Systematic theology

Review: Faith Seeking Understanding, 4th Ed.

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Faith Seeking Understanding, Fourth Edition, Daniel L. Migliore. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023.

Summary: An introduction to theology, covering all the major topics of systematic theology.

Over the years, I’ve been tempted several times to pick up this volume. The seminary I attended used different introductory texts for its systematic theology sequence, which is the primary audience for this work, though hardly exclusively so. I would observe that the clear and highly readable coverage of all the major theological topics makes this a great introduction for any layperson willing to invest the effort to work through its pages. Since I have not read or have access to earlier editions, all I can note is that the author claims to have updated the text throughout, including the bibliographies at the end of each chapter. The text evidences engagement with current questions of the environment, global Christianity, and relating to other religious beliefs.

In my review, I will not attempt to discuss every chapter or topic in this work but rather make some basic observations. One is that the title Faith Seeking Understanding reflects the overriding approach of this book, shaped by the profound influence of Karl Barth interpretation of the Reformed tradition on the author. He contends that a mature faith is a questioning faith, turning to God’s self-disclosure in Christ and the scriptures for understanding.

Those who hold to conservative beliefs on the inspiration and infallibility of scripture will take exception with Migliore who would call this “biblicist.” He would argue for scripture as a witness to the living Word, especially through the narratives concerning Jesus, through which God encounters us authoritatively and transformatively.

The chapter on the Triune God is one of the best in the book and left me pausing to worship. With elegance, clarity, and concision, Migliore discusses the development of belief in the Triune God, the errors to which the councils responded, the attributes of God and election in light of the doctrine of the Trinity. He is emphatic that for Christians to speak of God, we must speak of the Triune God. In the following chapter on creation, the transcendence and immanence of the Triune God provides grounds for our care for a good but groaning creation.

The chapter on the person and work of Christ masterfully discusses both past and present issues of Christology. I was surprised to find that he collapses the discussion of models of the atonement to three: Christus Victor, satisfaction, and moral influence, collapsing the substitionary model under satisfaction. He notes that no single model is supported by the creeds, and commends that all be drawn upon. He offers a helpful response to the critique of violence and the cross in framing the cross as God’s response to human violence, to reconcile the violent to God. The author also includes a chapter on contextual Christologies, outlining Latin, Mujerista, Asian American, feminist, and Black Christologies. A new addition to this edition is a “Christ and Cosmos” addressing the critique of Christianity as detrimental to ecological concern, considering the implications of the incarnation, cross, and resurrection for our care of creation.

One of the highlights of the chapter on “The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life” is a succinct identification of the marks of Christian maturing: as hearers of the Word, in prayer, in the exercise of Christian freedom, in solidarity with all creatures, in thankfulness and joy, and in hope. Similarly, he offers a trenchant exposition of the marks of the church as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. He offers a thoughtful discussion of Christian faith and other religions and the approaches of inclusion, exclusion, and pluralism. He contends that we ought relate with those of other faiths in confidence that God’s grace in Christ through the Spirit is at work, recognized or not. This requires both genuine dialogue and gospel faithfulness and ought happen at the grassroots, as part of everyday life.

Finally, eschatology is framed around Christian hope. He considers the hope of the resurrection, both in time and in the eschaton. He discusses judgment and hell, contending we cannot be presumptuous in speaking for God or beyond what scripture discloses but also that we ought to hope in God.

One of the interesting features carried over from previous editions is found in the appendices, each of which are fictional dialogues between Karl Barth and other interlocutors on natural theology, the resurrection, political theology, and atheism. A fifth appendix is devoted to a theological glossary. Once again, Migliore excels in saying a lot with clarity in very little space.

I can see why this work is popular in seminary use. Migliore, while admittedly Barthian, writes a work that is generally fair-minded to different perspectives and represents these where Christians differ. His coverage of majority world theologies as well as western, classical approaches reflects our global Christian world. I do wish that he would not throw around the term “biblicist” for those whose view of scripture is more conservative than his and that he would have dealt with substitutionary atonement in greater depth. Yet this is a work that exalts God, is centered in Christ, envisions the greatness of Christ’s work in us, and the beauty of our future hope. For those who hunger to know what they believe as Christians, or to even understand what Christians believe, this is a good introduction, remarkably elegant and concise for the breadth it must cover. I’m glad that a copy finally came my way and to have read it and to have it for future reference.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Behold and Become

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Behold and Become, Jeremy M. Kimble. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2023.

