August 19, 2008

On the Development of Doctrine

Filed under: Development of Doctrine,Theology — William Witt @ 7:47 am

On a blog post awhile back entitled “Some Basic Theological Principles (to be discussed later)” I had stated:

On the question of doctrinal development, the fundamental choice is between Newman’s and Barth’s understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. The issue of continuity between (1) God’s revelation in the history of Israel, Christ, the apostolic Church: (2) the canonical Scriptures; and (3) the post-apostolic Church, must be decided theologically, in terms of the inherent intelligibility of the subject matter of revelation, not by alien philosophical criteria rooted in such historical conundrums as the relation between the one and the many, or problems of epistemological scepticism.

There have been a few inquires about what I meant by the “fundamental choice . . . between Newman’s and Barth’s understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.” I haven’t answered that question yet. (My life has changed considerably since becoming a theology professor. Ironically, I have less time to do theology blogging.) However, I got an email today from someone (a Roman Catholic) who had read my post on “Why Not Leave?,” and asked me if I had changed my mind. This is my answer, and it relates to the question of development of doctrine: (more…)

Questions to Make Pastors Squirm

Filed under: Theology — William Witt @ 4:05 am

A friend of mine who is on the search committee for a new rector asked me for a list of questions that might help sort out a potential candidate’s theology, what was their churchmanship, whether they were Calvinist, Arminian, Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic.  I thought the following might be interesting questions to address to interviewees.  I wish my parish had asked some of these of a couple of “stealth” candidates who surprised the congregation with their real theology only after they had been called.

1.  Who is Jesus?  What does it mean to say “Jesus saves”?  How do you interpret John 14:6?

2.  Why is it important to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity?  Why is it important that Jesus rose from the dead?  If the bones of Jesus were found in a grave in Palestine, would that make any difference to Christian faith?

3. What is the central message of the gospel?

4. What is justification? Sanctification?  How are they related?

5. What does God contribute to salvation, and what do we contribute?  How are they related?

6. How do you understand divine sovereignty and providence?  Can anything happen outside God’s will?  Can human beings thwart God’s will?

7. Why do Christians pray if God already knows everything that will happen and exercises divine providence over the world?
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May 7, 2008

Blaming the Reformation

Filed under: Theology — William Witt @ 6:23 am

Cardinal Walter Kasper recently stated that Anglicans needed to choose between the sixteenth century and the first millennium. To the contrary, historic Anglicanism–as represented by Thomas Cranmer, John Jewel, and Richard Hooker–argued that they were choosing the church of the first millennium, over against the departures from Catholicity of the late Medieval Roman Church.

Bringing up the tired old polemics of the Reformation is a constant temptation in the crisis of un-faith that is affecting all churches today–not only the churches of the Reformation, but certainly Rome. But blaming the Reformation (or conversely, blaming Trent) will not help the church today because it does not address the real crisis the church is in.

Yesterday my students and I finished an entire semester of studying Contemporary Theology. We began with Schleiermacher and Barth, then covered everyone from Brunner, Bonhoeffer, the Niebuhrs, the Catholic Resourcement movement (DeLubac, Congar, Danielou), Orthodoxy (Bulgakof, Schmemann, Lossky), post-Vatican II theology (Rahner, Lonergan, von Balthasar), theology of hope/revelation history (Moltmann, Pannenberg) post-Liberalism (Lindbeck, Hauerwas), Evangelicals (Packer, Henry), (post-conservative) Evangelicals (N.T. Wright, Vanhoozer), “Scientific” theology (T. F. Torrance, Alister McGrath). We finished with Anglican theology–Ramsey and Sykes. All of these fairly clearly lined up with Barth. On the other side, we studied Bultmann, Tillich, process theology, feminist theology, liberation theology. All of these fairly clearly lined up on the other side–with Schleiermacher. (more…)

January 23, 2007

Some Basic Theological Principles

Filed under: Theology — William Witt @ 7:02 am

1) The starting point of theology is faith seeking understanding, not understanding seeking faith.

2) Current theological disagreements must be addressed theologically, not in terms of alien criteria, whether those criteria be philosophical, political or sociological.

3) In the current theological crisis, the fundamental theological division has to do with the doctrine of the atonement. Specifically, is the person and work of Jesus Christ constitutive of a salvation that can be found nowhere else, and, accordingly, are the Scriptures as the authoritative witness to that salvation constitutive for our understanding of that salvation, or, conversely, are the person and work of Jesus Christ illustrative of a salvation that can be found elsewhere (or perhaps everywhere) as well, and the Scriptures accordingly illustrative of such a generally available salvation, and thus correctable in the light of it?<more/>

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