At no stage in the history of Christian theology have these conditions been perfectly fulfilled. Present circumstances may be straitened; but we would be unwise to consider ourselves in a worse case than our forebears. Theology is not exiled from its past but its future – from the tranquil order of heaven [sic] where creaturely reason will be free and entirely happy in the knowledge of God. For the present, we have to rough it, grateful for good things and patient with what is irksome. (‘Editorial’, IJST 13/2 (2011): 128)

Theology is the application of God’s Word to all of life.

Kevin Vanhoozer:

The purpose of doctrine is to ensure that those who bear Christ’s name walk in Christ’s way.

Every Christian doctrine ultimately directs us to the love of God and directs us in ways of rightly ordered living.

[The goal of theology is] a saying/doing that demonstrates one’s understanding of what God has done in Jesus Christ. Faith seeks nothing less than a performance understanding.

Donald MacLeod:

Theology exists in order to be applied to the day-to-day problems of the Christian church. Every doctrine has its application . . . .

Who would ever imagine that the response to the glory of the incarnation might be to give to the collection for the poor? Who might imagine that the application of the glories of New Testament Christology might be to stop our quarreling and our divisiveness in the Christian ekklesia?

D. A. Carson:

[I]n addition to holding that Christian beliefs are true and consistent, the Christian, to find comfort in them, must learn how to use them. Christian beliefs are not to be stacked in the warehouse of the mind; they are to be handled and applied to the challenges of life and discipleship.

Otherwise they are incapable of bringing comfort and stability, godliness and courage, humility and joy, holiness and faith . . . .

Above all, many of us have not adequately reflected on the cross. We have been used to thinking of the cross as the means of our salvation; we have not thought much about what it means to take up our cross and die daily, or to fill up the sufferings of Christ.

[Update: On Facebook my friend Brian Parks pointed out similar thoughts at TGC's blog from Dane, on doctrine in the life of Francis Schaeffer.]

Kevin Vanhoozer was our special guest; Doug Sweeney, our regular Second Fellowship advisor, was also in attendance, and both brought the wisdom for us. Several of us gave papers that attempted to make Pumpkin Pie out of The Great Pumpkin, Vanhoozer’s Drama of Doctrine. KV interacted with our responses and spent time reflecting with us on what needs to happen in the theological-pastoral enterprise in which we are all engaged. A few soundbites faithfully (I hope) paraphrased:

“Theology is the study of reality. A theologian is a minister of reality.” Part of the theologian’s task is to challenge and cast down idolatrous counter-realities.

The task of the theologian is that of “public intellectual,” not necessarily in the global, CNN sense, but in the local sense. In a segmented world, pastor-theologians are the ones who can help make sense of the world as a whole. Local attempts to provide an answer to truly challenging questions, i.e., “What is a human being?” and thus make sense of the world cannot in fact do so.

The attempt to answer such questions can be made within the solar systems of economics, social media, medicine and science, politics, journalistic media, etc., and we can learn from such attempts. But wherever the attempt is made reductionism mars the end result. Theology alone gets to say, from a cosmic perspective, “God and reality are more than economics,” and theologians alone are the “Big Picture Specialists.”

“Theology and Christianity is not about getting God into my life, but about me getting into the life and story of God, who is restoring all things and renewing his image.“

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Martin Luther Wearing the Cap of Doctor of Theology

Jason has rightly pointed out one of the benefits of earning a PhD.  But, especially for wannabe ecclesial theologians, these words of Martin Luther are striking:

Doctors of arts, medicine, law and philosophy, can be made by the pope, the emperor, and the university; but be quite sure that no one can make a doctor of Holy Scripture, save only the Holy Ghost from heaven, as Christ says in John vi: ‘They must all be taught of God himself.’ Now the Holy Ghost does not ask after red or brown robes, or what is showy, nor whether a man is young or old, lay or clerical, monastic or secular, virgin or married [we might add: the product of an ivy league graduate school, published in peer reviewed journals, a teacher at a prestigious evangelical seminary, a fellow of SAET...].  Indeed, He once spake by an ass against the prophet that rode on it.  Would God we were worthy that such doctors be given us… (quoted in Karl Barth, CD I/1, 19)

And if you’re interested in contemporary Catholic theology, philosophy, and cultural studies, the always interesting New Blackfriars is offering 30 days of free access to all 91 volumes (1920-2010).

One of the most perplexing problems in Pauline studies is the meaning of the phrase pistis christou. Is Paul speaking of our faith in Christ or of Christ’s own faithfulness toward God? Here noted contemporary New Testament scholars join forces–and lock horns–to shed light on the answer by presenting rigorous exegetical studies from both sides of the debate. They also bring fresh creative proposals to bear on the problem, and place the discussion in the wider spectrum of historical, biblical, and systematic theology.

The most penetrating and comprehensive attempt to date to grapple with the significance of Jesus’ faithfulness and obedience for Christian salvation, and the extent to which it is represented in key biblical texts.

CONTRIBUTORS
University of Durham luminary James D.G. Dunn authors an erudite foreword; and editor Michael Bird introduces the problems and prospects for a New Testament conversation on the topic. Debbie Hunn, Stanley E. Porter, and Andrew W. Pitts contribute essays about the background of the pistis christou discussion. Douglas A. Campbell, R. Barry Matlock, Paul Foster, and Richard Bell clarify Pauline texts in contention. Mark A. Seifrid, Francis Watson, Preston M. Sprinkle, and Ardel B. Caneday explore Pauline exegesis, hermeneutics, and theology. The witness of the wider New Testament is covered by Peter G. Bolt, Willis H. Salier, Bruce A. Lowe, and David deSilva. Finally, Mark W. Elliott and Benjamin Myers offer historical and theological reflections from the church fathers, Karl Barth, and others.

“Catholicism met this challenge by building intellectual walls around the church, thus temporarily dropping out of the story we are tracing here. Protestantism first met it by making the doctrine of scriptural authority into an antecedent basis for theology’s claims. Thus traditional natural arguments for the reliability of Scripture came to bear a new load: we may, it was said, believe Christian doctrine because it is drawn from the Bible, whose truth can be made antecedently plausible. Seventeenth-century Protestant systems’ doctrine of Scripture thus already carried the modern prolegomenal burden.”

Catholicism built walls and retreated from the anti-supernatural claims of modernity’s epistemological Pelagianism; Protestantism granted the modern presupposition and tried to meet it head on via its doctrine of Scripture. Both attempts failed. The epistemological presupposition of modernity never should have been granted in the first place.