Transcript Introduction to Systematic Theology REFORMATION THEOLOGY • The three Key Principles of Reformation Theology – Sola Scriptura: Scripture Alone – Sola Fide: By faith alone – Sola.

Introduction to
Systematic
Theology
REFORMATION THEOLOGY
• The three Key Principles of
Reformation Theology
– Sola Scriptura: Scripture Alone
– Sola Fide: By faith alone
– Sola Gratia: By grace alone
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Luther
• Upheld right of the individual conscience under the
authority of Scripture
• Maintained a strict antithesis between the Law and
Gospel:
– the message of condemnation and
– the message of forgiveness
• Championed Justification by Grace through Faith alone
against Roman Catholic notions of human merit
• Upheld a firm Augustinian notion of double Predestination
– Cf. his The Bondage of the Will
– Later modifications during the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy
weakened the official Lutheran position
– Affirmed the enslavement of will even more vigorously than did
Calvin
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Luther
• Luther had a strict view on the inspiration of
Scripture; however
– he also maintained a loose view on the Canon
– he did not like the book of James
• He taught the physical presence of the body of
Christ during Holy Communion
– This is often described by non-Lutherans as
“Consubstantiation”
• Taught a view of the Communicatio Idiomatum in
which the human body of Christ was granted
ubiquity as part of its exaltation
– A necessary implication of his view of the Eucharist
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Luther
• Offered a poorly developed ecclesiology,
largely due to the uncertain and fluid
political circumstances in which he lived
• Melanchthon, Luther’s companion,
produced several helpful editions of the
Loci Communes, the first Protestant
(evangelische) systematic theology text
• Lutheranism, to many,
– a conservative, even incomplete reformation
– “whatever is not forbidden is allowed”
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Luther
• Lutheran accomplishments
– Appeal to Scripture is highly commendable,
– As is the emphasis on justification by grace
through faith
• Finally, Luther’s theology was colored by
his own experiences,
– His struggles and temptations
– Defined his experience of grace and the way
in which he framed his theology
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Luther
• Methodological considerations
– System of dualisms- but no real use of covenant
• Law and Gospel
• Two Kingdoms
• Just and yet a sinner (simul iustus et peccator)
– A theology of the cross- “the cross is all”
– No obvious use of philosophy
• Underlying reliance on late medieval nominalism
– Not systematic- “reason the devil’s whore”
– Biblicist and Augustinian
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Calvin
• Doctrinal developments that went beyond Luther
– Made much use of the Threefold Office of Christ
• Prophet/Priest/King
• The notion of munus triplex existed before Calvin, but was
only developed thoroughly at the time of the Reformation by
Calvin. See G.C. Berkouwer, Work of Christ, 61; Calvin, ICR,
2.15
– The Doctrine of Holy Spirit
• Calvin emphasized that the Spirit always leads in accordance
with the Word. ICR, 1.9
• Called the “theologian of the Holy Spirit” because of the role
of the Spirit in all his theology
– Calvin provided extensive discussion of the doctrines
of Election and Reprobation. ICR, 3.21-24
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Calvin
– Linked Sanctification most closely to Justification
• Spoke of them as twin “graces.” ICR, 3.1ff; especially 3.16.1
– Maintained the Normative use of the Law for the
regenerate, ICR, 2.7.12
• He calls it the “principal use”
– Taught that every believer is a recipient of God’s call,
(Doctrine of Vocation) on his life, ICR, 3.10.6
– Developed a thorough Doctrine of Church, with a wellthought out system of Church Government, ICR, 4.1.710; 4.3
– Argued for the election of God
• Working itself out in terms of covenant, ICR, 3.21
• Maintaining the unity of the covenant through Old and New
Testaments, ICR, 2.11.1ff
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REFORMATION THEOLOGY: Calvin
• Methodological Considerations
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He listened attentively to Scripture,
Rejected the “meteoric speculation of the schoolmen,”
Asserted that God is to be adored, not investigated,
Abandoned the use of the Church Fathers as a final
source of appeal
• For Calvin, theology was to be practical- not to be
divorced from application
• Perhaps the Key Thought was this- Confirming
people in Christ, ICR, 3.6.1
• Covenantal relationship a central theme, ICR, 3.22
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POST-REFORMATION THEOLOGY
• Protestant Scholasticism
– Continuity with the Reformation
• Orientation to the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura
• Not a new period; Reformed doctrines were believed and
taught- a vital and productive period of evangelical theology
• Above all, a period of Confessional development
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Scots Confession
1560
Belgic Confession
1561
Heidelburg Catechism
1563
II Helvetic Confession
1566
Irish Articles
1615
Canons of Dordt
1619
Westminster Confession and Catechisms 1643-7
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POST-REFORMATION THEOLOGY
• Protestant Orthodoxy
– Discontinuity with the Reformation
• Note the differences in tone and style of Calvin’s Institutes of
the Christian Religion and Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic
Theology
– While Calvin’s work betrays its catechetical origins
– Turrettin’s betrays its technical character and polemical stance
• This is true in general, with earlier Reformation writings being
more catechetical, while later writings were more scientific in
structure and apologetic (i.e., contra Roman Catholicism,
Lutheranism, etc.)
• The use of Aristotle was reintroduced by some theologians
• This is often described as a period of Protestant Scholasticism
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POST-REFORMATION THEOLOGY
• Protestant Orthodoxy
– There was an impressive amount of work
– Characterized by a desire to define truth more distinctly
– An extensive and scientific theological vocabulary was
further developed (e.g., the term “Regeneration”; See
Turretin, Institutes, 15.5).
