On doing theology

I believe all theology must be biblical.  This is a confession of both method and faith.  Methodologically, theology must be drawn from and controlled by the Bible.   Most evangelical Christians insist on this because they believe the Bible bears exclusive authority over the faith and practice of the Church.  But, the moment “belief” is mentioned, faith comes into the picture.   We admit without apology that our method is intertwined with our faith.

Theology is biblical to the degree that it is faithful to the teaching of the Bible.   To be true to the teaching of the Bible, one must look at the text as a historical artifact.  As Leon Morris (New Testament Theology 1986:10) says, “We must make a sincere attempt to find the meaning the authors conveyed when they wrote their books in their own historical situations.”    So, theology should be based upon a historically accurate understanding of the original author’s meaning and intent.   This intertwines faith with science because historical analysis is a scientific endeavor.  Some would say this mixing of faith and science is impossible.  That one cannot view the Bible as a sacred object and at the same time objectively study it as a historical artifact.  This debate has dogged biblical theology since the Eighteenth Century.

In an ideal world, the conflict between faith and science would not exist.  The historical dimension of biblical studies would not conflict with the confessional dimension.  One would build upon the other.  Good historical, grammatical, and linguistic exegesis would lead to an accurate understanding of any Bible book’s teaching about God and his creation.  When carefully synthesized and systematized, the varied and many fruits of these exegetical studies could be formulated into relevant propositions that accurately represent what the Bible says about God and his creation.  With patient, prayerful, and communal reflection on these propositions, the church could develop a growing understanding of how they are to love and serve God in their moment in history.

In this dynamic approach, each step builds upon the previous step.  The exegetical is foundational.  Just as a house’s foundation determines what can be built upon it, the exegetical shapes the philosophical categorization and practical reflection that follows.  The most beneficial theological work is controlled by the Bible, but it is also informed by human experience and philosophy.  The latter enabling it to speak to the hearts and minds of the generation that produced it. 

So, theological work is always “man”-made.  Which means it is always tentative.  God did not reveal theology.  He revealed the material in the Bible, and from that material, people formulate theological propositions and ethical guidelines.  This reality is not problematic; it is genius because it drives inquiry.  God gave His people a form of revelation (the Bible) that forces them to discover his character and His ways in stories about His acts in history.  He makes them dig for His morality in rules and regulations formulated for an ancient, dismantled theocracy.  He does not spoon-feed them but lets them feast on occasional teachings delivered to specific people, very different from them, to discover principles to guide their lives.

Unfortunately, it did not take long in the church's history for this dynamic doing-of-theology to be replaced by rigid “orthodoxy.”  Medieval scholasticism, modern liberalism, reformed dogmatism, dispensational reductionism, and fundamentalist traditionalism all tend to see theological discourse as a way to prove and support their various systems and the organizations built on those systems.  As a result, Christians are not urged to do theology but to learn orthodox propositions and believe that in some way, these, no matter how archaic, speak to the needs and quench the thirst of people today.  The great confessions of the church resulted from doing theology in light of the questions arising in the hearts and minds of people at that time. Shedding biblical light on those questions required significant debate and reflection.  This interaction led to a beautiful insight into the teaching of the Bible.  But time marches on, and in the process, new questions arise.  Questions that need to be subjected to this process of theological reflection.  If this happens, the church today may gain as much insight into the questions it raises as did the believers at Nicaea, Ephesus, Constantinople, Chalcedon, and Dort.  To be faithful to their example, we must do what they did, not just believe what they found.

 From New Testament Biblical Theology, DJ Marshfield, p 4