By now it should be evident that systematic theology is both distinguishable from and dependent upon biblical theology and historical theology. Other basic questions, however, need to be raised about systematic theology itself.
First, what is the scope or extent of the discipline of systematic theology?
Second, what sources should and/or do theologians employ in formulating systematic theology?
Third, what major types of Christian systematic theology have been published during the twentieth century?
Answers to these questions should help to make increasingly clear what systematic theology is and how and why systems of Christian theology differ among themselves.
I. THE SCOPE OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY#
The scope of systematic theology may be explored and defined in two parallel ways:
by examining the place of systematic theology within the total theological curriculum.
by identifying the subdivisions or chief components of systematic theology itself.
A. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AND THE THEOLOGICAL CURRICULUM#
Although there is no universally accepted statement or listing of the components of a well-developed theological curriculum, it is possible to approximate such a well-developed curriculum and by doing so to make more evident the role of systematic theology within that curriculum.
Such a curriculum may be identified by the following outline:
Biblical Studies
a. Geography, Archaeology, and History of Bible Lands
b. Biblical Canon
c. Biblical Languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek)
d. Biblical Translations
e. Biblical Criticism (Textual, Historical, Literary, Form, Redaction, and Canonical)
f. Biblical Hermeneutics
g. Biblical Exegesis and InterpretationHistorical-Theological Studies
a. History of Christianity, or Church History
b. History of Christian Missions
c. Biblical Theology
d. Historical Theology
e. Systematic Theology
f. Christian Ethics
g. Christian Apologetics and Philosophical Theology
h. World Religions, or History of Religions
i. Psychology of ReligionMinistry or Practical Studies
a. Preaching, or Homiletics
b. Pastoral Care and Counseling, or Poimenics
c. Evangelism
d. Practice of Missions, or Missiology
e. Worship, or Liturgics
f. Religious Education, or Catechetics
g. Church Administration and Polity
h. Church Music, including Hymnology
i. Church, Community, and Society
1) Applied Social Ethics
2) Church Social Work
3) Church and State
Systematic theology builds on the various biblical disciplines, on church history, and on biblical and historical theology.
It shares its systematic task with Christian ethics, Christian apologetics and philosophical theology, world religions, and psychology ofreligion.
It furnishes much of the foundation for ministry studies and is in turn acted upon by the needs and findings of Christian ministry.
Systematic theology occupies a central and strategic place in the theological curriculum.
B. SUBDMSIONS OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY#
The scope of systematic theology may be perceived not only by seeing its place in the larger theological curriculum but also by identifying its major subdivisions.
Again, one finds no universally accepted list of these subdivisions, but treatises on systematic theology generally treat the following topics:
- Prolegomena (methods, presuppositions, sources, etc.)
- Revelation, the Bible, and authority (occasionally called bibliology)
- God: attributes, Father, Trinity (theology)
- World: creation, providence, supramundane beings (ktisiology, cosmology, angelology, demonology)
- Human beings as creatures (anthropology)
- Human beings as sinners (hamartiology)
- Jesus Christ: person and work (Christology; sometimes also atonement)
- Holy Spirit: person and work (pneumatology)
- Salvation or reconciliation or Christian life: (soteriology)
- Church: nature, membership, polity, baptism, Lord’s Supper, worship, mission, ministry, etc. (ecclesiology)
- Last things: death, after-death, resurrection, kingdom of God, second coming, final judgment, hell, heaven (eschatology)
II. THE SOURCES FOR SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY#
To what sources do systematic theologians turn for the content of their systems? To what sources ought systematic theologians to turn for the content of their systems?
What rank, or order of priority, does one find among the sources for books on systematic theology? What rank, or order of priority, should there be among the sources for systematic theology?
Answers to these questions are important both for the methodology of systematic theology and for the content of specific theological systems.
A. THE BIBLE: THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENTS#
Almost all Protestant and certain Roman Catholic theologians name the Bible, or the Holy Scriptures, as the source having the highest rank or priority for systematic theology. For Protestants this is part of the heritage of the Protestant Reformation.
Yet to affirm this priority for the Bible is not necessarily to adhere to it or follow it consistently in practice in writing one’s system.
