I. THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY#
At the outset it is essential to clarify what is meant by the term “Christian theology”. Vhat are the academic and the religious connotations of these words?
First, one should obsetve that the word “theology” is derived from two Greek words
theos, “God,”
logos, “reason,” “order,” “word,” and the like
In modern English usage such etymology is normally taken to mean that “theology” is the ordered consideration or the study of God.
Second, the term “theology” may be used somewhat broadly and somewhat narrowly. Three different usages are especially important for the student of Christian theology.
“Theology,” broadly speaking, can mean the entire curriculum of a theological seminary or divinity school, including everything from biblical archaeology and Hebrew to Christian education and pastoral care.
In more limited fashion the term “theology” can refer to all the Christian doctrines as they are studied individually and in their relation to each other.
In a narrow sense “theology” can be used to refer only to the doctrine of God the Father, thereby excluding other doctrines such as those of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, humankind, and last things.
Third, the use of the term “Christian theology” suggests that there are indeed other types of theology, even as there are other world religions. Some of these are Jewish theology, Muslim theology, Hindu theology, and Baha’i theology.
Fourth, some Christian authors have preferred to use the term “Christian doctrine” instead of the term “Christian theology.” Other theologians have preferred to use the terms “theology” or “Christian theology”. It is also possible to understand “Christian theology” as the academic discipline that studies “Christian doctrine.”
With these etymological and definitional matters addressed, we can now explore in greater detail six basic areas of consideration regarding the nature of Christian theology.
A. THOUGHT CONCERNING THE DIVINE-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP#
Christian theology deals with the “thought side” or the “doctrinal content” of the Christian religion or is a thoughtful consideration of the truths of the divine-human relationship. Such a statement, however, should not imply the utter isolation of the emotional or affectional or of the moral or ethical aspects of Christianity from the doctrinal. It does give priority to thought.
Moreover, to speak of the truths of the God-man relationship does imply that Christian ethics can properly be differentiated from Christian theology in that Christian ethics deals essentially with the human relationships.
Every statement about the doctrines of the Christian religion is in some sense a theological statement, and every Christian who reflects upon and speaks about his faith is in some sense a theologian.
B. CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES#
Christian theology is “such an interpretation of Christianity as a Christian would give.” It is a sympathetic, not an alien, interpretation of the Christian gospel. Christian experience is thus a sine qua non of Christian theology.
Non-Christians may and do study the Christian religion and write about it. The history of religion or phenomenological approach treats Christianity from an outside perspective, not only sometimes without sympathy with its affirmations but at times with antipathy and hostility toward them. It would be a mistake, however, to confine Christian theology to the personal or private beliefs of theologians and or church leaders. There should be an essential interrelatedness among these three - believing, teaching, and confessing. But, one should notice, it is the church, and not merely individual Christians, that is involved in the theological task.
In evangelical churches today, especially those having congregational polity and recognizing the preaching - eaching roles of ordained leadership, the pastor and those who minister with the pastor have the heavy but sacred privilege and responsibility to equip the members of the congregation which they seive for living, witnessing, and serving in today’s world. A major element in that equipping ministry is Christian doctrine.
C. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND THE SCIENCES#
The task and the method of Christian theology are somewhat distinct from the task and the methods of the physical and natural sciences and even of the social sciences.
Before pursuing those distinctions per se, one should raise a prior question: Can Christian theology itself be properly regarded as a “science”?
Christian theology can be called a “science”, only in the sense that it involves classified or systematized knowledge.
Christian theology is not a “science” in the sense of dealing primarily with realities which are “object to weight and measurement”.
The scientific method centers in observation and experimentation. Whereas Christian theology does not deny the validity of such scientific method, even when applied to religious experience, it claims another and transcendent source of knowledge, namely, God’s self-disclosure, or divine revelation.
This claim to divine revelation is rejected by
- Positivists, who see the scientific era as having superseded previous theological and philosophical eras.
- Logical positivists, who find theological utterances to be meaningless language because they are not scientifically verifiable.
- The devotees of scientism, who wish to absolutize the scientific method so as to invalidate any other method of apprehending reality.
At the beginning of the twentieth century a leading Baptist theologian, Edgar Young Mullins (1860-1928), sensitive to the current confrontation between the physical and natural sciences and Christian faith, identified both the principal differences in method between the two and areas of agreement as to the tasks and methods of the two.
He noted four differences:
They deal with different realities (the one primarily material, the other primarily spiritual).
Their modes of knowledge differ (sensory experience versus fellowship with God derived from and consistent with a historical revelation of God).
They deal with different types of causality (transformation of energy versus interaction of persons).
