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Theology

LATC 2017: Dogmatics & Systematic Theology – Scott Swain

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Here are some notes on Scott Swain’s plenary lecture at LATC 2017….

Introduction

Bavinck: Dogmatic Theology is the knowledge God has revealed in his word to the church about the world and creatures as they stand in relation to him.

  • Dogmatics exists because of the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.20170112_203913

Some concerns of Systematic Theology

  • Concerns for unity – NT & OT, Theological Knowledge and other Knowledge
  • Scope – all of scripture
  • Proportion – science of everything, but not about everything
  • Relations – between different areas of Christian theology

B.B. Warfield found that it was necessary to defend the disciplines right to exist. Barth later on concluded that “nothing we are producing now can stand with the achievement of medieval, post-reformation, etc. dogmatics”

  • 20170112_203913Though it hasn’t reached its glory days, it holds some degree of prominence again today

The recent ascendency of ST hasn’t necessarily received a strong welcome from evangelicals. BB Warfield even acknowledges some think that Biblical Theology has replaced ST.

BT’s resistance to letting ST rule has grown. Evangelicals have questioned ST’s ability of ST… it tends to impose a structure not transparently given in scripture. “ST doesn’t encourage the exploration of the Bible’s plotline.”

BT seeks to seek out the rationality and genius of each genre and to ground stuff in unfolding drama of redemptive history.

More recently Missional theology also wonders whether ST needs help. Missional theology would direct ST to attend more to the missional nature of Scripture, and direct itself towards the church’s missional end.

Aim: commend a particular conception of ST as theoretical, contemplative, wisdom.

Thesis One

  • God presents himself to us in his word under the mode of a vision of glory, theological vision is therefore a wonder to be held, a truth to be known, a doctrine to be believed.
    • Vermigli – contemplative wisdom holds first place over practical wisdom
      • The end of Christian godliness is that in us should be repaired that image…. That everyday we may grown in the knowledge of God.
      • Speculative knowledge prior to action

Thesis Two

  • Dogmatic theology has a mixed character, but is still a unity
    • Some disagree – theoretical and practical
    • The unity of the object is not in the material of the object….
    • Because holy scripture speaks of doctrines and morals and describes the principle of unity
  • JI Packer’s illustration of balconeers watching people travelling below. They are onlookers….. travelers, face problems which are essentially practical. They may think over the same area, but their problems differ. The theology of travelers has a theoretical angle. Packer seems to suggest that any concern that unprocessed theory is arcane and uninteresting, engaged in the vice of curiosity.
  • Speculation… a viscous mode of contemplation.
  • We should be anti-speculative but we cannot afford to be anti-theoretical or anti-speculative.
  • Does thinking of theology as “contemplative wisdom” encourage idolatry?
    • Luther: sinful human and the God who justifies
    • Bayer – thinks that it suffers from a totalizing problem, and a de-historicizing problem.
    • With Bayer we can agree that it is susceptible to these mistakes – but the many errors of Hegel aren’t addressed by abandoning ST but modifying it (perhaps under a Pilgrim context)
    • This allows us to insist upon the limited nature of our contemplation
    • Directs us to expecet perfect contemplation only in the beatific vision
    • Some problems w/Bayer – his view undermines God’s self-presentation of his word. Yes God is the justifier, but it does not exhaust God’s action.
  • Dogmatics desrives its character from its primary object: the Triune God
  • Bavinck: God is independent, not only in his existence but in all his attributes and perfections
  • God does not exist for any reason that exists outside of himself. From him and through him and to him are all things
    • Thus while the study of God produces all kinds of practical ends, but it is not exhausted in its service towards practical ends
    • Godliness prepares us for contemplation of God
    • God is Wisdom’s goal