In specifying the Bible as the primary source for systematic theology, some would place the New Testament above the Old Testament, thus indicating the higher authority of the New Testament.
B. THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, OR TRADITION#
The Roman Catholic Church, specifically from the Council of Trent onward, has upheld the twofold authority of the canonical Scriptures and unwritten apostolic traditions. At Vatican Council II there was some effort to redefine these two authorities as forming one source, not two.
Eastern Orthodoxy continues to hold to the special authority of seven ecumenical councils, extending from Nicaea I (325) through Nicaea II (787).
Especially on the doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Jesus Christ Protestants as well as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have relied upon the formulations of the patristic age, especially the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and the Symbol of Chalcedon.
Various Protestant confessions, or denominations, especially the Lutheran, the Reformed, and the Anglican, have considered their own particular Reformation confessions of faith as important sources for systematic theology.
Even in those denominations which strongly emphasize the primacy of the Bible there is theological indebtedness, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged, to confessions of faith, theological movements, and/or theologians within the postbiblical history of Christianity.
C. CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE OR PIETY#
Some Christian theologians have regarded and utilized Christian experience, whether individual or collective, as a source of systematic theology.
Especially was this true of F. D. E. Schleiermacher, who defined “piety” or “religion” as “the consciousness of being absolutely dependent, or, which is the same thing, of being in relation to God”.
E. Y. Mullins gave considerable attention to Christian experience in his systematic theology.
If indeed Christian experience is rightly to be reckoned as a source for Christian theology, what ought to be its rank? Presumably its authority should be secondary to the supreme authority of the Bible.
But is it also less authoritative than postbiblical Christian tradition, and does it therefore have a tertiary position? Many would no doubt concur with this, but liberal Protestants with their emphasis on reason or experience and Pentecostals with their emphasis on religious emotions and charismatic gifts would tend to place experience above tradition.
D. RESOURCES OF CULTURE: PHILOSOPHICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, POLITICAL, AND SOCIO-ETHICAL MOVEMENTS#
Christian theologians have often been significantly influenced by movements of thought within their rultures. This has been true even when such movements of thought have not been formally acknowledged as sources for systematic theology.
Not a few of the Church Fathers were influenced by Neo-Platonism
Thomas Aquinas was influenced by the rediscovered Aristotle
Eighteenth-century theologians by the Enlightenment
Nineteenth-century Christian theologians by Charles Darwin (1809-82)
Late twentieth-century liberation theologians by Marxist-Leninism.
Interaction with such movements of thought at times involved drawing concepts, insights, and/or terms from the movements.
Other Christian thinkers have protested against such influence and such borrowing, or at least the excessive employment of such, but even those who have so protested have not escaped the influence of such movements. Examples include the influence of Stoicism upon Tertullian (c. 155-after 220) and the influence of existentialism upon the early career of Karl Barth.
Most Christian theologians would place the resources of culture below the Scriptures, tradition, and Christian experience in the list of sources for systematic theology.
E. NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS#
The consideration of non-Christian religions, excluding the faith of the Old Testament, as a source for Christian theology is seemingly a modem phenomenon, probably augmented by the interreligious dialogue of the twentieth century.
Other Christian theologians, while teaching the revelatory nature of the phenomenon of religions, deny that non-Christian religions per se are a valid source for Christian systematic theology.
The sources which have been used for systematic theology and the ranking of these by various theologians can be readily identified. Questions about the oughtness of the sources are much more complex; variations as to sources may be the key to variations in the content of systematic theologies.
III. SOME TYPES OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGIES#
The various types of Christian systematic theologies produced during the twentieth century can be classified in at least three ways.
One of these methods depends on how the author has utilized and ranked the major sources for systematic theology.
A second method is classification according to the denomination or confession with which the author and his book are identified.
A third method pertains to the major theological and/or ecclesiastical movements during the twentieth century that the systematic theology reflects or represents.
A. TYPES IN RELATION TO SOURCES#
Any of the major sources commonly employed by systematic theologians or any combination of these can be so employed as to produce a distinct type of Christian theological system, even to the extent of becoming what some would reckon to be a distorted formulation of Christian truth.
