection obviously focus on God the Son.  Nevertheless, as with creation and providence, all three Persons are involved at every stage.  Thus, Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, and resurrection reveal to us most clearly what God is like.

    Incarnation

    Father. The Father is the source of the incarnation: he sent his Son (John 3:16).  The Father also prepared a body for his Son (Heb. 10:5).

    Son. The Son became incarnate (!)

    Spirit. The Father prepared the Son’s body, and the Son took on flesh, in the power of the Holy Spirit, who overshadowed the Virgin Mary as he had hovered over the creation in the beginning (Luke 1:35; cf. Gen 1:2).  Thus, as the Creed says, the Son was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And because the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the Son’s human nature was sanctified in his conception, so that he did not receive a fallen, corrupt, sinful nature, but rather an unfallen one, so that he could be Holy, the Son of the Most High (Luke 1:32, 35)

    Life

    Father. Jesus lived in constant communion with his Father—he lived his life before the face of God.  He was constantly in prayer, seeking his Father’s face, but especially at major turning points in his ministry (e.g., Mark 1:35; Lk 2:49; 3:21; 6:12).  He did everything in obedience to His Father’s will (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; 17:4).  He was able to do it because he had already seen the Father doing it (.  He did it because the Father had given it to him to do (John 17:4).  And he did it for his Father’s glory (John 17:1, 4).  In so doing, he revealed the Father (John 1:18; 10:30; 14:7, 9-11)

    Son. The life of Jesus is the life of the incarnate Word (John 1:14 etc, etc, etc!!!).

    Spirit. Jesus lived his life in the power of the Spirit.  All that he did was done in the Spirit (e.g., Lk 3:22; 4:1, 14, 18-21; 5:17; John 3:34)

    Crucifixion

    Father. It was the Father’s will that the Son should suffer, die, and drink the cup of wrath, the punishment for our sins (Isaiah 53:4-6, 10; Mark 14:36-37).  While on the cross, Jesus continued to pray to his Father (Luke 23:34), and at the end of his sufferings, he committed his spirit into his Father’s loving hands (Luke 23:46).  The Son went to the cross in order to glorify the Father (John 17:1).

    Son. As a merciful and faithful High Priest, the Son offered himself, shedding his own blood for us on the cross (Heb. 9:11-14).

    Spirit. Christ offered himself to the Father ‘through the eternal Spirit’ (Heb. 9:14).  As he had been throughout his earthly life, during his trial, sufferings, and death, he was sustained by the Spirit, who enabled him to offer himself to the Father.

    Resurrection

    Father. He raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11; Hebrews 5:7; 13:20), and the life Jesus now lives, he lives to God (Romans 6:10).

    Son. The Son is not just passive in his resurrection.  He works with the Father, and takes up his own life again, because the Father has given him this authority (John 10:17-18)

    Spirit. The Father raised the Son by the power of the Spirit whom he had given to dwell in Him (Romans 1:4; 8:9-11; 1 Timothy 3:16)

    Categories: Christology | General | Systematic Theology | Trinity

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  • February 14, 2011 by Matthew Mason

    The Triune Acts Ad Extra: Creation

    The work of the Trinity in creation is shaped by the truth of the maxim, opera ad extra trinitatis indivisa sunt, as well as by the ordered relationships within the immanent Trinity.

