Any endeavor to lay out a comprehensive theological methodology in a 1000 word blog post is doomed to failure. However, I will attempt to share some very broad thoughts on method which I will attempt to adhere to and exhibit throughout this exercise.
Karl Barth opens his Church Dogmatics by stating that “As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of its distinctive talk about God” (CD I/1, 1). In other words, dogmatics is the process by which the Christian Church examines the very patterns of thought and speech which shape its conception of God and self. This is always a task undertaken in reliance upon God, by his Spirit, guiding and conforming our thought to his revelation in Christ. T.F Torrance argues that in theological investigation the reality itself must continually impress upon the observer the patterns of thought and speech appropriate to it. Therefore, for Torrance method is exceedingly important as it is only within a methodological framework in which we allow our minds to be given to appropriate patterns of thought by Christ in the Spirit that true knowledge of God will arise. This means we cannot operate with any kind of epistemological-ontological dualism, as this would abstract knowledge of God from the realities in which he gives himself to be known. Hence the title of this post. God reveals himself in his incarnate Son by his Spirit through his word. This basic pattern is fundamental to the theological task.
This means that fundamental to theological investigation is revelation. This is nothing new. Karl Barth maintains throughout his dogmatics an insistence upon revelatory priority in theological thinking. However, for Barth this was already inherent within the doctrine of God as Trinity. So, Barth will say: God reveals himself as the Lord: Father, Son and Spirit. God the Father reveals himself (objectively) in his incarnate Son in the power of his Spirit (subjectively) to the believer. There is already a Trinitarian pattern inherent within revelation itself.
Because of this Trinitarian pattern of revelation, Christology becomes basic to all theology. As the Father reveals himself in the Son and so the Spirit reveals the Son all knowledge of God is tied up with who Jesus Christ is. Theology must never be abstracted from the incarnate Lord of the gospels. As T.F Torrance would say, there is no God ‘behind the back’ of Jesus Christ. Who we get in Jesus Christ is none other than God himself. God therefore is in the incarnation who he really is. God is like Jesus. How can this happen? Barth puts it beautifully:
We may believe that God can and must only be absolute in contrast to all that is relative, exalted in contrast to all that is lowly, active in contrast to all suffering, inviolable in contrast to all temptation, transcendent in contrast to all immanence, and therefore divine in contrast to everything human… But such beliefs are shown to be quite untenable and corrupt and pagan, by the fact that God can and does do this in Jesus Christ… By doing this God… shows himself to be more great and rich and sovereign than we had imagined… he is absolute, infinite, exalted, active, impassible, transcendent, but… He is all this as the Lord, and in such a way that he embraces the opposites of these concepts even while He is superior to them… His particular… presence… in the man Jesus… is itself the demonstration and exercise of His… perfection… His omnipotence is that of a divine plenitude of power in the fact that (as opposed to any abstract omnipotence) it can assume the form of weakness and impotence and do so as omnipotence triumphing in this form. (CD IV/1, 186-7)
The incarnation then, forms the very ground of all theological thought. Doctrine which strays from a Christological center has lost its way. That was a very brief intro, but I think it lays a bit of groundwork for further investigation. The next post will look at the stratified nature of theological truth with the help of T.F. Torrance.
Bobby Grow Said:
on January 21, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I like it, Scott! I look forward to your next post as well, esp. as you delve a bit into TFT’s ideas on the stratification of theological truth. I have this quote at the top of my most reified blog (“Christianly”), it’s from Calvin, and I think fits nicely with the theme you left us here with in re. to the centrum that the Incarnation is in re. to engaging dogmatic theology:
“. . . all thinking about God without Christ is a vast abyss which immediately swallows up all our thoughts.” ~John Calvin
Keep up the good posts, it’s refreshing to read posts that are informed by a heart that sees the significance of thinking theologically.