1. Non-Christian Religions
An overemphasis on non-Christian religions as a major source for Christian theology has not yet resulted in a major Christian systematic theology.
The approach to non-Christian religions which resulted in the denial of the absoluteness of the Christian revelation was pursued by Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), a representative of the history of religions school. However, Troeltsch’s own lectures on Christian dogmatics show little influence from non-Christian religions.
2. Culture or Reason
Systematic theology can be written with a heavy dependence upon the resources of contemporary culture. This effort is sometimes undertaken with the announced purpose of providing answers to major questions posed in the culture by drawing from the Christian revelation of God.
Critics of this method often allege that biblical truth is eclipsed by the concerns and concepts germane to a specific culture. Representative of this use of sources was Paul Tillich in his three-volume Systematic Theology.
3. Christian Experience
Systematic theology can give major attention to Christian experience:
by regarding religion as basically the experience of dependence on God.
by reckoning Christian experience as an important channel for, if not source of, Christian doctrine.
Illustrative of the former is The Christian Faith by Schleiermacher, who sought to shift from religion as thinking or religion as doing to religion as feeling, especially the feeling of dependence upon God.
Representative of the latter trend was Edgar Young Mullins, who in The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression made a place for Christian experience but under the authority of the Bible.
4. Church Tradition
Systematic theology also can be written by giving priority to the formulations of Christian doctrine which have received ecclesial approval during the course of the history of Christianity. As a result creeds, confessions of faith, and decisions of church councils and of church leaders are seen as establishing the norms or the conclusions for systematic theology.
Ludwig Ott (1906-), a Roman Catholic dogmatician, in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, represented the ecclesial or traditional method. Ott identified the specific level of ecclesiastical authority for each major doctrinal teaching.
5. The Bible
Systematic theology can give such attention to biblical materials that other sources for systematic theology are bypassed or deemphasized.
Accordingly, systematic theology is held to be the compilation of biblical doctrines devoid of other influences, even though the culture and/or the ecclesial tradition may have actually shaped the formulation.
Illustrative of this type of systematic theology were:
Charles Hodge’s (1797-1878) Systematic Theology
Lewis Sperry Chafer’s (1871-1952) Systematic Theology
Wayne Arden Grudem’s (1948-) Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.
B. TYPES IN RELATION TO DENOMINATIONS OR CONFESSIONS#
Systematic theologies have been written in such a manner as to reflect or represent the theologies of particular Christian denominations or confessions.
1. Roman Catholic
The massive work by Roman Catholic theologians during the twentieth century has often not issued in “systematic theologies” or “dogmatic theologies, " as those terms are customarily defined.
The most elaborate work that approximates a systematic theology was Karl Rahner’s (1904-84) Theological Investigations, 17 volumes by a Jesuit theologian that may be described more aptly as a collection of the author’s extensive writings than as a systematic or dogmatic theology.
Hans Kung (1928-) has written major monographs on the existence of God, justification, the Christian life, the church, infallibility, and eternal life but not a systematic theology.
Michael Schmaus (1897-?) did produce a dogmatic theology, and Frans Jozef van Beeck, S.J., (1930-) the first volume of a “contemporary Catholic systematic theology.”
For the first time since the sixteenth century a universal catechism has been issued under Pope John Paul II (1920-2005).
2. Anglican-Episcopal
The production of systematic or dogmatic theologies has not always been as prevalent in the Anglican tradition as in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed, but there have been such treatises during the twentieth century.
Handley Carr Glyn Moule (1841-1920) of the Evangelical wing produced a brief volume in 1905.
Francis Joseph Hall (1857-1932) of the Anglo-Catholic heritage produced ten large volumes between 1907 and 1922.
John Macquarrie (1919-) completed a major one-volume system and a brief theology for lay persons.
In the Broad church tradition, John Arthur Thomas Robinson (1919-83) wrote monographs on God, the body, the person of Christ, the Christian life, the Lord’s Supper, and last things.
In the Evangelical tradition, James Innell Packer (1926-) wrote a concise doctrinal summary as well as several monographs on the Bible and the Christian life. Alister Edgar McGrath (1953-) authored Christian Theology: An Introduction, with major attention to historical theology, as well as monographs on justification, the nature of doctrine, and other topics.