    Thus,

    1. Each Person of the Trinity is involved in creation and providence —Father (Gen 1:1; Matt 10:26-30; 11:25; Rom. 8:28;1 Cor 8:6), Son ( Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:2-3), Spirit (Gen. 1:2; 2:7; Ps. 33:6; 104:30).
    2. The Father is the origin of the work of Creation—all things are from him and for him (1 Cor 8:6)—the Trinity creates according to his will.  He is also the telos of creation: all things are created for him; the time will come when the Son will hand all things over to the Father and God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).  Just as Son and Spirit proceed from the Father, and ever and eternally return to him in love, the creation-redemption pattern of exit from and return to God, finds its source and goal in the Father.
    3. The Son is the form of creation—all things are created in him (Col. 1:16); the act of creation is an analogue of the perfect begetting of the Son; and, as he himself possess all the Father’s perfections, as the image, the radiance of the Father’s glory, and the exact imprint of his being, so the creation participates in his perfections in a way appropriate to its nature as creature.
    4. The Spirit, as the one in whom the Son is eternally begotten, who nevertheless also proceeds from Father and Son, is the perfecter of creation, who enters into creation, hovering over the surface of the deep, and moves it day by day from one stage of glory to another.  His work is fundamentally teleological and eschatological.  This means, as we shall see, that his work is supremely Christological in focus.

    Categories: Creation | General | Systematic Theology | Trinity

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  • February 7, 2011 by Matthew Mason

    The Triune Works Ad Extra

    In teaching a class on the Apostles’ Creed, I’ve been pondering the works of God in creation and redemption, and how the way in which we speak of them should be shaped by the doctrine of the Trinity.  The following thoughts are of no higher order than preliminary theological jottings.

    In order to be true to Scripture’s presentation of God as One and Three, and of his external works as united and variegated, when we come to speak of God’s works with respect to creatures, we must put the following rules in place:

    1. Foundationally, God in himself is triune and simple.

    2. Therefore, the external acts of the Trinity are indivisible (or: inseparable) - opera ad extra trinitatis indivisa (or: inseparabilis) sunt.

    3. Therefore, a surface reading of the Creed notwithstanding, we are not to think of the Father creating, before passing everything off to the Son who redeems and then passes on to the Spirit who applies redemption.  The works of the Trinity are not the works of a divine tag team.  Neither are they simply the coordinated activities of three distinct persons.  Rather, the One God creates and redeems.  Each person of the Godhead (n.b., not no person) is involved in all that God does ad extra.

    4. Nevertheless, with this in place, it is appropriate to speak of particular Persons appropriating particular acts

    4.1.  The Father, as fons deitatis, the unbegotten begetter of the Son and breather of the Spirit, the origin and source of the Persons ad intra, is also the fons creationis in the Son by the Spirit.

    4.2. As Son and True Image of the Father, it was fitting for the Son to become incarnate, and so to appropriate the title Redeemer, restorer of the image that Adam defaced.

    4.3. As the bond of love proceeding from Father and Son, it is fitting for the Spirit to be the bond of love between Christ and his bride, uniting him to our humanity in the incarnation, and us to him by faith.  As the one in whom the Son is eternally begotten, it is fitting for him to be the perfecter of redemption, who progressively transforms us into the likeness of the Son.

    5. Moreover, within each of the Trinity’s simple, undivided acts ad extra, there is an order: the Father is the source, the Son is the form, the Spirit is the perfecter.

    6. This order matches their ordered relationships in the immanent Trinity. The Missions ad extra flow from and are shaped by the processions ad intra.[1]

    [1] In my estimation (as in much of this post, following John Webster) Trinitarian theology does best to follow Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae, observing the order of processions—relations—persons—missions.  (This, of course, is the order of being, rather than the order of knowing, which necessarily starts with the missions.)

    Categories: General | Systematic Theology | Trinity

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  • October 19, 2010 by Matthew Mason

    Doctrine Serves Scripture

    In Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch, John Webster has some striking comments on the theological approach of Zacharius Ursinus.

    The familiar modern pattern arranges theology by a four-fold division into biblical, historical, systematic-doctrinal and practical theology sub-disciplines. Ursinus himself mapped the theological task in a quite different way. There are, he says, ‘three parts of the study of Divinity’. First, there is ‘Catechetical institution’, defined as ‘a summary and briefe explication of Christian doctrine’. This is followed by ‘an handling of Common places’, which is differentiated from ‘institution’ not in terms of its subject matter, but in terms of depth. The study of commonplaces covers the same ground as ‘institution’ and differs only in that it offers ‘a larger explication of every point, and of hard questions together with their definitions, divisions, reason and arguments’. Finally, there is ‘the reading and diligent meditation of the Scripture, or holy Writ. And this is the highest degree of the study of Divinity, for which Catechisme and Common places are learned; to wit, that we may come furnished to the reading, understanding, and propounding of the holy Scripture.’