They reach different formulations of their results (laws or mathematical formulae versus unique historical events together with general principles or teachings).
According to Mullins, the sciences and Christian theology agree as to task and method in respect to the following:
Only facts are taken into account.
The realities dealt with are only partially known.
Both seek systematic formulations of what is known.
D. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY#
The task and method of Christian theology, while being similar to that of philosophy, are yet distinct from the latter.
Philosophy is man’s quest for truth. It does not necessarily recognize the validity of truth derived from divine revelation.
Philosophy is concerned with values (ethics, aesthetics), with being (ontology), and with how man knows (epistemology).
These are questions that Christian theology cannot and should not avoid.
Both philosophy and Christian theology seek a total viewpoint from which to draw their conclusions or inferences or make their affirmations.
The Christian theologian is distinctive in that he recognizes and works in the light of the self-disclosure of God to man, supremely in Jesus Christ. Such revelation becomes normative for Christian theology in a way that it does not for philosophy, even though philosophers themselves may be Christians.
E. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY A PRACTICAL DISCIPLINE#
Christian theology, often construed primarily as a theoretical task, is also concerned with the significance and the application of the gospel’s power and its teachings to the lives of human beings, Christians and non-Christians, and to the life and ministry of the churches.
The relation of Christian theology to practical life and ministry may be a two-way street: theology affects practice and practice affects theology.
As a practical discipline Christian theology has certain significant limitations.
- First, although it claims to have received a real knowledge of God, it does not profess to have a complete or peifect knowledge of God, humankind, and destiny.
According to Paul “our knowledge is imperfect” and “now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:9a, 12a, RSV).
- Second, its aim is practical and functional, not purely speculative.
Its task is to help to bring human beings into redemptive fellowship with God and to help them to grow in Godlikeness. The goal is conformity “to the image of God’s Son” (Rom. 8:29). Paul’s epistles had an ethical or practical section as well as a doctrinal section, and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount ended with the parable of the two builders (Matt. 7:24-27).
- Third, Christian theology is, or should be, limited to consistency with the biblical revelation (1 Cor. 4:6).
Theologians who work to transform the Christian faith into some contemporary worldview or philosophy contradict this truth.
F. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: FIXITY AND CHANGE#
Christian theology has an element of finality or fixity and yet at the same time is also subject to change.
Christianity affirms that Jesus is the final or ultimate revelation of God (Heb. 1:1-3). Its subject matter is God’s supreme and sufficient revelation of himself and the redemption of human beings in Jesus Christ. In this sense it has the element of fixity and finality. The Christian claim is that in God’s purpose Jesus Christ will not be transcended or superseded.
Nevertheless, we as Christians have not fully and completely appropriated God’s truth in Christ. God’s truth is always greater and more majestic than our apprehension of it. Hence our statements about ultimate truth are not in themselves ultimate. Furthermore, the task of the Holy Spirit as Revealer and Teacher is not to be ignored (see John 14:26; 16:13-15).
Theology is necessary partly because neglected truth needs to be recovered and old truth needs to be restated in the vernacular of the contemporary age. Creeds and confessions of faith should be understood in the light of both fixity and change.
G. SUMMARY#
In summary, Christian theology, taken to mean the ordered exposition of Christian doctrines, deals with the truths of the divine-human relationship, is such an exposition as would be given by Christians themselves, has tasks and methods that are distinguishable from those of the sciences and of philosophy, is a practical or ministry-oriented discipline, and has aspects both of fixity and of change.
II. THE NECESSITY FOR CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY#
We will state and answer the objections of those who have denied the need for or the importance of Christian theology before we present the evidences for its necessity.
A. DENIALS OF THE NECESSITY FOR CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY#
1. The Pietistic Objection or Denial
Pietists have denied or downplayed the need for Christian theological undertakings.
Christianity is essentially personal piety or religious experience
That such piety is obscured or threatened by doctrinal formulations, whether creeds or otherwise
That such piety gives little significance to such doctrines
Pietists are correct in differentiating second-person religion (prayer and praise) from third-person reflection on religion (theology) but wrong in denigrating the latter.
True Christian piety is not a doctrineless faith. Spiritual awakenings in the modern era have usually had theological foundations such as the doctrines of repentance and regeneration.
2. The Ethical Objection or Denial
Ethicists have denied the importance of and need for Christian theology.
Christianity is essentially the ethical teachings of Jesus
That doctrinal formulations occupy a secondary or even dispensable role
Admittedly “orthodoxy without orthopraxy” can become a defective form of Christianity, but orthodoxy can be coupled with orthopraxy.