3. Lutheran
Continental Lutheran theologians have produced three major systematic theologies: one in Sweden, one in Denmark, and one in Germany.
Gustaf Emanuel Hildebrand Aulen (1879-1977) wrote The Faith of the Christian Church
Regin Prenter was the author of Creation and Redemption
Helmut Theilicke (1908-86) produced a three-volume work, The Evangelical Faith.
From the American Missouri Synod came Franz August Otto Pieper’s (1852-1931) Christian Dogmatics, in three volumes, and a one-volume “epitome” of Pieper’s dogmatics by John Theodore Mueller (1885-1967).
The most recent works in Lutheran dogmatics have been a symposium edited by Carl E. Braaten (1929-) and Robert William Jenson (1930-)
Braaten’s Principles of Lutheran Theology
Jenson’s two volumes of a projected Systematic Theology
4. Reformed and Presbyterian
Authors representing the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition have made major contributions to Christian systematic theology during the twentieth century.
Most notable of all these has been Karl Barth’s 13-volume unfinished Church Dogmatics, which may be ranked with the systems of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin.
Two major Reformed multi-volume systematic theologies from Continental authors began to appear in English during the 1950s:
The three-volume “Dogmatics” by Emil Brunner of Switzerland
The 14-volume “Studies in Dogmatics” by Gerrit Comelis Berkouwer (1903-96) of the Netherlands
5. Mennonite
Three works that can be called systematic theologies have been produced by Mennonites in the United States.
Daniel Kauffman (1865-1944) edited a more, popular book in 1914
John Christian Wenger (1910-1995) wrote a more advanced treatise in 1954
Clyde Norman Kraus (1924-) has recently authored a Christologically oriented system
6. Baptist
Baptist contributions to systematic theology during the twentieth century have often been one-volume systems.
E. Y. Mullins’s The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression appeared in 1917.
For college textbook usage,
Josiah Blake Tidwell (1870-1946) produced Christian Teachings
William Wilson Stevens (1914-78) wrote Doctrines of the Christian Religion
Dallas M. Roark (1931-) issued The Christian Faith
F. Leroy Forlines, a Free Will Baptist, wrote Systematics
Abda Johnson Conyers, III (1944-2004) contributed A Basic Christian Theology and monographs on eschatology
Another major system written by Dale Moody (1915-92) was entitled The Word of Truth.
A theology for those who minister to children and a theology addressed to the aging came from the pen of William Lawrence Hendricks (1929-2002).
James William McClendon, Jr. (1924-2001) has produced two volumes, those concerning ethics and doctrine, of a projected three-volume work on beliefs common to Christians of the believer’s baptism heritage.
7. Brethren
One-volume introductions were written by several Church of the Brethren authors: Daniel Webster Kurtz (1879-1949), John Henry Moore (1846-1935), Otho Wmger (1877-1946), Harry L. Smith (1897-?), and William McKinley Beahm (1896-1964).
James M. Tombaugh’s (1857-1932) brief volume and J. Allen Miller’s (1866-1935) lectures on systematic theology, published posthumously in 1946, represented the Brethren Church.
Louis Sylvester Bauman’s (1875-1950) monograph 131 represented the Grace Brethren.
8. Methodist
Major Methodist systematic theologies were produced at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the flow was diminished during the later decades of the century.
Henry Clay Sheldon (1845-1928) wrote System of Christian Doctrine
Milton Spenser Terry (1840-1914) wrote Biblical Dogmatics
Albert Cornelius Knudson (1873-1953) authored two volumes which, taken together, constitute a systematic theology.
Other general works were produced by William Atwell Spurrier, Donald E. Demaray, Georgia Elma Harkness (1891-1974), and Paul A Mickey (1937-).
John Lawson (1909-) undertook a restatement of Wesleyan theology, as did a two-volume symposium edited by Charles Webb Carter (1905-96).
9. Adventist
A recently issued volume by a Seventh-day Adventist theologian, Richard Rice, seems to be the only instance of a systematic theology written within the Seventh-day Adventist heritage.