    Three things might be noted about Ursinus’ map. First, the distinctions he draws are not between different sub-disciplines but between different modes of engagement with the same unitary subject. Second, Holy Scripture is not simply one concern of theology, but that towards which all studies in divinity move. Third, the end of studies in divinity is clear: ‘For Catechisme and Common places, as they are taken out of Scripture, and are directed by Scripture as by their rule; so againe they conduct and lead us as it were by the hand into the Scripture.’ (John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch [Cambridge University Press, 2003], 120-1; the paragraph division is mine).



    In Webster’s words,

    …doctrine serves Scripture, rather than the other way round. Scripture does not provide warrants for doctrinal proposals, simply because in Ursinus’ model of theology, there is no such thing as a doctrinal proposal separate from exegesis. The nearest he comes to anything like a formal doctrinal statement is—as we shall see—in the idea of commonplaces. But there is little room in Ursinus’ ‘Oration’ for dogmatics, and still less room for a conception of doctrine as an improvement upon Holy Scripture. There is simply the task of reading Holy Scripture, learning and teaching Scripture in such a way that godliness is promoted and the church more truthfully established as the kingdom of Jesus. (115)

    Strikingly, although it wouldn’t always have been mapped in precisely this way, this kind of integrated, Scripturally focused approach to theology was the common practice of the Church for hundreds of years, not just following the Reformation, but also in the Patristic and Medieval periods, and, more recently in the theology of Karl Barth.

    And there are encouraging signs of some sort of return to this attitude to theology. One thinks of the current renewed interest in theological exegesis, and of the work of Webster himself, and among others, of John Frame, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Peter Leithart among evangelicals. It’s also there to some extent in a more mainline theologian such as Robert Jenson and in the writings of Pope Benedict. It’s certainly helped me frame more clearly what I want to accomplish in the time I devote to theological study and writing.

    Categories: General | John Webster | Systematic Theology | Theological Method | Zacharius Ursinus

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  • March 8, 2010 by Gerald Hiestand

    Pastor-Theologians and Academic Theologians: Toward a Healthy Division of Labor

    I’ve spent the last few weeks reading Robert Jenson’s Systematic Theology. The trinitarian framework that permeates Jenson’s project is fascinating. I’ll need more time (a lot more time!) to sort through all of the implications, but his desire to liberate Christian theology from Greek notions of impassibility and move it toward a (in Jenson’s mind) more biblical notion of God’s ontology has my mind churning in all manners of soteriological directions. But that’s for another time.

    More relevant to the focus of this blog is the extent to which the work of Jenson — a systematic theologian– can be considered “ecclesial” theology according to the SAET’s understanding of ecclesial.  As regular readers of this blog will already know, the SAET is concerned to advance a theology that is more ecclesially sensitive than what is typically found in academic circles. The tendency for academic scholars to suspend their Christian presuppositions and agendas when doing their scholarship is decidedly unhelpful for the church. One sees this sort of thing most often in historical and biblical studies, where the reigning academic methodology does not allow for supernatural presuppositions. Thus historical studies and biblical studies often fail to terminate in theology; little or no effort is made to provide an ecclesially relevant synthesis that advances/protects the message of the church. As George Marsden properly notes, such stricturing is an unnecessary capitulation to secular presuppositions. Much of the SAET’s critique of academic theology has been precisely at just this point.