Summary: A classic yet contemporary evangelical account of the doctrine of scripture and how God works transformation through scripture in salvation and Christian growth and what this means for one’s engagement with scripture and its use in the life and leadership of the church.

This book is a winsome, straightforward discussion of the classic evangelical doctrine of scripture. It is neither tendentious toward others with a different understanding nor does it temporize about the difficulties critical scholarship has raised to this classic doctrine. It is a book rooted in the Bible’s testimony about itself and assumes the veracity of its testimony. Some may find that off-putting, but I found it fit the book’s purpose–to argue that God works his transforming work in the believer through the scriptures and to encourage its humble yet confident use by both the individual believer and those who pastor and lead congregations in a scripture-centered ministry.

Jeremy Kimble begins with the self-revealing character of God who speaks in creation and acts to show his redemptive purposes. It is entirely consistent that such a God would reveal his glory and purposes in scripture as he has in the world and that we do well to saturate our lives with this self-revelation of glory. He then turns to a theology of scripture affirming its inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, clarity, necessity, sufficiency, and authority. He both cites scripture’s own testimony and that of those in the Reformed tradition. Accepting these things as true, the believer devotes his or her energy to diligent attention to scripture, not as a textbook, but as the speech of God meant to reveal God, God’s saving ways, and how we might live in the enjoyment of that salvation.

Kimble then turns, in chapter 3 to look at scripture’s testimony to itself, the intertextual character of scripture in later references to earlier texts in the OId Testament, to the New Testament’s use of the Old, and the symbols and patterns that recur that reflect the writers of scripture’s knowledge of and development of what has come before. All of this in the first three chapters builds to the conclusion of chapter 4, the efficacious character of scripture in the transformation of the believer, both from death to life and in progressing in holiness. He offers a study of a number of texts in both testaments that affirm both that scripture is efficacious in our lives and how this works out in the life of the believer. For me, this was one of the highlights of the book. And the focus is not, first of all, on scripture as an instruction manual, but rather as the disclosure of the Triune God and God’s workings in creation and redemption.

At the end of this as well as in the following chapter, Kimble argues that this calls the believer into a scripture-saturated life, giving ourselves to the reading, study, hearing, memory, and meditation of scripture. He also believes this calls us into the correlation of scripture, moving from careful reading to determining the biblical theology evident across a book or multiple books, learning historical theology, as we see how others have correlated the teaching of scripture into doctrine, moving to systematic theology, where we synthesize our learning across the whole of scripture. This forms our worldview and shapes our lives. He discusses how scripture transforms as we behold and become, experiencing renewal of mind that eventuates in lived trust and obedience. He speaks trenchantly about how scripture roots out sin, brings repentance, and the putting on of righteousness. He also encourages the use of scripture in the family, sharing some of his own practice.

The last two chapters focus on the ministry of the scriptures in the church as a body formed by God through the gospel. He values the place of creeds and confessions as doctrinal guardrails. All this sets the context for applying ourselves diligently to listening to the scriptures read and preached, the scriptures taught in educative settings and studied in small groups and applied in discipleship, counseling, and evangelism. He then comes to the preacher, advocating text-driven teaching and preaching and then advises on the practices of study that allow one’s preaching to be driven by the text. Echoing John Piper, he describes preaching as exulting over the truth of the passage and exhortation to grace-empowered action. More briefly, he outlines his convictions about scripture-centeredness in the stewardship practiced by leaders. He concludes the work by summarizing his overall argument and then an appendix re-articulates this in a thesis and one sentence summary of each chapter.

Kimble does not deal with challenges to the doctrine of scripture, or problems that arise in its misuse or abuse in the context of the church. As I noted earlier, while these questions are not unimportant, they would have distracted from the purpose of this book. The idolization of politics and nationalism and the resort to ploys of power have persuaded me that broad swaths of the church have lost their confidence in the power of God, by his Spirit and centered in Christ to work through the ministry of the scriptures both for the transformation from death to life, and in the “breaking of the power of cancelled sin and the setting of sinners free.” We resort instead to gospels of sin management (e.g. purity culture) and self-help. I appreciated the winsomely portrayed vision of a scripture saturated life, devoted to reading and study instead of the 24/7 news cycle and scripture memory instead of social media memes. I long for the joyful confidence that comes, not from ourselves, but from soaking in and exulting in the story of scripture that Kemble portrays. What comes through is the rich joy of such a life, as we become enthralled and enchanted again with the character and work of God and swept into that work. That seems to me what it is to “behold and become.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Mapping Atonement

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Mapping Atonement: The Doctrine of Reconciliation in Christian History and Theology, William G. Witt and Joel Scandrett. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022.