Thesis Three

  • Theology is not a view from nowhere
  • Dogmatic theology occupies itself with God, it is a view of God
  • Theology’s object is twofold – God’s being, wisdom, and power ALSO the unsearchable depth of God’s works
    • It is the thrice holy God almighty and all things relative to God
  • It contemplates objects contemplated by other objects as well, what distinguishes dogmatic theology is not the uniqueness of its objects or what it knows, what distinguishes it is the prespective from which it knows God, humanity and the lilies of the field…
    • From the perspective of God’s self revelation, his naming of humanity, his care for the lilies of the field
  • Dogmatic theology is a view of God from God
    • How? Cuz God has revealed himself to us as he himself is
  • This is why dogmatics does not follow the method of so many science of reasoning from effects to causes. The method of dogmatic theology is to begin from God. That is because that is how God has revealed himself in his word.
  • It is also a view of God from the presence of God
    • Our theology, ectypal, contemplates it from a humbler vantage point. To profess theology is a priestly ministration
  • It is the view of God from God in the presence of God

Thesis Four

  • It takes a systematic shape in commending its work of contemplation
  • What shape might a modest system of dogmatic theology take?
    • Astonished contemplative wonder of Paul, also John’s sketches
  • Following a brief introduction, a system of theology might first treat the depths of the riches of the triune God in his unfathomable being
    • This is not very popular in modern theology
    • “Protestant Theology for Liberals” as an example – it treats God exclusively in relation to creatures.
    • While its true of pilgrim theology that creaturely mediation is a fact, something more is required. Treating God before his relation to creatures takes seriously that God is who he is apart from anyone else. He is who he is.
    • Treating God himself before treating his relation to creatures – allows us to treat his relationship’s mixed nature. One of absolute benevolence, marvelously disinterested interest in us.
    • It may treat secondly, the works of God. Nature, Grace, Glory. Each of these three works are related. Grace restores and perfects nature.
    • Third – connect each individual topic to God as cause. It is due to the fact that strictly speaking, the nature, ends and activities of God’s creatures only exist in relation to God, and therefore creatures can only be understood in relation to God, their supreme author and end.
  • In following this method ST proves itself true to its name as Theology – God, always God from beginning to end (Bavinck)

Dogmatics is a mixed discipline…contemplative understanding of dogmatics might inform the organization of theology. How might such a conception relate to theological and academic disciplines?

Dogmatic theology has the capacity for functioning as an inclusive discipline. Because of its attention to the supreme object and its concern to order all thing in relation to him, it can provide a framework to organize the other disciplines. For these disciplines are finally ordered to the glory of the Triune God and our wellbeing in him.

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Religion, Theology

LATC 2017 – Knowledge Puffs Up, But Love Builds Up

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Some notes on Chris Tilling’s break out session at LATC 2017…

20170112_162633

1 Corinthians 8:1-7

  • Contains the epistemological issue
  • Paul creates the contrast that structures what follows
    • Knowledge puffs up, love builds up
    • Knowledge as possession puffs up, he is not anti-intellectual. He is against a particular way of knowing.
    • Paul articulates a relational/covenantal way of knowing, expressed in our love of God
    • The necessary knowing in 8:2 is expressed as knowing God and being known by God in 8:3 – this is a covenantal knowing
      • Monotheism = within context of covenant refers to a rigorous exclusivity of relationship.
    • In Paul’s idiom covenant and knowledge go hand in hand
  • Verse 4-6 repeat and elaborate the contrast that proceeded
    • Two propositions (Corinthians)
      • We know that no idol in the world really exists
      • There is no God but one
    • Paul’s Response
      • Even though no idol exists (as real divine beings)
      • But for us there is one God the Father, etc.
      • Corresponding w/ love for God, he uses the words of the Shema b/w God and Jesus
      • This is a love-oriented understanding of “knowing”

Paul, The Task of Dogmatics, and “Barthian” Theology

  • Barth means by revelation – a concrete relation to concrete humanity
  • For Barth the criteria and possibility of dogmatics is described in personal terms
    • The Word of God is a success word
    • Revelation is not simply over there, but includes the entire correspondence of man’s side
    • The personal word becomes a relational or participatory one

