Re: [asa] on "baconianism" & American evangelicals

On 3/7/07, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> Rich -
>
> Thanks for your suggestion on getting around the Outlook formatting. I'm
> still puzzled on how to work *with* it. But now something more
> substantive on your comments below.
>
> Scripture is to be the basis for evangelical theology but it is not just
> bare "facts" or "raw data." As witness to God's revelation it already
> contains theological reflection on the historical phenomena which constitute
> that revelation. Moreover, it contains theological reflection from
> different viewpoints or, to put it in a way that may be troubling for some
> Christians, it contains different theologies, such as pro- & anti- monarchy
> sources in I Samuel or Matthew & Paul. Theologians should not try to
> "harmonize" these different theological viewpoints in simplistic ways (e.g.,
> by forcing Matthew into a Pauline mold) but should try to understand how
> both can be seen as
>
>

Hodge is not the last word in either evangelical or Reformed theology. Ted
noted the common sense tradition he had with the Bible. I still sense a
subtle moving away in his approach to systematics, however. Later
systemeticians were doing a spiral approach and looking into more local
harmonizations. N.T. Wright has, for example, done some good work in trying
to place Paul more in their original context of Second Temple Judaism rather
than a global harmonization. My sense is that theology -- what was once the
queen of the sciences -- is developing on a parallel path as scientific
methodology, moving from naive baconian, common sense, realism to a more
iterative and theoretical approach. Speaking of which, John Gerstner in
Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth noted the common sense school approach to
apologetics in Dispensational thought. Thus, paleo-evangelical thought
appears to be remaining baconian while neo-evangelical thought is moving on
from there, albeit at probably a slower pace than overall scientific
community.

Yes, I know I caught you in mid-thought, but even incomplete this was worthy
of a response.

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Received on Wed Mar 7 18:11:50 2007