Toward a Hermeneutic for Systematic Theology (for Protestants)

[SummaScriptura]

Theology, like all areas of systematic thought, should be subject to a consistent methodology. The first step toward a theological frame of mind that is characterized by consistency, should be the establishment of one's hermeneutics of systematic theology.

For me, the golden rule of the hermeneutics of systematic theology should be that theological thinking should be biblical thinking. In this way we will undo much that has been done under the ruberic of systematic theology throughout the centuries that resulted in un-biblical ways of thought.

To put this another way, "if it ain't in the Bible, don't make it doctrine"!

For me, the approach to any subject of theology should be to determine what the Bible says on the subject and to leave it at that. One gathers together the points of truth on a subject from the Bible, applies proper Biblical hermeneutics (a different discipline), and comes up with a full picture of what God has revealed on that subject. Now... leave it alone!!! That's right! Repeat after me these words, hard to say at first, but it will grow on you as you repeat it again and again, WE-DO-NOT-KNOW, THE BIBLE-DOES-NOT-SAY-ANY-MORE-THAN-THAT. There! You're on the right track now. You definitely need the Holy Spirit to be able to do this. Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and this is a call for self-control! A quality that has sorely been lacking from the pursuit of theological thinking throughout history.

By applying this inductive methodology of theological thinking, ie systematic thinking must be biblical thinking, I am able then to discern from the history of His Church, how far we have wandered at times from the injunction, "do not go beyond what is written"! I am able to say before God and the elect angels, we sinned in history when we divided His body in the first great schism during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries. We sinned when we enjoined the secular authorities to kill schismatics on the flimsiest of all pretexts and lay credit to the teaching of Jesus our Lord the doctrine of using the sword against schismatics when He said, "compel them to come in".

By applying this inductive methodology of theological thinking, ie systematic thinking must be biblical thinking, I am able then to discern from the history of His Church, how far the Reformation wandered from its stated goal of reforming the Church back to the Bible, when instead we reformed the Church, or a part of it, back to Augustine!

What say you?

 

[bbbbbbb]

To paraphrase Ecclesiastes 12:12, of the writing of systematic theologies there is no end. I rather doubt there is anything new under the sun in this line. With enough investigation I believe you will find a systematic theology aligned closely, if not perfectly, with your views.

 

[BigNorsk]

Well you are just trying to take too large a group when you consider the Reformation.

You are simply speaking of Lutherans. A great effort is made to be sola Scriptura, that the sole source and norm for doctrine is the scriptures.

We do have traditions and teachings of men but they are recognized as such and understood to be aidiaphora.

In addition even in our doctrines we make an effort to be silent where the Bible is silent.

So for instance many want to argue and argue about the real presence in Communion. Lutheran doctrine is pretty easy to learn really.

Jesus said this is my body and this is my blood. The bread for instance is also though still spoken of as bread and so too the cup.

So you have bread and wine body and blood all present in what could be called a sacramental union.

See how easy it is?

Sometimes stopping where the Bible stops creates a tension in people. For instance it is clear that the Bible teaches that God choses or predestines people to salvation. People jump up and say what about the damned you must explain predestination concerning the damned, well the Bible is silent on that so we are silent on that.

We accept that Jesus died for the sins of the world and don't have to reconcile that with a doctrine of predestination that goes beyond what the Bible teaches.

And so on.

If you'd like to see it in action as far as systematics go. I would say Francis Pieper's "Christian Dogmatics" or John Theodore Mueller's one volume condensation of Pieper's 4 volumes by the same name, "Christian Dogmatics" would be the finest examples.

They even have a nice section explaining the divisions of things all based on the Bible.

You have of course Law and Gospel as one way to divide things. That's quite important but not for this conversation.

There are also the Fundamental Doctrines, those that save, of which the secondary fundamentals are not absolutely necessary. The secondaries are Baptism and Communion, both of which save, but are not absolutely necessary for salvation.

Then there are the non-fundamentals, doctrines which are not the foundations of the faith because they do not convey the forgiveness of sins. Angels would be a good example. No where does scripture tie forgiveness of your sins with the doctrine of angels. Yet, the Bible does teach us about angels.

Then there open questions or theological problems those things which scripture has not answered, or at least not clearly answered.

Then of course there is the level which does not even appear as doctrine because they are not. Those customs or traditions in the church which can have good reason to exist but which are not the teachings of God. You might meet for worship at 10:00 on Sunday morning. That's good because you can all show up at the same time but it is strictly of man.

Anyway, glad to see you've thought things through a bit.