Stephen Holmes & Katherine Sonderegger

  • Sonderegger
    • If Paul claims knowledge of God is bound up in loving God, and as such cannot be a possession or abstraction
    • In the first couple of chapters of her ST, there is an imposition of non-relational abstract knowledge. She presses the distinction between the who & what of God, and narrative/metaphysics. i.e. to look beyond the genre of scripture to its subject matter
    • Problem – she deploys an abstract concept, speaking of the WHATNESS of God. In contrast to this, Pauline epistemology, ONENESS is not just a brute theological fact, it’s a relational fact explained in relational terms.
    • Sonderegger’s project lands on the wrong side of the Pauline contrast
      • Question – Can you come to know certain things on the “right side” of this contrast, but explain it in such a way that when it is articulated or communicated it looks more like the “wrong side?”
    • Certain theological facts cannot be abstracted/divorced from God’s relationship from his people.
    • “Almost every attempt to articulate a metaphysical truth, lands on the wrong side of the structural contrast.”
  • Stephen Holmes
    • The doctrine of the Trinity is necessarily and precisely “useless” – knowledge of the divine is a highest end, it is the nature of the highest end that it is of no instrumental use.
    • Knowledge of God that is not discipleship/lived is not theological knowing at all, it is a mere puffing up.
    • He is allowing an abstract concept to order his God-talk. It is a means-end schema.
    • Also problematic, Christ is talked about in Scripture as both means and end

Conclusion

  • Paul had a controversy about knowledge /w the Corinthians who had an intellectualized understanding of knowledge, Paul highlighted participations and relational nature of knowledge. Barthian theology resonates deeply with this. It locates theological knowledge in the wider grammar of faith, love, and repentance. Recent trends in theology are losing this Barthian sensibility, and are allowing abstract knowledge to drive them. If this continues unchallenged, the gap b/w Systematic Theology and Biblical studies will continue to widen.
Religion, Theology

LATC 2017: Can I Get a Witness? Analytics, Poetics, and the Mission of Dogmatics – Kevin Vanhoozer

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Here are some lecture notes from Kevin Vanhoozer’s plenary session at LATC 2017kevinvanhoozer1200x1800

A-Introduction – the discourse of dogmatics: saying what is “in Christ”

  • Who God is and what God is doing – “in Christ”
  • For most of the 20th century Dogmatics is in the doghouse
  • Which comes first in dogmatics? A experience, community, language?

 

B-The issue: experiencing/thinking/speaking-of/living-to God

 

1.The Man Who Saw Infiinity

  • “The Man Who Saw Infinity” – Poetics vs. Analytics in Math
    • A feeling for form – poetic sensibility
  • What about dogmatics?
    • Where should we locate it on the spectrum? Analytic or Poetic?
      • Perfect being theology
      • Apophatic theology
      • Cataphatic theology
    • Dogmatics is a response to a prior divine communicative initiative
      • It exists under the domain of the Word
      • The communicative agency of the Triune God is what makes theological reflection possible. Christ is the human surface who mirrors the Father.

 

2.Dogmatic Discourse: the task

  • Barth: Dogmatics about how well church proclamation lines up with Revelation of the Word. The church must embody and proclaim the truth of the gospel. It was a science of the Word of God whose form and content is JC. It is scientific in the sense that it is the object that determines the practice.
  • Bavinck: Distinguishes symbolics from dogmatics (what it actually confesses and what it should confess). Dogmatic theology dogmatizes.
  • Webster: Focus is still on God’s communicative agency. Identity b/w God’s inner and outer works. Theology was under house arrest of modernity. Webster doesn’t deny the ectypal nature of human knowledge of God, yet this does not necessarily result in the deconstruction of dogmatics. Rather it acknowledges the limitations of human intellect, but places them under the sphere of God’s communicative action.

