Character of Theology , livre ebook

© 2005 by John R. Franke
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Preface
1 Doing Theology Today
2 The Subject of Theology
3 The Nature of Theology
4 The Task of Theology
5 The Purpose of Theology
Preface
It is better to be blatant than latent. Over the years I have spent in the classroom, I have discovered a great deal of wisdom in this simple phrase and have tried to conduct my teaching accordingly. It assumes that the long-standing notions of academic neutrality and objectivity are both overrated and unattainable. This does not mean that teachers do not have an obligation to maintain intellectual integrity to the best of their ability and to treat alternative and opposing points of view with fairness and charity. Nor can they come to their intellectual and pedagogical tasks with minds that are not open to the possibility of change. It does assume, however, that teachers, as well as students, come to their work from a particular context and vantage point, with particular opinions and outlooks, and that these shape not only their approach to teaching but its content as well. In light of this state of affairs, it seems that students have a right to know something about the assumptions and perspectives of their teachers at the outset of an intellectual endeavor and that teachers ought to be willing to provide some preliminary disclosure with respect to these matters. For this reason, I always start my courses with a brief account of my ecclesial and theological location and commitments as well as giving some indication as to how these have shaped my perspective on the matters we will be discussing. It would seem that readers are entitled to no less.
Three perspectives on the Christian faith have significantly shaped my Christian identity and my conception of theology: evangelical Protestantism, the Reformed tradition, and ecumenical orthodoxy. From the beginning of my Christian experience, throughout the entire course of my postsecondary educational career, including undergraduate, seminary, and doctoral studies, and over the past twelve years as a faculty member of an evangelical seminary, I have been nurtured and formed by evangelical communities and convictions with an emphasis on the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, sharing the faith through personal witness and evangelism, and the centrality of the Bible for Christian faith and life. Evangelical instincts and intuitions have deeply influenced my sense of what it means to be a Christian to the point that even where I dissent from aspects of North American evangelicalism, I do so for reasons that seem to me, at least, to be very evangelical.
By the time I graduated from Nyack College, I would also have called myself a Calvinist, and while in seminary and graduate school, this broad and fairly generic descriptor ripened into a full-bodied commitment to the ecclesial and confessional tradition of Reformed Protestantism. It was particularly from the Reformed tradition that I learned about the church and its significance for the mission of God in the world. This fueled a strong interest in the history of the church and theology, resulting in an extensive reading program and graduate work in historical theology. What particularly impressed me in this study was the rich diversity of Christian expression arising from the interpretation of Scripture. I also came to appreciate the presence of an ecumenical consensus on certain central matters of the faith that seemed to provide some important common ground in the midst of this diversity. I developed a conviction that ecumenical orthodoxy should inform the work of biblical interpretation and theological reflection as an ongoing conversation partner. These three traditions and perspectives shape and inform my thinking with regard to Christian faith and theology in one way or another and are in evidence throughout this book.
In addition to these theological perspectives, I have also come to use the term postmodern to identify myself. By this I do not mean that I endorse everything that claims to be postmodern, much of which I regard as incompatible with Christian faith. What I do mean is that insofar as a set of general philosophical beliefs, attitudes, and intellectual tendencies related to such matters as epistemology, language, and the nature of reality can be identified as postmodern rather than modern, I find much more affinity with the postmodern perspective and believe that it comports far better with Christian faith than does the modern. Some will object, particularly among evangelicals, that we should not adopt any such preferences, be they modern or postmodern, but instead maintain only a “biblical” outlook. As I hope to show in this book, such a view is simply untenable, and insistence on it will serve only to make us less willing to subject our own beliefs and practices, on the assumption that they are simply biblical, to the critical scrutiny that all views deserve if they are to be truly disciplined by the Word of God. What we do need to remember in the use of postmodern thought is that the intention of theology is never to be conformed to postmodern or any other type of reason but rather to bear faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This book attempts to provide an introduction to the character of theology—its nature, task, and purpose—which accounts for the diversity of the Christian faith, while maintaining a commitment to truth, the authority of Scripture, and ecumenical Christian orthodoxy. In so doing, it seeks to overcome the explicit and/or implicit assumption of much theology that its goal is to discover the right system or model of doctrine taught in Scripture and then to use this as a grid through which to interpret and apply Scripture. In this way of looking at things, all systems and models other than the chosen one are deemed defective and in need of correction. This work seeks to provide an alternative to this way of thinking about theology through the articulation of a nonfoundational and contextual approach that promotes an open and flexible construal of theology that is inherently self-critical and reforming. In light of my history and social location in conservative churches and institutions and to the extent that the approach offered here constitutes a genuine alternative to accepted and established norms for conservative theology, this work may be regarded as postconservative. As such, it seeks to make common cause with postliberal thinkers in the pursuit of the “generous orthodoxy” envisioned by the late Yale theologian Hans Frei, who coined the term to describe an understanding of Christianity that contains elements of both liberal and conservative thought while seeking to move beyond the views of knowledge and certainty that liberals and conservatives hold in common.
This book arises from two particular contexts. The first is the teaching of an introductory course in theology at Biblical Seminary for the past twelve years. Extensive formal and informal interaction with students and colleagues over the years, along with their critical and constructive responses and suggestions concerning the course, have shaped and honed every part of this project. I have learned a great deal from my students and am grateful for their attention, patience, curiosity, and inquisitiveness. The second is the attempt to write about the things I was learning in order to clarify and sharpen my thinking and as a means of extending the conversation through the wider dissemination of the ideas that were emerging in my mind through the process of teaching the class. The most significant of these efforts was my collaboration with Stanley Grenz in the writing of Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). The present book is a sort of prequel to Beyond Foundationalism that introduces, recapitulates, refines, and anticipates its major themes by providing an exposition of the nature, task, and purpose of theology that gives rise to the methodological proposal developed in the earlier work. It is also intended to be more accessible to beginning theology students in college and seminary courses as well as to those in the church who are seeking alternative approaches to theology that will better serve the emerging church of the twenty-first century.
In addition, the book also draws on a number of essays I published in a variety of contexts that are related to its concerns in one way or another. These include the following: “Reforming Theology: Toward a Postmodern Reformed Dogmatics,” Westminster Theological Journal 65, no. 1 (2003): 1–26; “Postmodern and Reformed? A Response to Professors Trueman and Gaff