0:07

[ MUSIC PLAYS] I have a heart full of questions quieting

0:09

all my suggestions. What

0:12

is the meaning of Christian in this American life?

0:17

I'm feeling awfully foolish

0:19

spending my life on a message.

0:22

I look around and I wonder ever

0:24

if I heard it right. [MUSIC STOPS]

0:27

Welcome to the (A)Millennial podcast. I'm

0:29

your host, Amy Mantravadi, coming to you

0:32

from Dayton, Ohio, home of the U.S. Air

0:34

Force Museum, also known as the main

0:36

reason that tourists come here. Located

0:38

on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the museum

0:41

surely has the country's best collection of aviation

0:43

items other than the Smithsonian Air

0:45

and Space Museum. Depending on what you're looking

0:47

for, some might argue it's even a bit better. If

0:50

you can't make it to Dayton in person, especially

0:52

during this time of travel restrictions, check

0:54

out the virtual tour on the museum's website,

0:56

where you can get a 360 degree view

0:58

of all the exhibits. Today, I'll be speaking

1:00

with Gray Sutanto about systematic theology.

1:03

Some of you may be very familiar with this type

1:05

of theological study, while others may have

1:07

heard the term but have little idea of what it means.

1:10

Whichever camp you fall into, I hope

1:12

that today's discussion will be of some benefit to

1:14

you. We're going to talk about what systematic

1:16

theology is, what it involves, and

1:19

how it differs from and builds on other methods

1:21

of theological study. We'll also

1:23

dig in a little to the debates in history surrounding

1:25

this topic. Scripture tells

1:27

us that our purpose as human beings is to know

1:29

God, glorify him, and rejoice

1:31

in him. All of those things require

1:33

us to understand something about theology

1:35

, which is nothing other than the study of God.

1:38

So when we talk about systematic theology,

1:40

we're talking first and foremost about how we

1:42

understand our Creator as he has revealed himself

1:45

and the intentions he has for us as

1:47

his creatures. Let me illustrate this

1:49

by appealing to a familiar biblical story.

1:52

When God revealed himself to Moses in the burning

1:54

bush, he told him, "I am

1:56

the God of your father, the God of Abraham,

1:59

the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." When

2:02

Moses asked God his name, he replied,

2:04

"I AM who I AM." Furthermore,

2:07

God told Moses, "I have certainly

2:09

seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt

2:11

and have heard their outcry because of their taskmasters,

2:14

for I am aware of their sufferings, so I

2:16

have come down to rescue them from the power of

2:18

the Egyptians and to bring them up from

2:20

that land to a good and spacious land, to

2:23

a land flowing with milk and honey, to

2:25

the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite

2:27

, the Perizite, the Hivite , and the Jebusite." Those

2:31

quotes are all from Exodus chapter 3. Every

2:34

one of these statements tells us something about who God

2:36

is: enough that we might spend

2:38

a lifetime in meditation upon them. We

2:40

learn that God is personal, compassionate,

2:43

eternal, self-existent, never

2:45

changing. He is above and beyond

2:47

history, and yet intimately involved

2:49

in it, carrying out his plan on behalf of

2:51

those he loves. Think of how it

2:53

changes our lives to know these things about God.

2:56

This is the whole purpose of the study of theology:

2:58

to bask in the greatness of our God and

3:00

to turn around and praise him. Now, let's head

3:03

on to the interview where I'll be discussing this

3:05

with Dr. Sutanto.

3:07

[MUSICAL INTERLUDE]

3:17

And I'm here with Dr. Gray Sutanto.

3:20

He was educated at

3:22

Biola University for his bachelor's

3:24

degree, Westminster Theological Seminary

3:27

for his masters , and he received his

3:29

PhD from the University of Edinburgh.

3:32

He has served as teaching elder at

3:34

Covenant City church in Jakarta, Indonesia.

