Description: ""What is the purpose of theology for the church?""
Systematic theology provides an inroad into this question by
offering both a method for doing theology and an explanation for
the purpose of that method. However, ""system"" is itself the
product of a specific understanding of knowledge grounded in
rational demonstration of facts. This study attempts to address the
historical debate over when systematic theology began. Much of the
debate is centered on the definition of system and revolves around
the use, or lack thereof, of external philosophical categories or
language. Specific historical figures have been selected to serve
as illustrations of how theological prolegomena functioned in works
prior to and following the influence of Enlightenment thought. In
the early chapters it will be seen that theology was neither
totally saturated with, nor totally devoid of, external
philosophical reference points or programmatic intentions. On the
contrary, both external points of reference and programmatic
intentions have played a role in theology since the church's
inception. In other words, certain elements of system (e.g., logic,
non-contradiction, organization) have played a role in theological
investigation and construction since, at least, the second century.
The last two chapters of this study demonstrate that these may not
be the same influences that have marked post-Enlightenment
systematics. One of the primary characteristics of
pre-Enlightenment theology is its intentional focus on the life of
the church. Theology, like the Scriptures, was often written for
specific circumstances. Enlightenment influences significantly
changed the intentions of much of theology in that theological
knowledge was studied and displayed for the sake of knowledge
itself. The church no longer mattered, or was at best an
afterthought, in the realm of what is now seen as the domain of
academic theology. Endorsements: ""Gale Heide's Timeless Truth in
the Hands of History demonstrates that not only does theology's
content develop and change over time, its very method and
systematic form does as well. And, of course, these two
developments are not unrelated. Heide shows that an understanding
of how the 'system' of theology should be conceived illumines just
how theology's own content is developed at various stages in the
history of theology. For those concerned with how theology has been
done and should be done, this book will provide great stimulation
and direction."" --Bruce A. Ware Professor of Christian Theology
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky
About the Contributor(s): Gale Heide is Academic Dean and Professor
of Theology and Biblical Languages at Montana Bible College in
Bozeman, Montana. He is author of This Is My Father's World (1998),
System and Story (2008), and Domesticated Glory (2010).
General
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