– There was an “Intellectualizing of the Faith”
• A. Schweitzer: “The Reformers confessed their beliefs, but the
later theologians believed their confessions.”
• There was extensive reliance on prooftexting, with Cocceius
being a notable exception!
– Reason prior to revelation
– High Federalism; extensive use of covenant structure,
but not uniformly
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POST-REFORMATION REACTIONS
• Rationalism
– Sufficiency of Reason: “I will believe nothing I cannot
understand”
– Reason supersedes Revelation: All is interpreted by the
criterion of reason. “Man is the measure of all things.”
– Emphasis on Nature: The universe is an orderly realm
which adheres to the law of nature
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Nature the arbiter of what is true, the final court of appeals
What is real is discernible in nature, hence rise of Deism
Deism is the religion discernible in nature’s laws and reason
Contrasted to revealed religion as taught in Scripture and by
the Church
• All dogma was to be judged by its “reasonableness”
– Autonomy: The individual became the final determiner
of truth (Not revelation, not the Church)
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POST-REFORMATION REACTIONS
• Pietism
– Made extensive use of Collegia Pietatis, small groups
– Does not introduce a new type of theology
• Although it has within its principles the seeds of a new
emphasis in theology (a-historical)
– Philipp Jacob Spener was the Father of Pietism
(along with his colleague, August Herman Francke)
• Emerged in the context of Lutheran orthodoxy
• Spener’s groundbreaking work Pia Desideria, “Pious Desires”
– Pietist principles included:
• Inward feelings of faith vs. intellectualizing of faith
• Personal experience of “Regeneration” was emphasized rather
than an objective notion of “Justification”
• Focus was new life as “process” rather than “act” of justification
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POST-REFORMATION REACTIONS
• Pietism
– Recaptured elements of Medieval mysticism; e.g., Paul
Gerhardt, 17th century, translated Bernard of
Clairveaux, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.”
– Pietism influenced Wesley’s Methodism (Zinzendorf,
Bohler, Moravians)
– Pietism often embraced an existential interpretation of
Scripture
• Christian experience turns back on revelation and controls
interpretation of that revelation
• Evaluating Scripture in term’s of experience makes experience
the point of reference: “How can I duplicate that experience?”
• Thus, the outcome: “What does passage mean to me?”
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGY: Roots
• Historicism
– Established canons of scientific history and standards
of historical accuracy that brought into question the
historical integrity and believability of Scripture
• Scientism
– Wherever the Bible presents a picture that is at odds
with modern science, the Bible is not to be believed;
Science over Scripture
• Criticism
– Many documents from classical and medieval periods
were proved to be fraudulent; documents of Scripture
scrutinized with same skeptical perspective. Thus, the
rise of Higher Criticism as a given in biblical studies
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGY: Roots
• Rationalism
– Per Kant, reason is paramount in science (knowledge),
ethics and religion, and in beauty or aesthetics
– Theologians are expected to subject any mysterious
elements in Christianity to the canon of reason
• Tolerationism
– There was no longer a belief in inherent sinfulness,
but an expectation of progress through “advances in
all the sciences”
• Kantianism
– Religion receives an ethical interpretation and is
divorced from revelation and reason
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGY
• Kant: The Dialectic
– God exceeds our experience; one cannot have a
theoretical (or, scientific) knowledge of God
– Only a practical knowledge
• The Noumenal/Phenomenal distinction:
– Noumenal
• Ding-an-sich, “the thing in itself”
• Objective, Unknowable
– Phenomenal
• The thing as experienced,
• As known subject to our categories (Scientific Reason)
• It is impossible to know anything in itself, but
only as it is perceived by the subject mind
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGY
• Kant arrived at a Nature/Freedom dialectic
• Practical Reason
– God a postulate of human consciousness, since we
cannot have direct knowledge of God in himself
through “scientific” (pure reason) means
– Nevertheless, there is practical reason- we have a
sense of what “ought” to be
• Kant: three postulates
– Can not be established by theoretical reason
– Must be assumed because required by the moral
nature of the world- not because of Bible
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• God
• Immortality
• Human Freedom
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGIANS:
• Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
– Background: Reformed pietism, the philosophy of
Immanuel Kant
– Theology was a study of individual faith, religious
experience
• Faith is a matter of feeling, the consciousness of absolute
dependence upon God
• Theology comes from the human consciousness
• God is known only in the light of human experience
– The Bible was viewed as a book of religious
experiences, not as an authoritative revelation
– All religions are valid; Christianity was viewed simply
as the most advanced, the highest in principle and
religious evolution
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGIANS:
• Albrecht Ritschl (A.D. 1822-89)
– Two key writings:
• Critical History of Justification and Reconciliation
• Christian Doctrine of Justification and
Reconciliation
– These volumes were a reaction to the
subjectivism of Schleiermacher and the
individualism of Pietism
• The foundation of faith was sought in historical
Jesus, not in the transcendent Christ
• The focus was on Kingdom of God, ethical
behavior
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CONSCIOUSNESS THEOLOGIANS:
• Albrecht Ritschl, cont.
– Theological characteristics:
• Ritschl attempted to remove dogma from religion
and substitute ethical behavior instead
• Doctrines were viewed merely as judgments of
value based on experience.
– Jesus was considered divine because “he has
value of God for me”
– The emphasis on the Kingdom of God, i.e.,
“Live morally” led naturally to development
of the “Social Gospel”
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Introduction to
Systematic
Theology