3:37

He is a visiting fellow at Kampen Theological

3:40

University, associate fellow at the

3:42

Neocalvinism Research Institute, and

3:44

fellow in modern theology at the Greystone

3:46

Theological Institute. His research

3:49

interests include the Dutch Reformed theologian

3:51

Herman Bavinck and the Neocalvinism

3:53

movement, along with several other theological

3:55

topics. He is currently the

3:58

assistant professor of systematic theology

4:00

at Reformed Theological Seminary in

4:02

Washington, D.C., and his published

4:04

works include God and Knowledge:

4:07

Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology,

4:09

and he also contributed to the editing

4:12

and translation of Herman Bavinck's

4:14

Christian Worldview and Herman Bavinck's Philosophy

4:16

of Revelation, and he's been published in several

4:19

theological journals. So

4:21

Gray, thank you so much

4:24

for coming on the podcast with me today. I really appreciate

4:26

it.

4:27

Thanks so much, Amy. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

4:30

Yeah. So how

4:32

have you and your wife been

4:34

doing during the coronavirus pandemic?

4:37

I know you said you've been in Indonesia

4:39

all this time, but teaching virtually

4:41

still with RTS.

4:44

Yeah, that's right. It's been a really surprising

4:45

year and a half

4:47

or so. I mean, we'd anticipated actually moving

4:50

to DC back in May

4:52

of 2020, but already

4:54

in February, the consulates in

4:56

Jakarta and Indonesia

4:59

were basically closed because of the pandemic, and there

5:01

were a few executive orders on immigration

5:04

that meant that immigration was basically frozen

5:06

for the work visas for a while now. So

5:08

we've been just back here, still in Jakarta

5:11

and teaching, like you said, virtually on Zoom for

5:13

RTS. We've definitely grown

5:15

in confidence in teaching over Zoom. I bought

5:17

into, "How is this going to work?" But you know, the students

5:20

have been incredibly tenacious, hardworking,

5:22

patient with us, and we've been very grateful for that, and

5:24

we've been close to friends and family still as well here

5:27

in Jakarta where we have come from. So

5:29

overall, it's gone as good as it could have been, so

5:32

we're really grateful for that.

5:33

Yeah, I know it's just been so

5:36

challenging this

5:38

whole year. It's been really interesting to hear from

5:40

all the missionaries that our church

5:42

supports, because of course they're all over the world

5:45

and some of them haven't been able to go back to the places

5:47

where they're supposed to be working, whereas

5:50

some of them haven't been able to come back to the U.S. So we

5:53

just have all these international connections

5:55

that haven't been being made this past year. So

5:58

I'm glad that you've been able to sort of make

6:00

that work despite the difficult circumstances.

6:02

Has Indonesia been particularly

6:05

hard hit by the pandemic?

6:08

Yeah, I think - we've been grateful

6:10

in Jakarta that we've been able to work

6:12

from home, and a lot of our friends have been able to

6:14

work from home, but in other more - maybe

6:16

in smaller towns, in smaller cities,

6:18

and also in just the more rural areas,

6:21

people don't have the privilege of being able to

6:23

work from home. So they've been

6:25

still having to carry out their work, so our numbers

6:27

aren't exactly the best right

6:29

now, and we haven't really flattened

6:31

the curve. So it's a bit worrying

6:34

to take a look at that, but at the same time, we're

6:37

very hopeful of the vaccine and

6:39

we're reminded, like you said, this is a very global

6:41

thing. Lots of different nations are struggling

6:44

with this, and so we have to also kind

6:46

of zoom out and realize that we're all in

6:48

this together and dependent upon this vaccine

6:50

together. So we're hopeful for that.

6:53

Well, thanks so much for just sharing a little bit about

6:55

how things have been going. And now

6:58

we can get into the topic that

7:00

we're to discuss today, which is systematic

7:02

theology, and as I mentioned,

7:04

you are the assistant professor of systematic

7:06

theology for RTS in Washington,

7:08

D.C. So maybe

7:10

you could just start out by telling us,

7:12

what is systematic theology?

