Hi, Stephen!

A few response to your statements! My comments will begin
with [J and end with ].


Stephen Shields wrote:


Carmen writes:

"What distinction do any of you make between doctrine
and theology? "

"Doctrine" (didache), as you've correctly
observed, is a biblical term. I've been struck,
Carmen, by its ethical content as used by Paul. For
example, see Titus 2 where Paul uses the term and
then launches into a catalog of relationships and
their attendant responsibilities. Then note the
emphasis on obedience in Romans 6:17,18. So
doctrine tends to have a different flavor than merely
propositional truth about Divinity.

[J To understand the doctrine, we need propositions.
These propositions should be representations, accurate
ones, of what Scripture says. To exegete scripture, we
need propositions!

Doctrine centers on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, His
person and His Work. This is the context of Romans 6:17.
See also Galatians 1:6-9: Paul's anger at false doctrine or
false gospels! Then consider the doctrines of the rest of
his letter to the Galatians.

The purpose of doctrine is expressed by Paul in 2 Cor.
11:3-4 and same chapter 13-15.

However, Paul knows well the necessity of the work of
the Holy Spirit to bring people to savingly receive the
doctrine: 1 Thess 1:4-10.

See also 2 John 9-11!]



I can't enter much into the much debated
difference between biblical theology and systematic
theology, simply because I'm only aware of the
broad difference without having studied it much. I
would invite anyone who's studied it a bit more to
jump in and speak to this issue.

But I would suggest that theology is a step
removed from biblical doctrine.



[J our understanding of Biblical doctrine is most likely a step removed
from the Word God written!!!! We need to be submitting our
understanding and the rest of our self to God’s evaluation. When we
exegete scripture to understand the doctrines in Scripture, we
necessarily filter what we find in Scripture though our own
understanding and both conscious and unconscious commitments and
attitudes. We need to be self-critical in submitting all of our work
and our understanding of the living God about the doctrines and also
about the applications of the doctrines to the concrete and specific
situations that He puts in front of us. Here, I see not much difference
in the process of exegesis and theology in the first moves of exegesis,
we are very likely, if not careful moving away from the intentionality
of God in Scripture. Yet it is even more complicated than that. I
think the Scriptures themselves show progression and development of
doctrine! So, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is radical it seems to
me when for example, he says that lust within is guilty of adultery.
Well, the OT punishment for adultery is stoning to death for the guilty
parties. Is it the case that all human beings who have a lust and who
commit adultery thereby are to be stoned to death????

What I am getting at is that God could and does put us in situations
that involve prayerful considerations of doctrine in new contexts that
are different from the Biblical contexts in which the doctrine was first
taught. God is alive and when He uses Scripture in our lives by the
Holy Spirit to illuminate and to teach us and also for our
communications with Him and with other people, the uses may be new and
fresh and not stale understandings like yesterday’s manna. The
inexhaustibility of the Bible comes I think from both its contents and
the Lord’s creative uses of Scripture in our lives!

Certainly in standard evangelical theologies, the attempt to
systematize what the scripture says on a given topic is an entirely
different way of doing things then exegeting a passage of scripture to
receive God’s doctrine. Much more can be said on this topic. I will
only suggest a reading of Charles Hodge volume 1 the section where he
talks about theological method and suggest how naive and simplistic this
fundamentalist model is, compared to Barth Church Dogmatics 1.1 and 1.2
and even to the Torrance quotes that I posted a while back.]



Here I'm following
Roger Olson, who uses the term "second order
language" in his important and influential "The
Future of Evangelical Theology" article in the 9
February 1998 issue of Christianity Today - see

http://www.faithmaps.org/pomophilarticles.htm

and the first article under



Postmodernism and its Impact on
Evangelicalism -

without affirming all of his comments on the
putative reformist/traditionalist controversy within
evangelicalism (see other articles under this section
in which some protest such dichotomizing
language).

For many years as I've taught theology, I have
thought - and this predates my exposure a few
years ago to the pomo folk - I've thought that there
was a need for what I used to call "a relationalized
theology," or a theology that adequately took into
account the fact that all scriptural teaching finds its
foundation and its telos in the two highest
commandments (Matthew 22).

[J Certainly theology should terminate in our praxis. That is what it
is for. The foundation of theology is by no means found in praxis and
in love commands It is found in the covenant relationship that the
triune God initiates with His people and in doing so, He establishes an
interactive communication with us in the context of the great
commission, to understand Him and His work from HIS point of view in our
cultural situations, by learning how to self-critically go to Him for
everything including the understanding of the doctrines in His Word
Written!! God is the ground and the foundations for our partial and
fractured understandings of Himself and for our study and hard work in
exegeting His Word written, to get the doctrine, all of our work, and
thoughts are to be submitted to the captivity of Christ so that we be
submissive in having our understandings and behavior evaluated by HIM,
daily! Only in doing so and staying close to Him, “abide in me”, can we
hope to be fallible images of His love in living out, incarnating, the
love commands in our praxis. Those love commands begin with Love God
with all your heart, mind, and soul , and strength. We do this when we
see that He the triune God is the foundation of everything created and
where we are always or almost always aware of that! So exegesis and
theology are grounded on “Holy Ground” the being of the living triune
God and His Word written. So, for me the foundation of theology and the
telos of theology are not the same thing!]



I still believe this,
though it's been nuanced by what we've discussed
and to some degree formulated here weeks ago in
our discussions on transpropositionalism - or that
while truth can be reliably addressed with language
formulations, it can never be entirely captured by
language and paradigm (or, more colloquially, we
can know truly but the set of things we can know
exhaustively is profoundly limited. Ok, maybe not
*that* colloquial! :) )

Ok, here's the connection, then: If we take the
fuller connotation of doctrine as seen in the New
Testament documents and apply that to second
order theological formulations, then a couple of
things happen:

1 - we realize that theology is servant to praxis
and, for lack of a better term, spiritual reality! If the
foundation and goal teaching - as Christ's details in
Matthew 22 - is to love God with all within and
others as ourselves, then theology does not exist to
serve itself. It is not studied merely for informational
purposes.

[J Absolutely. To study it that way is sin!]




2 - theology is always is practiced in the
context of mystery and a profound realization of the
Pauline phrase "what do you have that you did not
receive, but if you did receive it, why do you boast
as if you did not receive it" [I don't recall the
reference]. i.e. a humble awareness that what we
are to know of God, he must reveal.

These are not fully formulated thoughts, but I do
hope it can helpfully move along this important
conversation that Carmen has started.

[J Absolutely. We are on the same page!]



Stephen Shields
sshields@...
http://www.faithmaps.org