Alva G. Huffer’s system reflects the Church of God General Conference (Oregon, Illinois), also called the Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith.
10. Holiness
Bible Theology, written by William B. Godbey (1833-1920), seems to reflect the independent Holiness movement.
From the Christian and Missionary Alliance came a monograph by George Palmer Pardington (1866-1915).
A Free Methodist author, Harry Edward Jessop (1884-?), wrote a handbook on holiness.
The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) has made considerable use of a system by Russell Raymond Byrum (1888-?).
From the Church of the Nazarene have come:
A two-volume system by Aaron Merritt Hills (1848-1935)
A major three-volume system by Henry Orton Wiley (1877-1961)
A symposium, a one-volume system by Joseph Kenneth Grider (1921-)
A one-volume system by Hubert Ray Dunning (1926-)
An introduction by William Marvin Greathouse (1919-) and Dunning
11. Pentecostal/Charismatic
Assemblies of God authors, Myer Pearlman (1898-1943) and Ernest Swing Williams (1885-1981) produced, respectively, a handbook on biblical doctrines and a three-volume system.
John Rodman Williams (1918-) has issued a three-volume systematic theology out of the charismatic renewal.
C. TYPES IN RELATION TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY MOVEMENTS#
Systematic theologies have been written not only from presuppositions as to the proper source or sources and from particular denominational or confessional contexts but also as reflective of particular theological movements.
1. Ritschlianism
The theology of the German Albrecht Ritschl issued in two groups of followers, a left wing and a right wing.
The two-volume dogmatics by Theodor Haering (1848-1928) 158 was representative of the right wing
The dogmatics by Wilhelm Herrmann (1846-1922) 159 of the left wing
2. Modernism
Shailer Mathews (1863-1941) in his The Faith of Modernism relied upon the scientific method for the validation of religious truth.
Douglas Clyde Macintosh (1877-1948) was an exponent of experience-based theology.
3. Liberalism
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), who wrote monographs on the Bible, on prayer, and on immortality, epitomized theological liberalism as a reconstruction of the old faith, although he did not produce a systematic theology.
In later years Lotan Harold DeWolf (1905-86), a Methodist, and Langdon Brown Gilkey, a Baptist, expounded and/or defended theological liberalism.
4. Fundamentalism
Ruben Archer Torrey ( 1856-1928) wrote on the fundamentals, and B. B. Warfield gave attention to the doctrine of the Scriptures.
Although he did not write a systematic theology, John Gresham Machen (1881-1937) embodied the Fundamentalism of the 1920s, although not necessarily that of later decades.
The popular books by John Richard Rice (1895-1980) were expressive of Fundamentalism after the midpoint of the century, although he did not write a systematic theology.
5. Neoorthodoxy
The works of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and John S. Whale, previously cited, were representative of Neoorthodoxy, as were Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man and the writings of William Edward Hordern (1920-).
6. Existentialism
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884-1976) was most representative of the impact of existentialism upon Christian theology, although his contribution was made through a theology of the New Testament rather than through systematic theology.
A Dominican theologian, G. M.A. Jansen, clearly espoused an existentialist or “phenomenological” method.
7. Ecumenism
Walter Marshall Horton (1895-1966) attempted to articulate a Christian theology which would serve the cause of ecumenism by giving to the universal human questions ecumenical Christian answers.
Willem Adolph Visser’t Hooft (1900-85), a leader in the Ecumenical Movement, produced monographs on the fatherhood of God and the kingship of Christ but not a systematic theology.
Thomas Clark Oden (1931-), a Methodist, has completed a three-volume ecumenical system by utilizing “constructive arguments from two millennia of ecumenical Christian thinking”.
8. Historic Premillennialism
Perry Braxton Fitzwater (1871-1957), Harold Lindsell (1913-98) CharlesJahleel Woodbridge (1902-95), and James Oliver Buswell, Jr. (1895-1977), wrote systematic theologies which espoused the historic premillennial view of the return of Jesus Christ.
The same is true of the more recent systems by Dale Moody and Millard J. Erickson, previously cited.
George Eldon Ladd (1911-82) through a theology of the New Testament and other monographs and George Raymond Beasley-Murray (1916-2000) through monographs have set forth historic premillennialism.