Summary: A historical survey of the different models or metaphors for atonement, for what Jesus accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection, looking at leading proponents of those views.

How should we understand what Christ has done through his life, death, and resurrection? The purpose of this volume is to study the multiple ways the church’s theologians have answered this question throughout church history up to the present. The term used for this is “atonement” which the authors differentiate from the overlapping categories of Christology, who Jesus is, and soteriology, how Jesus saves us. They elaborate the domain of atonement as follows:

“The doctrine of the atonement focuses on the ‘work’ of Christ: what Jesus does. Atonement deals with Jesus’s incarnate mission and earthly life, his crucifixion, resurrection, ascension to and session (seating) at the right hand of God, his second coming, and how all of this accomplishes the reconciliation of sinful human beings to God” (p. 4).

The authors make several important observations that frame their discussion. One is that there is no ecumenical consensus on how atonement is accomplished. Second is that the language is varied, metaphorical, and symbolic and there is danger of imposing the logic of metaphor onto the biblical text rather than working from the text’s account of the life of Jesus. This figures greatly in the subsequent discussions. Finally, they note a contemporary debate between constitutive and illustrative understandings of atonement, with the latter more characteristic of modern theology.

The plan of the book is a survey of models under three types:

Type 1: Models that are incarnational and ontological, that emphasize our participation in union with Christ. These include:

  • Incarnational/recapitulation models that focus on the assumption of human nature by God in Christ in which he fulfills (recapitulates) the human telos without sinning. This includes Irenaeus, Athansius and Cyril among the fathers, and Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrews as well as Thomas Torrance and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
  • The Christus Victor model emphasizing the defeat of sin, death, and Satan through Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension. Gustav Aulen is the leading proponent of this view, but aspects of this are found in Irenaeus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Great, and Rufinus as well as Luther and moderns J. Denny Weaver and Gregory Boyd.

Type 2: These models focus particularly on the death of Jesus and questions of forgiveness of sin, judgment, and guilt. The models are substitutionary and forensic in character.

  • Satisfaction models such as Anselm’s satisfaction of God’s honor/justice through the death of Christ as well as Aquinas in differing ways and contemporaries Walter Kasper and Wolfhart Pannenberg.
  • Substitution models focusing on Jesus’s death for sinners. John Calvin is the primary Reformed model with Luther’s “great exchange” also noted. Charles Hodge represents the development of the idea of penal substitution, which I thought the authors dealt with in a balanced fashion uncharacteristic of today’s dismissive approach to the language of penal substitution. Karl Barth’s “The Judge Judged in our place” approach is also considered.

Type 3: Exemplarist and moral models in which Christ is the example or representative of God’s salvation. These are subjective and illustrative approaches.

  • The moral influence approach. This sees the atonement as the revelation of God’s love eliciting and empowering our love for God. Peter Abelard is the classic figure considered but modern figures who focus on the atonement as revealing God’s love in Christ include John and Charles Wesley, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and Karl Rahner.
  • The moral example approach. This tends to be the approach of the liberal protestantism of Schleiermacher, Bushnell, von Harnack, and Hastings Rashdall, upon whom the authors focus. John Hick, takes this to an extreme in his pluralistic theology.

Chapters offer an in-depth exploration of the thought of chief proponents and critical assessment. As evident even in the above listing, many proponents of a model also incorporate other models and metaphors into their thought. There is an implicit recognition that no one model is adequate to elaborate what Christ has done. They also focus on the idea that in atonement, it was not God who needed to be reconciled to us, but we to God.

The authors conclude with a consideration of the thought of Thomas Torrance, who observes three terms for redemption in the OId Testament: padah, kipper, and goel. Padah focuses on the nature of the redeeming act (for example, redemption from slavery), kipper on the act of redemption (for example, the blotting out of sin), and goel on the person of the redeemer (for example, Boaz in the book of Ruth). This is seen in Jesus in the offices of prophet, priest, and king. Torrance thus moves away from a forensic focus to a more patristic incarnational understanding that sees propitiation as participation in Christ.