3. The Nonpolemical Objection or Denial
The nonpolemicists would invalidate or denigrate the entire Christian theological undertaking.
The history of Christian doctrine has often been characterized by controversy, polemic, bitter antagonisms, and divisions, which in turn have separated and alienated Christians from fellow Christians and churches from churches
This stance is sometimes expressed in terms of the quest for the lowest common doctrinal denominator for Christianity or in forms of a naive ecumenism wherein doctrinal differences are reduced to cultural differences.
One should never deny that there have been some deplorable chapters in the doctrinal history of Christianity. But there have also been some deplorable chapters in the ethical history and in the missionary history of the Christian religion, and that fact has not invalidated the ethical imperatives or the missionary mandate of the Christian gospel.
Moreover, Christian theology is needed for the effective confrontation of non-Christian religions and worldviews quite apart from the history of inter-Christian polemics.
4. The Scientistic or Positivistic Objection or Denial
The positivists of the tradition of August Comte (1798-1857) and those committed to a scientism that absolutizes the scientific method reject the entire Christian theological undertaking.
Christian doctrines as the ideational expressions of Christian beliefs or faith-affirmations do not rest on the methods of scientific observation and verification.
Christian doctrines must be regarded as either quite secondary or as belonging to an age that now has passed and thus viewed with suspicion and/or contempt.
But positivism, it should be noted, is a philosophy that has merely assumed the existence of three ages or stages of human activity (theological, metaphysical, and positive or scientific).
5. The Linguistic Objection or Denial
Some have contended that religious or theological language is so much in need of analysis and critical recasting that theological formulations should be deferred, if not utterly discarded.
The logical positivists early in the last century in effect denied the validity of the theological enterprise by limiting the scope of meaningful language to “mathematicological truths” and “empirical truths”.
More recent language analysts by seeking to clarify language provide a less threatening challenge to the task of theology.
6. The Trivialist Objection or Denial
Some would jettison the entire present theological task.
Christian theology has in the past dealt with very unimportant and to many persons today irrelevant subjects or topics
Today’s world has utterly different concerns and values
Theology, however, deals rather with the ultimate and vital issues of human origins, transcendent reality, sin and punishment, evil and suffering, and life after death. These are not trivial in any human epoch or era.
B. AFFIRMATION OF THE NECESSITY OF THE STUDY AND DISCIPLINE OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY, WITH NOTABLE HISTORICAL EXAMPLES#
1. The Catechetical Reason
Christian theology is necessary as a proper extension of the teaching function of the Christian church or churches.
Several major theological systems have been written in order expressly to fulfill the teaching or catechetical function which belongs to the Christian churches.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) wrote Enchiridion, or On Faith, Hope, and Love (c. 421), the nearest to a treatise on systematic theology.
Compendium of Theology (1272-1273), written by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), deals with faith and hope but does not include love.
John Calvin’s (1509-64) Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536, 1559) follows the basic structure of the Apostles’ Creed yet also has many highly polemical antipapal chapters.
Emil Brunner’s three-volume “Dogmatics” (1946, 1949, 1960) was clearly written to fulfill the catechetical function.
2. The Exegetical Reason
Christian theology is necessary for the integrated formulation of biblical truth. Some theologians have regarded as desirable or useful the systematic, as against the “salvation-history,” formulation of the truths of the biblical revelation.
Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) in his Loci communes rerum theologicarum (“Basic Conceptions of Theological Matters”) (1521, 1555) - the first systematic theological treatise by a Protestant - having discovered themes from the Pauline epistles, sought to bring together biblical motifs.
3. The Homiletical Reason
Christian theology is necessary for
the accurate clarification
the proper undergirding
the helpful amplification of the gospel message
Karl Barth wrote his unfinished thirteen-volume Church Dogmatics (1936-80) vis-a-vis the role of preaching.
This massive work grew out of the author’s concern, first as pastor and later as professor, for the authentic undergirding of the “event” of preaching and the expectancy of church members to hear the Word of God. Moreover, one of Barth’s three forms of the Word of God was that of “the Word of God as preached.”
4. The Polemical Reason
Christian theology is necessary for the defense of Christian truth against error within the church or from quasi-Christian movements.
At times Christian theological formulation has occurred in response to the challenge of error from quasi-Christian religions and as a clarifying reply to and rejection of such “erroneous beliefs.”
Against Heresies (c. 185) by Irenaeus of Lyons (150-202) was a refutation of various Gnostic teachings on the ground that they contradicted the apostolic tradition (Four Gospels and/or the Rule of Faith), together with expositions of various Christian doctrines.