 

3.Dogmatic Discourse: The Challenge

  • Not all God talk constitutes dogmatic discourse
    • e. Jesus’ encounter w/demons. When demons speak. True, but not dogmatics.
  • Dogmatics not only involves words, but a doxastic attitude
  • The Latinization Thesis
    • Language change was crucial in refashioning the mentality of eurpoean thought process
    • Goal: have a humanist schoolboy speak and think like ciceronian Latins
    • Should we say something similar about dogmatics? i.e. to train to speak, write, and think as if they were in the same speech community as Athanasius and Calvin
  • The Globalization Thesis
  • The modern barrier to the thing-in-itself and God-in-himself

D.Dogmatic Discourse, part 1: Analytics

1.Dogmatic Discourse, Part 1:analytics

  • Language as a tool or language as what makes inter-subjectivity possible in the first place
  • Webster sounds an analytic note
    • Dogmatics is a species of reasoning. It involves viewing reason as created, fallen, redeemed. Caught up in an economy of grace. Dogmatic reasoning yields a conceptual representation to what reason has learned from following the exegetical text.
  • Is Webster an analytic theologian?
    • What is AT?
    • Its clear that Webster makes use of conceptual distinctions: i.e. Creator and Creature.
    • Dogmatics begins with economic works, and traces back to God in himself.
    • Webster insists again and again that theology proper is directed towards things unseen, but not necessarily unheard. It offers conceptual analysis of biblical discourse.

2.Linguistic Phenomenology

  • Webster may be a kind of phenomenlogist of the Triune God. Not the “thing in itself” but God in himself. Attempt to ID the essential components of phenomena. Webster even sounds like Husserl when he speaks of reducing elements to their founding principles. Webster – contemplation requires the mind to move through created things to the Trinitarian things themselves.
  • JL Austin compared his method to a phenomenology of ordinary language. Is dogmatics a sort of phenomenology of biblical language? It sort of resembles this.
  • Is analysis the task of dogmatics?

3.Warnings to reducing dogmatics to analytics

  • Webster’s Warning
  • Vos – Biblical theology considers the form and content, Systematic theology examines these same contexts as the material for a human work of classifying and systematizing according to human principles.
  • Webster: says this suggest two problems
    • Makes Bible raw material, hence the idiom of systematic theology drifts away from Scripture. It operates at a distance from the idiom of scripture.
    • Gives rise to the dangerous idea that dogma is an improvement upon Scripture.
    • Webster prefers a more “light-weight” understaning of the dogmatic task

 

E.Dogmatic Discourse, part 2: Poetics:

1.The Poetics of Dogmatics: a brief historical sampling

  • Not just content, but Form
  • David Tracy describes theology as the triumph of logos over theos.
  • Some examples:
    • Gregory of Nazianzus: Poemata Arcama
    • Schleiermacher: Christmas Eve Celebration: A Dialogue
    • Von Balthasar: Theo-Drama
    • Vanhoozer: Theodramatics

2.The Poetics of Dogmatics, part 2: biblical reasoning revisited

  • Webster’s exhortation to not let dogmatics drift away from the idioms of scripture
  • The imagination is a cognitive capacity: its important then to harken to the different ways Scriptures speaks of Christ. Given recent critiques of the designative function of language, we ought to pay more attention the the shaping of a biblical imagination, which includes also forms and content. Stories are not just delivery systems for delivering propositional content. They do something else too.
  • We needs poets and novelists, how much more do we need biblical narrative, to not only cultivate right opinion but also right affections.
  • What’s the moral for dogmatics? Should dogmatic theology look more like a science textbook or a story?
    • Lets not confuse propositional content and form
      • Some forms i.e. analytic excel at form
      • Some forms i.e. narrative excel at content too
    • Lets not think that dogmatics needs to adopt the styles of biblical discourse in order to think biblically
  • Gunton – Dogmas are summary of gospel material
  • Dogmas provide direction for doing, seeing, tasting, everything that is the drama of relation
  • The dogmatic imaginary is the social imaginary of the church generated and governed by the biblical imaginary

