What does an evangelical theological method look like? One that is contextually aware and well-suited
for the times we are in, as we sail our way through the waters of modernism into postmodernism? One that retains the best insights of theological methods influenced by modernism and yet incorporates the new insights brought about by postmodernism? This is the question that David Clark seeks to answer in his
To Know And Love God: Method for Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003). Clark works his way through different features or aspects of an evangelical theological method, and arrives at the following picture –
An Evangelical Theological Method should
1)
Take into account what Clark calls the ‘Contextual Pole’ (the emphasis for theology to be connected to the cultural situation or other forms of human thought e.g. philosophy and reason)
and the ‘Kerygmatic Pole’ (the emphasis of theology to be objectively grounded in faith and Scripture and ‘systems’). An evangelical
Theological Method should hold onto both poles and work within the extremes of these two poles. The evangelical theologian should not be a ‘transformer’ – one who so emphasises the Contextual Pole that the truths of the gospel are compromised for the sake of cultural connection, nor a ‘transporter’ – one who simply transports theology straight from the bible without any regard or awareness of culture or influences from other forms of human thought. Rather, the evangelical theologian should seek to ensure that his theology is ‘contextually relevant in every mode of expression, yet shaped very fundamentally through essential connection with biblical revelation’ (p.57).
2)
Recognise the Scriptures as uniquely authoritative in authorising both theological statements and moral commands. More than that, the authority of Scripture is first and foremost grounded in the ontological truth of God and his act of speaking, rather than in the church or the community’s reception of that Word. In technical language, the ‘
ontological ground of the text’s authority is not the same as the
epistemic acceptance of the text’s authority’ (p.65). In authorising the theological statements and moral commands (or in moving from Scripture to Theology), Clark also denounces principlizing – where Scripture is seen to be filled with universal timeless principles which lie beneath the narrative, cultural husks the words of Scripture find themselves in, and theology is all about extracting these principles and applying them to our new context. Instead, Clark calls for a nuanced version of narrative theology, where the whole Bible itself (with its different genres and narrative account), rather than just the principles, is seen to be the thing that authorises theology for living (p.96-97)
3)
Be Contextually Relevant. In this regard, Clark discourages a decode/encode way of contextualisation which he deems in essence as a form of principlizing (p.112-13) and instead encourages a dialogical model for evangelical contextualisation, where from one’s culture with its own values, beliefs, practices and dilemmas, Christians raise questions and issues; they then take these initial questions to Scripture and allow a culturally relevant theology to emerge – at all times doing this with great humility and a keen eagerness to apply their discoveries to life while recognising the supreme authority of the Word of God to question and challenge their cultural viewpoints. This dialogical process is further extended to involve the “other culture” whether it may be a culture in a distant era of time or a far off place. The whole dialogical process continues and at all times, understanding of Scripture is deepened (p.114 and 120-21).
4)
Have a foundation on which evangelical theology is built. In terms of this foundation, Clark
rejects ‘strong’ foundationalism (or classical foundationalism which asserts something like ‘basic beliefs must either be self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses’) (p.155-56);
coherentism (where a
system of beliefs is valid as long as the individual beliefs are coherent when they come together) (p.156-58), or
pragmatism (where a system of beliefs is valid as long as it works!) (p.159-161). Instead, Clark espouses
soft foundationalism, consisting of the following tenets (p.161-62):
• A kind of belief-foundationalism, which distinguishes between basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs. Basic beliefs are warranted directly in a variety of ways, while non-basic beliefs build on basic beliefs.
• Coherence is relevant to the warranting of beliefs, but is never sufficient to ground an entire web of belief.
• Unlike classical foundationalism, basic beliefs can be warranted despite they not achieving the same standards of self-evidence or incorrigibility as demanded by classical foundationalism. This means a person is justified
prima facie in accepting many ideas when the justification is less than absolutely certain. Soft foundationalism also allows for its basic beliefs to be defeated if it turns out to be so upon further inspection.
5)
Recognise because there is a larger unified narrative behind the various disciplines (Biblical Theology, Systematic Theology, Historical Theology, Philosophical Theology and Practical Theology) – that of God’s self-revelation in the totality of history –
a unity of the theological disciplines is achievable (p.192). A good evangelical theological method recognises the uniqueness and diversity of disciplines; understands its own discipline’s horizon, and fuses that horizon with that of the other disciplines.
6)
At its best be scientia that serves sapientia.
