Alister McGrath,
Christian Theology: An Introduction
Chapter 6
The Sources of Theology
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Scripture
• The Old Testament
– The Hebrew Bible
– The First Testament
– Tanakh (law, prophet, and writings)
• The New Testament
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Gospels
Acts
Letters (epistles)
Revelation
• Other works: deutero-canonical and apocryphal writings
– Distinction between Old Testament and Apocrypha
– Canon and authority
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• The relation of the Old and New Testaments
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Theological principles and ideas v. cultic practices
Marcion
Martin Luther
John Calvin
Second Vatican Council
• The canon of Scripture: historical and theological issues
– Historical issues
• Consensus
• Disputes
– Theological issues
• The church has authority over Scripture
• Scripture has authority over the church
• The church and Bible belong together
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• The Word of God
– Jesus Christ (God incarnate)
– The gospel of Christ
– The Bible
• Narrative theology
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Narrative as main literary type in Scripture
Avoids abstraction
Affirmation that God meets us in history
Tension between limited human characters and God’s omniscience
• Methods of interpretation of Scripture
– Alexandrian school
• Allegory
– Antiochene school
• Historical context
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– Western church
• Ambrose of Milan
• Augustine of Hippo
• Typology
– Middle Ages
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Literal sense
Allegorical sense
Tropological or moral sense
Anagogical sense
– Reformation
• Erasmus
• Huldrych Zwingli
– Enlightenment
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Rational approach
Historical approach
Sociological approach
Literary approach
– Liberation theology
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• Theories of the inspiration of Scripture
– 2 Timothy 3:16-17
– John Calvin
• Doctrine of accommodation
– 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church
– Enlightenment
• Johann Gottfried Herder
• Charles Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield
• Subjective understanding of inspiration (Augustus H. Strong)
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Tradition
• In the New Testament
• Irenaeus and Gnosticism
• Vincent of Lérins
– Universality, antiquity, consensus
• Johann Adam Möhler
• Tradition and traditionalism
– Catechism of the Catholic Church (1944)
– John Meyendorff, Living Tradition
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A single-source theory of tradition
A dual-source theory of tradition
Total rejection of tradition
Theology and worship: the importance of liturgical tradition
– Lex orandi, lex credendi
– Gnosticism and ArianismWiley-Blackwell 2010
Reason
• Reason and revelation: three models
– Theology is a rational discipline
– Theology “republishes” the insights of reason
– Theology is redundant; reason reigns supreme
• Deism
– “The Age of Reason”
– John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding
– Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as Creation
• Enlightenment rationalism
– Christian Wolff, Reasonable Thoughts about God, the World, the
Human Soul, and just about everything else
– Reason v. rationalism
• Criticisms of Enlightenment rationalism
– Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Wiley-Blackwell 2010
Experience
• Religious experience
– The Wesleyan quadrilateral
– William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
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Ineffability
Noetic quality
Transciency
Passivity
• Existentialism: a philosophy of human experience
– Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55)
– Martin Heidegger (1888-1976), Being and Time
– Rudolf Bultmann and New Testament studies
• Experience and theology: two approaches
– Experience as the basis for theology
• Paul Tillich (1886-1965), The Courage to Be
– Theology as the interpreter of Scripture
• Augustine
• C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
• Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique of experience-based theologies
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