F.The Mission of Dogmatic Statements

  • Dogmatic indicatives: statements on a mission
    • Task: say what is happening in the mission of the F, S, HS
    • Dogmatics bears witness to this
    • Saying of what is in Christ, that it is
      • Many forms of IS (metaphorical, eschatoalogical, poetic, eternal)
    • Dogmatics guides the church in saying what “is” in Christ.
    • Dogmatic theologians are part of the cloud of witnesses
  • Dogmatics at Jerusalem: a mission(s) statement
    • Acts 15 – an example, Luke even uses DOGMATA to describe what happened in Acts 15
      • Judgement about “fittingness” of action to what we know is true about what God is doing in Christ
    • Dogmatic discourse and confessional statements
    • Confession is responsive and not spontaneous

G.Conclusion – the discourse of dogmatics and the gestures of discipleship

  • Why is there dogmatics rather than nothing?
  • Importance of including gestures in dogmatic discourse. Saying what IS in Christ involves action too. Action of what is true in Christ. The evangelical task is not just a finger pointing to Christ, but a whole BODY gesturing towards Christ.
  • Gestures are language too.
  • Dogmatics helps the church make Christly gestures.
Book Reviews, Books, Ministry, Religion, Theology

Sanctified by Grace – Book Review

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Last week, as a part of a blog tour, I began a series of blogs on Kent Eiler and Kyle Strobel’s 2014 book – Sanctified by Grace. Today I “officially” wrap things up with my review of the book! (Though I will still be writing about some of the essays in this book in 9780567383433the future) Let me just be upfront with my opinion – this book will serve as a great textbook for any upper-class undergraduate or seminary level systematic theology course.

The Purpose

According to Eiler and Strobel there needs to be a recovery in Christian dogmatics in which Christian rationality is grounded in the movement of the Spirit within the sphere of grace. (7) Also, dogmatics needs to take on the temptation to accept unformed natural reason as the only possible form of “reason” in the academy. (8) Given these two points, Strobel and Eiler have edited a collection of essays that provide a dogmatic account of the Christian life in which doctrine/life and confession/practice are held together. Here is what they have to say in their own words:

The approach is straightforwardly doctrinal – focusing the life of the Christian on the triune God who creates, elects, calls, and redeems. This is the God of grace who gives himself in Jesus Christ and who catches people up in the movement of his Spirit of love.

Overview

The book is broken up into four parts: 1)The Gracious One, 2)The Graces of the Christian Life, 3)The Means of Grace, and 4)The Practices of Grace. Part one is grounded in the idea that an account of the Christian life requires a careful elaboration upon the one who establishes, sustains, and perfects the Christian life. This section includes essays on the Trinity, election, creation/providence, salvation, and sanctification.

Part two treats the way God’s grace works out in the lives of his creatures. It covers the relationship between reconciliation and justification, victory and redemption, as well as mortification and vivification.

Part three takes a look at the channels or instruments by which God’s grace in Christ is offered and set forth. In other words it addresses the means of grace including, Scripture and Sacraments.

The final part covers the “practices of grace.” It takes a “practical turn” (though its all been practical throughout) by addressing the practices of prayer, preaching, forgiveness, and doing theology.

Thoughts…

This book really isn’t typical. Most books on dogmatics aren’t really geared towards helping make sense of our lives as Christians. This book really is dogmatic theology in a different key, its dogmatic theology written with people’s growth in mind. For this reason I think that this book is perfectly suited for upper-class undergraduates. The reason I don’t think it would be a suitable resource for freshmen or sophomores is that many of these essays are written at a high level and would probably be too complex for underclassmen. I think this book would also be very much suited for seminary students. In seminary people often find themselves asking – so what does this have to do with what I’m going to be preaching about in 2-3 years? This book could show seminary students that complex dogmatic discussions really are important for the everyday life of Christians.

All in all this is a great resource for classroom use. In the future I will find myself assigning particular essays or maybe even the whole book for my own classes.

Religion, Theology

Jason Sexton’s Advice to Students – Serve the Church!

