Green Baggins

I’m going to have to ask Scott Clark’s forgiveness here for not blogging about my recent trip to Westminster California. All I can say is, here is my attempt to rectify the situation. To put it simply, I had a great time.

I got to go out for lunch with 3 faculty members (Scott Clark, Professor of Church History and historical theology, Joel Kim, Assistant Professor of New Testament, and John Fesko, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology). Now, I’m sure that such ribbing and teasing goes on among many faculties of many seminaries, but I haven’t seen too many professors have such fun together. The fellowship was sweet. I included their respective fields for a very specific reason: these professors weren’t competing against each other, nor did they view their respective fields as competing fields. The collegiality was most refreshing. With the recent faculty problems at WTS Philly, which have been going on for a while now, I did not witness the same across-the-board collegiality. There is certainly some there, but the tension between the “biblical” guys and the “sytematic” guys was palpable when I was there. I hope things are improving at WTS in this regard. I have every reason to believe that it is so.

Of course, what is a seminary visit without books? Scott loaded me down with about 8 or 9 of them (many thanks, Scott! I am especially enjoying Van Drunen’s book on Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms).

One other thing I noticed was that all the faculty offices were on one corridor. I imagine this was intentional, but I still think it is a wonderful thing: collegiality among faculty is greatly increased when it is that easy to duck into another professor’s office. I think every seminary ought to consider this kind of a move.

This subject is much vexed in the scholarly world today. There is practical unanimity on the question of whether biblical theology (and I include in this exegesis) should have an influence on our systematic theology. But whether the road is two-way is a very controversial question. I believe that it is. And I believe that there is biblical support for this assertion. 2 Timothy 1:13 is an indication. Here it is in Greek and then in English.

ὑποτύπωσιν ἔχε ὑγιαινόντων λόγων ὧν παρ’ ἐμοῦ ἤκουσας ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ τῇ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ:

In English translation: Hold to the pattern of healthy words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

The operative word here is ὑποτύπωσιν. Thayer’s lexicon defines it as “the pattern placed before one to be held fast and copied, model.” EDNT simply translates it “the pattern of sound words.” Moulton and Milligan say “sketch in outline,” “the outline without the substance.” It seems clear that there is a pattern of words to follow. Especially if MM are correct in the lack of full content, it seems that there is here the beginning of systematic theology right in the Bible itself. The context confirms this with the “good thing” (τὴν καλὴν παραθήκην) that was committed to Timothy is certainly the same thing as the testimony in verse 8 about Christ Jesus.

Jude 3 is also important in this regard. There is a faith once for all delivered to the saints. It is not continually being delivered. It was once for all (ἅπαξ) delivered. The nature of the heresy described in verse 4 is that of someone coming in to change the message into something else. There is a stability to the faith once for all delivered. It does not change, however freshly new generations might be able to articulate it. There is a difference, however, between new articulation, and new content. We must learn to distinguish the two. If it is once for all delivered, then it is able to be analyzed as to its content. Something that is continually changing is not able to be analyzed. This probably explains why those who prefer the content of ST always to be changing are less than generous with the claims of systematic theology. Especially in Jude, we see the principle that anything new must be compared with what has been once for all delivered. In other words, how do we know whether something is heretical or not? We compare it to what we have received. Since systematic theology can be described quite fairly as a summary of exegetical findings on various topics, it is quite legitimate, then, to say that exegesis must be compared to what we have received once for all.

Of course there are dangers. Of course systematicians can abuse their position of power (whatever that means) and twist the text to fit their own theories (the figure that is always used is the by-now-clicheish Procrustean bed metaphor). Equally problematic, and in my opinion yet more sinister since it is all in the dark, is the equal twisting that happens when an unidentified systematic theology (which everyone has, despite his own naysaying) twists the text under the guise of saying that he is “just letting the text speak for itself.” People love to claim this position, as if it were inherently possible. It isn’t. The old Dutch proverb is quite true and ought to be resurrected (just found this in Carl Trueman’s essay in this Barth volume, p. 7): “Every heretic has his text.” Indeed. Throughout history, every heretic has claimed to “just read the text,” “just let the text speak for itself.” Without the analogy of faith (which is another way of saying systematic theology), there is no way to counter heretics. One could wish that modern day naysayers of systematic theology would remember this before bashing systematic theology.

I just finished reading Kuyper’s masterpiece, Principles of Sacred Theology. Of all the theological encyclopedias that I own, this one is by far the best, for Kuyper recognizes the fact that theology is truly an organism, not a compartmentalized series of specializations. Kuyper also recognized the importance of doing theology in the context of the church and in service to the church. Look at some of these quotations, which desperately need to be heeded today.