Marv

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

Theology, like all areas of systematic thought, should be subject to a consistent methodology. The first step toward a theological frame of mind that is characterized by consistency, should be the establishment of one's hermeneutics of systematic theology.

For me, the golden rule of the hermeneutics of systematic theology should be that theological thinking should be biblical thinking. In this way we will undo much that has been done under the ruberic of systematic theology throughout the centuries that resulted in un-biblical ways of thought.

To put this another way, "if it ain't in the Bible, don't make it doctrine"!

For me, the approach to any subject of theology should be to determine what the Bible says on the subject and to leave it at that. One gathers together the points of truth on a subject from the Bible, applies proper Biblical hermeneutics (a different discipline), and comes up with a full picture of what God has revealed on that subject. Now... leave it alone!!! That's right! Repeat after me these words, hard to say at first, but it will grow on you as you repeat it again and again, WE-DO-NOT-KNOW, THE BIBLE-DOES-NOT-SAY-ANY-MORE-THAN-THAT. There! You're on the right track now. You definitely need the Holy Spirit to be able to do this. Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and this is a call for self-control! A quality that has sorely been lacking from the pursuit of theological thinking throughout history.

By applying this inductive methodology of theological thinking, ie systematic thinking must be biblical thinking, I am able then to discern from the history of His Church, how far we have wandered at times from the injunction, "do not go beyond what is written"! I am able to say before God and the elect angels, we sinned in history when we divided His body in the first great schism during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries. We sinned when we enjoined the secular authorities to kill schismatics on the flimsiest of all pretexts and lay credit to the teaching of Jesus our Lord the doctrine of using the sword against schismatics when He said, "compel them to come in".

By applying this inductive methodology of theological thinking, ie systematic thinking must be biblical thinking, I am able then to discern from the history of His Church, how far the Reformation wandered from its stated goal of reforming the Church back to the Bible, when instead we reformed the Church, or a part of it, back to Augustine!

What say you?

Ultimately Systematics are going to venture beyond the Bible . . . but that does not mean that the posits are NOT biblical. It just means that, like with Trinity, when the Bible is silent in some areas that when we have enough indirect information to make a good conclusion we can do so with a good amount of trust that what we conclude is biblical.

If you want a "if it aint in the Bible we don't want it" then Biblical theology is the realm to seek. Though Biblical theology and Systematics should be fully reconcileable.

Says me

Says you . . .?

 

[plmarquette]

1 John 4.1......test and see...

1. did the theological assumptions of Calvin, Zwingli, Huss, Luther, Wycliffe, etc. stand up to the test of time...? Are there any holes in their theology?

2. if their hermeneutic is correct (reformers), why did they disagree on the Lord's supper and remain separate in their tenants of faith

 

[BigNorsk]

1 John 4.1......test and see...

1. did the theological assumptions of Calvin, Zwingli, Huss, Luther, Wycliffe, etc. stand up to the test of time...? Are there any holes in their theology?

2. if their hermeneutic is correct (reformers), why did they disagree on the Lord's supper and remain separate in their tenants of faith

The basic reason for disagreement was that even man of the people we call reformers did not stick to scripture.

You have for instance Zwingli's belief that the bread could not be the body of Christ. That was based on philosophy, not scripture. The scripture said it was the body of Christ, but philosophy said a body could not be more than one place at a time. So he outright denied the real presence.

Calvin too turned to philosophy for his answers about the presence but he was more sophisticated and tried to equate spiritual with what was meant by real physical presence. So you see followers of his theology who do it both ways. Either glossing that Christ's presence is "real" because spiritual is real, or they say our faith transports us to heaven.

Such introductions in Reformed theology are relatively mild compared to the Anabaptists. Many of them claimed to not even need a bible but instead they could just rely on special revelation. And so we see Anabaptist theology is fundamentally not limited to scripture. But relies on supposed revelations given to men. They did over time tend toward less radicalism and move to a great extent back to the Bible, but never completely. And so there are disagreements.

The Anglicans are a rather special case, being somewhat separate from the rest of the Reformation, however, you will find that there was a time that Lutheran and Anglican theology was so close it's very difficult to tell them apart. You can find differences today among both Lutherans and Anglicans that make such comparisons more difficult.

So anyway, time and again, when you find differences, if you dig into it, you usually don't find a difference in interpretation as the foundation, but an actual abandonement of the Bible and an extraneous authority becomes the source of disagreement.

What typically happened after the fact was beliefs become ingrained and proof texting becomes quite common. Or people go back and construct things like history to back up their claims. So groups like Landmark Baptists happen. Just one example which I only use because it is so clear to everyone but the Landmark Baptists.