Ulrich Zwingli’s (1484-1531) Commentary on True and False Religion (1525) was both a systematic treatise (part one) and an anti-Roman polemic (part two).
Today, amid the increasing interaction with Christian deviations and major world religions, a major Christian systematic theology could be written with the primary purpose of refuting the truth claims of religious cults and non-Christian religions.
5. The Apologetic Reason
Christian theology is necessary in view of Christianity’s cultural context
in response to the challenge of a leading philosophy in a given era
in response to the entire cultural situation of the time, including prevailing criticisms of Christianity
in response to questions about ultimate reality allegedly posed by humankind
Origen’s (c.185–253) On First Principles (c. 229) was seemingly written in response to the Middle Platonism of Atticus and Albinus.
Thomas Aquinas wrote his unfinished Summa Theologica (1274) partly in response to the challenge of a rediscovered and resurgent Aristotelianism.
F. D. E. Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith (1821), written as a sequel to his Speeches on Religion to Its Cultured Despisers (1799), was partly a response to the prevailing rejection of the Christian religion by many in German society.
Paul Johannes Tillich (1886-1965) in his Systematic Theology (1951, 1957, 1963) used the “method of correlation” by which the questions of contemporary human beings were coupled with answers from revealed truth.
6. The Ethical Reason
Christian theology is necessary as the essential background for the interpretation and application of Christian ethics to personal and social needs and problems.
Although Reinhold Niebuhr disclaimed being a systematic theologian and his Gifford Lectures, The Nature and Destiny of Man (1941, 1943), did not cover all the major Christian doctrines, Niebuhr was a major exemplar of the social ethicist who found himself led increasingly to the theological foundations of Christian ethics.
7. The Dialogic and Missionary Reasons
Christian theology is necessary for the proper encounter of Christianity with other major religions and for the more effective propagation of the Christian gospel among all human beings. It is not yet evident that a Christian systematic theology has been written whose primary purpose is either the dialogic or the missionary factor.
One of the most obvious and important challenges to systematic theology at the beginning of the twenty-first century derives from the dialogic and missionary factors.
III. THE METHODS OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY#
What are the basic methods employed in the study of Christian theology? Are there also other adjunctive methods which are used?
Answers to these questions, which are of a procedural nature, will be quite important for a clear understanding of the Christian theological task.
A. BASIC METHODS#
1. Biblical Theology
Biblical theology is the exposition on the basis of adequate exegesis and proper collation of all pertinent texts of the theological teachings, or doctrines, of the Old and the New Testaments.
Biblical theology has two major divisions: Old Testament theology and New Testament theology. Each of these may be further subdivided according to different types or segments of the biblical writings
The definition just given is not the only proper or valid definition that can be offered of the term “biblical theology”.
First, the term can apply to a movement that “arose in the 1940’s, flourished in the 1950’s, and declined in the 1960’s” and that has subsequently been criticized by authors such as James Barr ( 1924-2006), Brevard Springs Childs (1923-), and James Dick Smart (1906-82).
Second, the term can be used in an evaluative sense to mean any theology that is “based upon and faithful to the teachings of the Bible”.
2. Historical Theology
Historical theology, known also as the history of Christian doctrine, is the exposition of Christian doctrines according to their formulation and defense during the postbiblical history of Christianity.
It can be subdivided:
According to chronological periods (patristic, medieval, Reformation, post-Reformation, and modern).
According to confessional divisions (patristic, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant).
Historical theology deals with the theological decisions of church councils, with creeds and confessions of faith, and with the writings of individual theologians.
3. Systematic Theology
Systematic theology is the orderly exposition of the doctrines of Christianity as its formulator in the context of his/her confessional tradition understands them, according to an integrated and interrelated method.
This method uses the Bible, the Christian tradition, Christian experience, and possibly other sources and hopefully in the idiom of those to whom it is addressed.
Above all, systematic theology should be based on the proper and comprehensive utilization of the materials and results of biblical theology and historical theology.
B. ADJUNCTIVE METHODS#
Whereas the three most basic methods as previously defined involve the interdependence of biblical studies, church history, and theology, other methods of studying Christian theology involve correlations between systematic theology and other disciplines in the theological curriculum.
The latter methods, which are being identified as “adjunctive,” do not so much determine the nature or content of systematic theology as they provide the theological foundations for the other disciplines. These adjunctive methods include the following:
- Philosophical theology, including Christian apologetics
- Theological ethics
- Theology of evangelism
- Theology of mission(s)
- Theology of preaching
- Theology of pastoral care
- Theology of stewardship
- Theology of Christian education
- Theology of worship
- Theology of church music
- Theology of church social work