Without this sense of service (to the church and to the Holy Spirit, LK) all study becomes subjectivistic, unhistorical, and arrogant, while, on the contrary, the placing of oneself at the service of the truth, i.e. in this instance of the Holy Ghost, banishes all pride, curbs the desire to be interesting by exhibiting new discoveries, feeds the desire of theological fellowship, and thereby sharpens that historic sense which impels the theologian to join himself to that great work of the Holy Spirit effected in past ages, which at most he may help advance a few paces (p. 586).

No man is a theologian in a scientific sense unless he is also a partaker of personal enlightenment (Kuyper means regeneration here, LK) and spiritual experience. For, unless this is the case, his starting-point is wanting, and he has no contact with the principium of theology (Kuyper means Scripture as principium, LK). Neither can the theologian stand outside the church relation, and thus outside of personal union with the churchly confession, for then he finds himself outside the historic process (p. 590).

The theologian should not undervalue the confession of his Church, as if in it a mere opinion presented itself to him over against which, with equal if not with better right, he might place his opinion (emphasis original, p. 591).

A company charged with the public water-works may change the direction of some part of a river-bed by cutting off some needless bend or obstructive turn, but this does not render the company the original creator of the river who causes its waters to flow. In the same way, the scientific theologian may exert a corrective power here and there upon the confessional life of the Church, but this does not constitute him the man who sets this life in motion (p. 591).

It is not lawful, therefore, for him simply to slight this confessional life of the Church in order, while drifting on his own oars, to construct in his own way a new system of knowledge of God. He who undertakes to do this is bound in the end to see his labor stricken with unfruitfulness, or he destroys the churchly life, whose welfare his study ought to further (p. 592).

To be able, however, to accomplish this task, scientific theology must be entirely free in her movement. This, of course, does not imply license. Every study is bound by the nature of its object, and subjected to the laws that govern the activity of our consciousness. But this is so far from a limitation of its liberty, that its very liberty consists in being bound to these laws. The railway train is free, so long as the rails hold its wheels in their embrace. But it becomes unfree, works itself in the ground, and cannot go on as soon as the wheels jump the track (pp. 593-594).

Here is a parting question for my readers: how many theologians do you know that need to heed Kuyper’s words? I can think of dozens without even half trying.

The Enlightenment is responsible, I believe, for the fragmentation of theology into the various disciplines that now view each other with suspicion. I have never seen a good systematics professor feel threatened by exegesis or biblical theology. Quite to the contrary, the professors I had in seminary spent half to two-thirds of their time in exegesis. On the other hand, I wish I had a dollar for every single time I’ve seen in a commentary, “That’s a systematic category, and we can’t talk about that.” If you believed most exegetes today, systematic theology has no place at all in the theological curriculum. Richard Gaffin, however, said it best: “Biblical theology follows the plot line of the Bible, whereas systematic theology is a plot analysis.” But this wedge between biblical theology and systematic theology (of which exegetes seem to me to be utterly unaware: witness the blatant open theism of John Goldingay in his OT theology and in his commentaries, about which no one seems to be commenting) is part of a far larger fragmentation of theology that started with Schleiermacher’s Enlightenment-influenced Kurze Darstellung (translated here), wherein he parceled out theology into various disciplines. Schleiermacher’s work precipitated the great German theological encyclopedias of such men as Hagenbach, Rosenkranz, Rothe, von Hoffmann, Heinrici, Räbiger, as well as the English works of Schaff and Cave.

The problem with this whole system (Hagenbach’s system of division into exegetical, systematic, historical, and practical was much more influential than Schleiermacher’s own of philosophical, historical, and practical, and wound up being decisive in the formation of university faculties, and, later, when the universities banned objective theology in favor of religion, seminaries) is that increasingly different methodologies start competing instead of complementing each other.

What is vitally important for theologians today to recover is the generalist theologian. This was a comment made by Carl Trueman at a talk he gave a year and a half ago at the PCA General Assembly. That is what sparked me to do research into this fascinating area (the interdependence of the various disciplines) that is practically abandoned. The only modern works are by Ebeling, Pannenburg, Farley, and Muller, and the most recent one (Muller) is now showing some signs of age. It is past time for a more recent treatment. There is an historical treatment now of the German university system that has a fairly decent discussion of the theological encyclopedia. However, there is nothing modern in the way of a complete systematic treatment of the subject.

My post here is an expansion of a comment I made over on Biblical Theology.