The authors treatment avoids caricature of any view, which I’ve often seen in more polemical works advocating for one of the views. They help the reader understand the historical developments contributing to each view, the dangers of pressing any metaphor too far or in an all-inclusive fashion, and the richness of the church’s testimony, while recognizing shortcomings in each view, or particular formulations of those views. This is a valuable resource both for those sorting out the “atonement debates” and for enriching theological reflection on what Christ has done.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Federal Theology of Jonathan Edwards

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The Federal Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Gilsun Ryu, Foreword by Douglas A. Sweeney. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021.

Summary: A study of Jonathan Edwards federal theology, forming the basis of a theology of the history of redemption in three covenants, with a focus on Edward’s exegetical approach to this theology.

You may have noticed from several reviews of books on Jonathan Edwards that I am something of an Edwards fan. Some of this is just national pride. Jonathan Edwards is the first significant and perhaps foremost American theologian. I admire that much of his theological work was done in a pastoral context. And one thing I’ve seen run through different studies of Edwards, including this present work is his ability to both keep faith with the faith once delivered and yet to tease out subtleties missed by other interpreters.

This work focuses on his federal theology. The idea can be traced back to Augustine and was developed in Reformed thought. It is that of the headship of the first and second Adams, acting, as it were, on the behalf of humanity, the first in sin, the second in his obedience to the law and sacrificial death satisfying the laws demands against sinners, reconciling them to God. For Jonathan Edwards, this served as the basis for an unfinished theological project, A History of the Work of Redemption, but one developed in a series of sermons and in many other writings.

Gilsun Ryu begins with four theologians antecedent to Edwards: Cocceius, Witsius, Mastricht, and Turretin. While Edwards draws upon all of these, he bases his theology on the biblical history of redemption, an approach that emphasizes the harmony of scripture as seen in his covenants of redemption, works, and grace. He begins with the covenant of redemption, the purposes and working out of those purposes in the Trinity within the history of redemption. The covenant of works emphasizes the sin of Adam, the impact upon his posterity, the impossibility of returning to a pre-fall state and the Christological focus seen under Moses, pointing toward redemption, Finally, the covenant of grace is traced progressively by Edwards through biblical history, prophecy, and secular history.

Having considered these three covenants within the history of redemption, Ryu then turns to the exegetical basis for each of the three covenants. While there is evidence of various methods of interpretation including typology and Christological interpretation, Ryu shows through Edwards’ exegesis of scripture that a redemptive historical framework informed that exegesis and the resulting doctrinal understanding, emphasizing the unity and harmony of scripture.

The last chapter shows how Edwards applied his federal theology of redemption in the church setting, showing how Edwards sought to encourage faith and piety through showing Christians how to engage with redemptive history. In this, he resists Arminian tendencies in emphasizing both the precedence of God’s design and human responsibility in justification.

Ryu’s unique contribution is his focus on Edward’s exegetical work, which he argues is what distinguishes Edwards’ federal theology from his predecessors. He draws on both books and Edwards sermons, and this latter is significant. This is not only systematic theology. It is pastoral theology grounding the spiritual state of his people in the sweep of redemptive history. I appreciated this work not only for it careful scholarly work but for recognizing this pastoral element in Edwards work–a model for modern-day pastor theologians!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew

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Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew, Hans Boersma (Foreword by Scot McKnight). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: In an effort to foster understanding between the two disciplines, a theologian outlines five areas for biblical scholars to understand about theology as it bears upon the Bible.

In the theological academy the study of scripture and theology are treated as two separate disciplines. Yet each depend crucially upon the other. Scripture sources our theological understanding while theological premises inform our reading of scripture. In this work, Hans Boersma approaches scripture sacramentally, as a means of grace, and not “as a mere repository of historical and doctrinal truths.” This leads Boersma to express his “five things” in the form “No______, No Scripture, devoting a chapter to each of these. Each of the five express theological realities that make possible the grace of scripture.

No Christ, No Scripture. Christ is the heart of scripture, the one to whom the scriptures point. Christ’s presence is essential to its authority. Boersma notes how historical-critical exegesis often brackets out Christ, and thus the one who speaks with authority through these texts.

No Plato, No Scripture. While not asserting that Plato has equivalent authority to Christ, Boersma argues that all approaches to scripture assume some form of metaphysic. If we attempt a pura scriptura approach, we will unconsciously import the prevailing metaphysic of our culture. Boersma asserts the essential character of Christian Platonism is due to its antimaterialism, antimechanism, antinominalism, antirelativism, and antiskepticism.