Scientia refers to knowledge that is derived from a scientific way of exploring and discovering, while
sapientia is godly wisdom directed to salvation and Christian living. A good theological method recognises both and does not see the two as contradictory but rather complementary – seeing theology as a means to the end of loving God is perfectly consistent with a robust interest in objectively correct (albeit an imperfect and incomplete) biblical descriptions of the object of our love (p.217). In another words, ‘theology is a science of God that enables faithful Christian followers to know God and to find spiritual wisdom’ (p.219). To this end, Clark espouses a five step method involving both
scientia and
sapientia – Engagement, Discovery and Testing, Integration, and Communication (p.232-44). Clark’s summary of the process is helpful:
Theology, then, includes both truth-discerning and truth-applying functions. Theology as scientia is concerned to tease out the best possible understandings of God, his will, and his ways. This happens as theologians appropriately pursue the discovery and testing phases in order to explore successively more adequate theological ideas, models, theories, and research programmes. This requires objectivity and critical testing. [...] Theology as sapientia functions to transform believers’ lives through integration, and Christians in turn influence people and communities through communication. [...] The second and third moments in theology yield understandings that genuinely reflect the Word and the world; the fourth and fifth moments use theological truth to influence affections, decisions and characters (p.244).7)
Be open to philosophical methods of analysis involving strategies for clarifying concepts, criticising assumptions, evaluating arguments, and constructing positive viewpoints. These analytic skills are helpful, though not sufficient for good evangelical theologizing.
8)
Acknowledge that some genuine knowledge of an objectively existing spiritual Reality (in this case God!)
is essential to evangelical theology, and that language while not capturing that reality fully,
does connect to that objective reality. Clark espouses a minimalist account of correspondence, where language does refer to mind-independent state of affairs. It is a view which Clark admits is more of ‘an affirmation of an intuition than it is the development of a theory’ (p.381), for trying to prove truth beyond the category of intuition to more basic or fundamental terms will only result into hopeless circularity.
Applying this concept to religious or theological language, Clark espouses a ‘carefully crafted commitment to univocity’ (p.393), where religious language speaks
univocally (a word has exactly the same meaning in two different contexts) as opposed to speaking
equivocally (the way a word is used in one context is entirely different from the way it is used in another) or
by analogy (where a word or term as used in two different contexts communicate different senses, but yet the different senses are somewhat meaningfully related to each other). A commitment to univocity means that when a term is used to predicate of God the way it is used of man, e.g. ‘God is loving’, the meaning of the term as applied to God and the meaning of the term as applied to man are
identical, though the
mode or manner of expression of the two predications of a univocal term may different completely. But in the case of analogy, the meaning of the term as applied to God and the meaning of the term as applied to man are not identical, though they are similar. Finally, Clark also encourages us to see religious language as not only having its function in referring or describing, but through Speech-Acts theory, to see that it also has other functions and does other things. Saying things about the world is
one thing language does, but not the
only thing it does – or even the most important thing it does. Speech-acts also forms a link between theology or theological language as
scientia and
sapientia. Speech-acts as a way of understanding religious language
[...] shows how the language of Scripture, worship, preaching, spiritual formation, and moral instruction is sapiential. This language is intended to do something. As such, religious utterances of this sort do something other than informing listeners about reality. But they do relate to theology as scientia. Scientia is the language intended to describe spiritual realities truly. The purposes of sapientia – worshipping the triune God, transforming Christian character, building the spiritual community called the church, and fulfilling God’s call to evangelistic and social mission – these all involve the use of linguistic utterances of various sorts. But they require the background truth of theology as scientia (p.416-17).Overall, the biggest contribution of
To Know and Love God is to provide a realistic
philosophical underpinning to evangelical theological method – one that draws the best insights of both modernism and postmodernism, yet without succumbing to the blind spots and weaknesses of either. It affirms critical realism (that there is a mind-independent objective reality); a minimal account of correspondence to religious language (that language is able to refer and describe this reality); epistemic humility (we can know truly though not exhaustively or fully), and theology that is rooted in
scientia for the purposes of
sapientia – that we may be truly wise, having ‘passionate love for God, genuine worship of the Trinity, true community with fellow Christians, and loving service in personal evangelism and social compassion – all to the glory of God’ (p.424).
Big thanks to Klink and Lockett for giving us much to think about and for helping to clarify and nuance the discipline of Biblical Theology (BT) as practiced today. They have rightly identified the problem that biblical theologians with their respective biblical theologies seem to be talking past rather than to one another, with the result that BT might run the danger of becoming "a nose of wax, so pliant it loses any sense of its own boundaries or form" (kindle loc. 3629). To that end, they layout a taxonomy of 5 classifications of BT as practiced today, ranging from the more historical to the more theological in their outlook. For each type, Klink and Lockett helpfully provide an example of a major proponent of that particular approach. The discussions for each type of BT are nuanced and carefully argued, and enough details and specificity are flashed out without the reader feeling overwhelmed. This could serve as a crucial textbook for courses on BT as it would give a helpful and crucial overview of BT as practiced and understood today. My only letdown is that while Klink and Lockett admit the purpose of the book is not to decide and arbitrate between the different types of BT or come up with the definitive understanding of BT, it would have been more satisfying if they had offered some form of consensus on the different types of BT or draw out what actually unites these different types of BT which led to them being classified as "BT" in the first place. In other words, the book is strong on description, but perhaps some modest form of prescription would have been useful as well. The other comment is that more needs to be said about the relationship between Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS) and BT, rather than limiting to just Type 5 (BT as theological construction). Some of the BTs proposed (Type 3 onwards) share more similarities with TIS than what is presented. Not withstanding these two comments, Understanding BT is definitely a helpful book and one which would aid us as we continue to chart towards greater clarity in understanding this elusive but yet much needed discipline.