7:15

Yeah, that's a great question, and depending

7:17

on who you ask, you might get different people

7:20

answering that question. Well,

7:22

systematic theology, as it is understood

7:24

here today , basically refers

7:26

to thinking about what the

7:29

Bible teaches holistically, logically,

7:31

and in a way that therefore connects

7:34

particular doctrines that you find in the Bible together.

7:37

So instead of asking the question perhaps of, "What

7:40

does the book of Genesis chapter three say particularly

7:43

in a narratival form?", you might be asking the question, "What

7:46

does it say about the condition of humanity?

7:48

What does it say about the nature of

7:50

human fallenness, sin,

7:53

human wrongdoing? What does it say about the

7:55

law of God?" And then you're therefore taking

7:57

teachings from, let's say the Book of Genesis,

7:59

and connecting it with New Testament

8:01

texts, let's say in Romans chapter

8:03

five on the fall of man. You're connecting

8:05

it with different descriptions of the conditions

8:07

of sin, let's say if you get from the Book of Proverbs. So

8:10

you're trying to therefore ask the question of,

8:12

"What does the whole Bible say about particular

8:14

doctrine?" But it is a bit more than that

8:16

too. It's also asking the question of, "How

8:18

do we use philosophical tools

8:21

and concepts to help articulate

8:23

what the Bible teaches in a way that is not

8:25

only logically coherent and persuasive,

8:28

but also that makes sense for

8:30

the world today?" So it's

8:32

definitely the interconnection of exegesis,

8:35

biblical theology, and philosophy

8:38

for the sake of articulating a

8:40

coherent system of

8:42

truth together, if that makes

8:44

sense. And there's probably more to say, but that's

8:46

an overall rough sketch of it.

8:49

Yeah, no, I appreciate that - kind of

8:52

summing it up in a way that's

8:55

pretty easy to understand there.

8:57

And that leads

8:59

me really naturally into my next question,

9:02

which is how is systematic theology

9:04

different from biblical theology?

9:07

And just to give a little personal example

9:09

there, when I was in

9:11

college and I did a degree in biblical

9:13

literature , my senior year I had

9:15

to take a course in biblical theology

9:17

where we went over the whole broad narrative

9:21

of the Bible and looked for the

9:23

broad connections in the narrative, but

9:26

I actually never had any courses in systematic

9:28

theology because I was mainly looking

9:30

at the study of the biblical

9:32

text as a work of literature, and

9:35

so we didn't get as much into systematic

9:38

theology . So if you had someone

9:40

ask you to compare the two - systematic and biblical theology

9:42

- how would you do that?