No Providence, No Scripture. Scripture is an expression of God’s providential care for us as his uniquely authoritative witness to Himself and to the blessed life in relation to Him. God has provided the words of scripture to make present the Word of God, the incarnate Son to us.

No Church, No Scripture. The church and not the theological academy is the primary center for the reading of scripture. This argues against individualist and elitist readings. This nourished by canonical, liturgical, and creedal reading. One of the most soaringly beautiful statements in the book is found where Boersma writes:

“We arrive at genuine Christian teaching only when we have been in the presence of angels and saints and the triune God himself. Only in the presence of divine light of the Spirit do the scriptures begin to make sense to us.”

Boersma, p. 107.

No Heaven, No Scripture. Finally, Boersma contends that biblical scholars cannot read scripture without considering its spiritual end, the heavenly contemplation of God in Christ. In this, he argues for the primacy of contemplation over action–that good action can only follow from contemplation. He also offers a trenchant critique of political readings of scripture that fail to originate in contemplation. Rather, he focuses on the cultivation of virtue in life as the fruit of contemplation.

Boersma’s sacramental approach is hardly generic evangelical theology but reflective of his Anglican tradition (he teaches theology at Nashotah House). Actually, this approach is a corrective to Enlightenment-influenced historical-critical exegesis that treats Holy Scripture as one more ancient text to be dissected. His Platonism comes as a surprise but challenges our presumption that we can come to scripture free of metaphysical premises. We cannot, so better to be explicit about them. More than this, his focus on Christ, on God’s providence, on reading with the church, and on the contemplation of heavenly realities all remind us of the joyous gift of scripture, which leads us to the Incarnate Word and His blessed eternal purposes of his people.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Scot McKnight has written a companion volume, Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew which is reviewed here.

Review: Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew

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Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew, Scot McKnight, Foreword Hans Boersma. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: In an effort to foster understanding between the two disciplines, a biblical scholar outlines five areas for theologians to understand about biblical studies.

A common challenge in the academic world is the need for specialization, which promotes careful research in one’s field, but also increasing ignorance of other related fields. This is true in the world of theological studies as well, and disciplines like biblical studies and systematic theology operate in separate silos. Yet both concern the story of God. In this work, and a companion volume, Five Things Theologians Wish Biblical Scholars Knew (review forthcoming), Scot McKnight and Hans Boersma engage in a conversation that seeks to foster greater understanding between the two disciplines.

So here are the five things McKnight wishes theologians knew, and a few of the highlights of each:

  1. Theology needs a constant return to scripture. While McKnight would not adhere to sola scriptura, he proposes an expansive model in which creeds, denominational beliefs, major theologians, and church and culture all figure into our reading of scripture, and yet always beginning with scripture (prima scriptura). He also distinguishes between good biblicism (Bebbington) and bad biblicism (Christian Smith).
  2. Theology needs to know its impact on biblical studies. Here, McKnight asks the question of whether it is possible for the church to interpret scripture apart from church dogma and interacts with a number of contemporary examples around Christology where this is evident.
  3. Theology needs historically shaped biblical studies. Often theology is done without awareness of the historical context of scripture in which a doctrine arises. He notes John Barclay’s Paul and the Gift as an example of where historically shaped study is modifying the theological paradigm.
  4. Theology needs more narrative. Theology is often creedally or topically framed, yet most of the Bible is narrative and arguably, individual narratives are part of a larger, over-arching story. Should the fact that God has disclosed God’s self in this way shape how we do theology? McKnight would say yes.
  5. Theology needs to be lived theology. Theology is often divorced from ethics or practice. McKnight argues that scripture itself doesn’t permit this, cites Ben Witherington, III and Beth Felker Jones as good contemporary examples, and offers a treatment of Romans 12-16 in context of the whole book of Romans as doing theology with practice in view.

Boersma in his forward largely agrees with McKnight. He does contend that even McKnight’s prima scriptura inadequately recognizes the influence of tradition on interpretation, which McKnight himself seems to flirt with in his second chapter. I’d love a longer conversation between the two and look forward to reading Boersma.

I think McKnight hits the key issues and offers constructive examples of theological work informed by biblical scholarship. The discussion on scripture and tradition shows the work critically needed here. McKnight’s proposal that specialists in seminaries regularly offer updates in all-faculty meetings of key contributions to their field just ought to be the case everywhere.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.