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Jason Sexton, a Systematic Theologian who holds positions at USC and Cal State Fullerton and heads up the Theological Engagement with California’s Culture Project, advises those pursuing theological and biblical studies to serve the church consistently and faithfully in order to flourish during their education

Barth, Theology

“Only Two Things are Needed” – The Dogmatic Theology of Karl Barth

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How does one go about doing theology? What sort of tools are needed? A bible, some books, a library, maybe a good search engine like google or Wikipedia (just joking there). Karl Barth gives us an answer to this question –

What do you need to do theology?

According to Barth, dogmatic theology is a part of the work of human knowledge. Because it is a part of the work of human knowledge it demands some things that all fields of human knowledge demand:

1-“It naturally demands the intellectual faculties of attentiveness and concentration, of understanding and appraisal.” (CD 1.1 Section 1.3)

Yes it demands, intellectual rigor, with all the things involved in that. The dogmatic theologian must utilize his intellectual faculties and give himself entirely to this serious task. However this work of human knowledge is quite unlike other ways of acquiring and outlining human knowledge, e.g. physics, biology, history. Here is what makes dogmatic theology unique:

2-“Over and above this (i.e. intellectual rigor), however, it demands Christian faith.” (CD 1.1 Section 1.3)

This is because Christian theology is the work for the Christian church. As Barth says, there is no possibility for Christian theology outside of the Church. Ultimately Christian theology boils down to our talk about God as mediated through our knowledge of him in Christ. How can one talk about God without knowing Christ? To do so would be, as Barth says, “irrelevant and meaningless…. Even in the case of the most exact technical imitation of what the Church does (or says)… it would be idle speculation without any content of knowledge.”

Book Lists, Books, T.F. Torrance, Theology

This Paycheck’s Book Purchases (November 1st)

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I got my EBC paycheck last week, so here are the two books I bought with it….

Theology in Transposition: A Constructive Appraisal of T. F. Torrance – Myk Habets

Theology in Transposition

Books about T.F. Torrance are actually quite rare. As I move towards doing my Th.M I hope to do work on Torrance (or Edwards). Hopefully over the next few years the literature on Torrance will steadily grown. Until then we will have to make due with Elmer Colyer’s book on Torrance and now Myk Habets’ book. Here is the Amazon summary: T. F. Torrance was one of the most significant English–language theologians of the 20th century known extensively for his curatorship of the English translation of Barth’s Church Dogmatics but also for his own prodigious theological scholarship. The complexity and astonishing breadth of Torrance’s output, however, have made assessment and appropriation markedly difficult. This volume seeks to rectify that lack of assessment through careful exposition of the vital centers and interconnections within Torrance’s theology alongside constructive appraisal and critique of his contributions to contemporary theology.

Christology, Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Proceedings of the Los Angeles Theology Conference) – Fred Sanders & Oliver Crisp

LATC 13 book

Last January the first annual LATC was held at Biola University. I was lucky enough to attend the festivities. Festivities is actually the best way to describe this conference. I have never seen this many people this excited for an academic theology conference. We laughed, we cried, and we worshipped (and that was just Alan Torrance’s session)! This is the way theology conferences are supposed to be. Now the plenary lectures plus a few of the breakout sessions are available in paper format. I missed Hunsinger’s talk, so I look forward to reading what he had to say. Here is the Amazon synopsis: A Fresh Look at the Doctrine of Christ,Essential for Modern Theological Work Christology was the central doctrine articulated by the early church councils, and it remains the subject of vigorous theological investigation today. The study of the doctrine of Christ is a field of broad ecumenical convergence, inviting theologians from all denominational settings to fruitful collaborative exploration. In the contemporary setting, it is especially crucial for theologians to investigate the scriptural witness afresh, to retrieve classical criteria and categories from the tradition, and to consider the generative pressure of soteriology for Christology proper. The first annual Los Angeles Theology Conference sought to make a positive contribution to contemporary dogmatics in intentional engagement with the Christian tradition. Christology, Ancient and Modern brings together conference proceedings, surveying the field and articulating the sources, norms, and criteria for constructive theological work in Christology.