9. Amillennialism (Augustinian, Kliefothite)
The systems by Louis Berkhof, Milton S. Terry, R.R. Byrum, and T. P. Stafford and the later writing of Walter T. Conner, previously cited, were favorable to amillennialism, as was the system by Albertus Pieters (1869-1955).
Monographs pertinent to and supportive of amillennialism were written by Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949), Oswald Thompson Allis (1880-1973), William Hendriksen (1900-82), Floyd Eugene Hamilton (1890-?), George Lewis Murray (1896-?), Russell Bradley Jones (1894-1986), Ray Summers (1910-92), and Anthony A. Hoekema (1913-88).
10. Postmillennialism (Whitbyite)
Augustus H. Strong in his Systematic Theology, previously cited, was favorable to postmillennialism.
Loraine Boettner (1901-90) expounded it in a monograph, and James Herny Snowden (1852-1936), Roderick Campbell, Jacob Marcellus Kik (1903-65), Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001), and John Jefferson Davis (1946–) were favorable.
11. Dispensational Premillennialism
Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology, previously cited, was expressive of dispensational premillennialism.
Other systems committed to this position include those of William Evans (1870-1950), Emery Herbert Bancroft (1877-1944), 181 Henry Clarence Thiessen (1885-1947), Richard H. Bube (1927-), Charles Caldwell Ryrie (1925-), and Charles F. Baker.
Eschatological monographs by John Flipse Walvoord ( 1910-2002), Charles Lee Feinberg (1909-95), and J. Dwight Pentecost (1915-) have reflected dispensationalism.
Recent progressive dispensationalism has been espoused by Craig A. Blaising (1949-), Darrell L. Bock, and Robert L. Saucy (1930-), and the older dispensationalism by Robert Paul Lightner (1931-).
12. Process Theology
Theologians who have applied the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles F. Hartshome to Christian doctrines have included William Norman Pittenger (1905-97), John Boswell Cobb, Jr. (1925-), and David Ray Griffin (1939-).
13. European Eschatological Theologies
Two European Protestant theologians, Jurgen Moltmann (1926-) and Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928-), have given impetus to eschatologically oriented theologies
The former giving attention to contemporary movements for social change.
The latter moving Christianity’s historical rootage from “holy history” to general or secular history.
Pannenberg has completed a three-volume systematic theology.
14. Liberation Theology
Theologians, especially in Latin America, who have made the theme of economic and political liberation the major or controlling motif in Christian theology.
Black theology in the United States is a specialized form of liberation theology and is exhibited in the writings of James Deotis Roberts (1927-), James H. Cone (1938-), Warren Raymond Traynham (1936-), and William Ronald Jones.
Feminist theology, with its concerns about male language for God, has been represented by the writings of Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-), Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (1938-), and Sallie McFague (1933-).
Liberation theology has also been undertaken in Asia by a Jesuit theologian, Aloysius Pieris.
The structure of books relative of liberation theology tends to be quite different from traditional approaches to systematic theology in the Western Christian tradition.
15. Narrative Theology
A recently employed method of approaching systematic theology has been the narrative method, but its precise nature is not altogether clear.
One form attempts to set forth Christian doctrines in a narrative framework, which method resembles that of biblical theology with its focus on the mighty acts of God.
Another form seeks to utilize the life stories or religious experiences of key Christian leaders as a teaching device to show how beliefs have shaped lives.
Still others, notably Gabriel Joseph Fackre (1926-), would seek in some way to utilize narrative as a leading motif in the writing of systematic theology.
16. Conservative Evangelicalism
The systems by G. C. Berkouwer, by Millard J. Erickson, and by Bruce A Demarest and Gordon R. Lewis, previously cited, are to be reckoned as expressive of the views of conservative evangelicals, although other earlier systems could also be so classified.
The same may be said for the monographs by John R. W. Stott, James I. Packer, and Michael Green, also previously cited.
The systems by Grenz and by Grudem, previously cited, represent evangelicalism at each end of the spectrum, and Erickson has produced monographs.
Some books on systematic theology do not lend themselves readily to such classification as has been attempted and seem either to be sui generis or to belong to a comprehensive category of Protestant theology.