    But to what extent does this same critique hold true for Christian academic systematicians, who by the very nature of their academic vocation, consciously press toward theological concerns? This is an interesting question and one that I’ve been ruminating on for the past month or so. In as much as the SAET’s vision for the pastor-theologian pushes towards systematics, it’s appropriate to ask if there remains a need for the pastor-theologian when we already have gifted academic theologians like Jenson.

    Jenson is brilliant — a remarkable thinker and scholar.  He is a significant voice in the ecumenical movement, and those familiar with his overall work know that his theology pushes beyond mere academic concerns. His work is centered around the life of the church, and is distinctly and consciously Christian; it is not merely descriptive, but ecclesially prescriptive.  So the basic critique that I’ve leveled against Christian academic scholarship does not obtain with Jenson (or, I suspect, with other trinitarian theologians such as a Guton, David Hart, Pannenberg, Webster, Vanhoozer, etc., none of whom I’ve read extensively.)

    So where does this leave the pastor-theologian? What can a pastor-theologian contribute to orthodox/evangelical theology that is not already being done by academic theologians? In a previous post I had argued for a division of labor between academic scholars (representing their respective narrow guilds) and pastor-theologians. But there is, I now see,  a need for a further division of labor between academic theologians and pastor-theologians. After reading Jenson (and some of Pannenberg) with this question specifically in mind, I’m still convinced the pastor-theologian has something helpful to offer the church’s theology. In a number of subsequent posts I will lay out a preliminary apologetic for the existence of the pastor-theologian against the backdrop of ecclesially sensitive academic theologians.

    Categories: Academic Theology | Ecclesial Theology | Systematic Theology

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  • October 18, 2009 by Gerald Hiestand

    Vanhoozer’s Ten Theses and the Pastor-Theologian as Evangelicalism’s Default Public Intellectual

    Michael Bird posted these ten theses from Kevin Vanhoozer’s paper entitled “Interpreting Scripture between the Rock of Biblical Studies and the Hard Place of Systematic Theology: The State of the Evangelical (Dis)union,” delivered at Gordon-Conwell for the Renewing the Evangelical Mission conference. These have been floating around the blogosphere, but they’re worth posting again here, particularly the closing observation he makes regarding pastor-theologians.

    1. The nature and function of the Bible are insufficiently grasped unless and until we see the Bible as an element in the economy of triune discourse.

    2. An appreciation of the theological nature of the Bible entails a rejection of a methodological atheism that treats the texts as having a “natural history” only.

    3. The message of the Bible is “finally” about the loving power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16), the definitive or final gospel Word of God that comes to brightest light in the word’s final form.

    4. Because God acts in space-time (of Israel, Jesus Christ, and the church), theological interpretation requires thick descriptions that plumb the height and depth of history, not only its length.

    5. Theological interpreters view the historical events recounted in Scripture as ingredients in a unified story ordered by an economy of triune providence.

    6. The Old Testament testifies to the same drama of redemption as the New, hence the church rightly reads both Testaments together, two parts of a single authoritative script.

    7. The Spirit who speaks with magisterial authority in the Scripture speaks with ministerial authority in church tradition.

    8. In an era marked by the conflict of interpretations, there is good reason provisionally to acknowledge the superiority of catholic interpretation.

    9. The end of biblical interpretation is not simply communication – the sharing of information – but communion, a sharing in the light, life, and love of God.

    10. The church is that community where good habits of theological interpretation are best formed and where the fruit of these habits are best exhibited.

    Vanhoozer goes on to write, “Seminary faculties need the courage to be evangelically Protestant for the sake of forming theological interpreters of Scripture able to preach and minister the word. The preacher is a “man on a wire,” whose sermons must walk the tightrope between Scripture and the contemporary situation. I believe that we should preparing our best students for this gospel ministry. The pastor-theologian, I submit, should be evangelicalism’s default public intellectual, with preaching the preferred public mode of theological interpretation of Scripture.”

    Categories: Ecclesial Theology | Kevin Vanhoozer | Pastor-theologian | Systematic Theology

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