9:44

Yeah, that's a great question. I

9:47

think historically there hasn't been

9:49

a strict separation between the two. So

9:51

when you take a look at the Church Fathers,

9:54

the medieval doctors, the Reformation divines,

9:56

they don't really make a strict distinction

9:58

between biblical theology and systematic

10:00

theology. They normally

10:02

regard just the whole work of theology

10:04

as sacred doctrine, which is really just

10:06

exegesis of Scripture in a

10:09

way that is something for the whole Church

10:11

to believe universally. It's a

10:14

catholic statement about what Christians ought

10:16

to believe about God and the Bible,

10:18

and classically they

10:20

argued that theology is the study

10:22

of God and all things in relation to

10:24

God. And the Bible teaches us

10:26

about all those things in relation to God, and also

10:28

of course, God himself. So the

10:33

modern division between biblical and systematic theology

10:36

is really, again, a 19th, 20th

10:39

century division because of the specialization

10:42

of the disciplines in the modern research university,

10:45

rooted really in the German research

10:46

universities, right? So I think today

10:50

we see that division because of that specialization,

10:52

but again, classically it hasn't been the case. But because

10:55

we live in the present times, here's how

10:57

we might divide the two perhaps. If

10:59

biblical theology asks about the

11:02

story of redemptive history

11:04

from creation, fall,

11:06

redemption, consummation, right ? The basic

11:09

plot line of the Bible from Genesis

11:11

to Revelation, and in the middle of that, what God

11:13

had done in Christ Jesus. Systematic theology

11:16

perhaps goes a little bit beyond

11:19

the narrative of the biblical text and

11:22

asks the more unifying

11:24

questions of, "What is behind

11:27

the biblical text and what does the whole

11:29

biblical text teach coherently?" So it

11:31

traces the biblical

11:34

text to the foundations of the biblical text, so if

11:36

this is what, let's say again, the Book of

11:38

Genesis teaches about the narrative

11:41

of Joseph and Jacob, what does this tell us about the character

11:43

of God that is behind this? What does this

11:45

say about the faithfulness of God

11:47

that he would do this to the sinners that we

11:49

see in particular narratival accounts. So

11:53

it traces behind the exegesis, as well

11:56

as along with the exegesis, if that helps.

12:00

Yeah, I think that does help, and systematic

12:03

theology is pretty

12:05

commonly divided by topics.

12:07

Sort of as you're talking about, making

12:10

links and going behind the biblical text to

12:12

look at what the Bible has to say

12:14

about a particular theme throughout

12:16

the text. What are some

12:19

of the common topics that tend to be

12:21

covered in systematic theology?

12:24

Yeah. Some of the common topics - I think you would

12:26

probably begin with what theologians

12:28

have called prolegomena, which simply

12:30

just means the things that you say beforehand,

12:33

right? So what are the theological

12:36

assumptions and foundations,

12:38

presuppositions, then you have to affirm before

12:41

you study theology. Well,

12:43

you would have to say something about the fact that

12:45

you can't know anything about God unless God

12:48

reveals himself to you, right? Just

12:50

as when you meet a stranger, you might

12:52

not know anything about them, unless

12:54

they've disclosed themselves to you. They've voluntarily

12:56

and willingly said something about themselves to

12:59

you. So it is with God

13:00

- our knowledge of God. So normally systematic

13:03

theology starts with the doctrine of revelation,

13:06

right? That God has spoken both

13:08

in nature and in scripture, and God therefore

13:11

is knowable to us, even though ultimately he

13:13

transcends creation and is

13:15

far above us. So the doctrine

13:17

of revelation normally comes first in the work of systematic

13:19

theology. You even see this in the Westminster

13:22

Confession of Faith. Chapter one is

13:24

on the light of nature and scripture, and it's

13:27

a description of how God has disclosed himself to us

13:29

basically. And then you would normally

13:31

get to doctrine of God: how God

13:34

is one, that we worship the one God,

13:37

and that he is indivisible

13:39

and so on, but he's also at the same time

13:40

a triune God as Father,

13:42

Son, and Holy Spirit. And then

13:45

we would get to the doctrine of creation,

13:47

that God has created all things out of nothing;

13:50

doctrine of Providence, that God continually

13:52

sustains creation; the doctrine

13:54

of the creation of humanity, that

13:56

mankind is made in the image of God; and

13:58

how humanity is fallen and redeemed in

14:00

Jesus Christ, doctrine of salvation.

14:02

Therefore towards the

14:05

end, we also get a doctrine of the church

14:07

and last things, how has God

14:09

redeemed us, not only as individuals,

14:11

but as a community of believers united to

14:13

Jesus Christ and how by his

14:15

Spirit, he is working to renew all things

14:18

so that there would be no more sin in the last

14:20

day and there would be

14:22

a total restoration and consummation

14:25

of God's creation in the last day. So there is

14:27

definitely - you see the

14:29

connection there , don't you, between biblical and systematic theology?

14:32

There is a following roughly a

14:34

biblical plot line, even if in its articulation

14:37

of those particular loci, there is a

14:39

more philosophical, expositional

14:42

aspect to it.

14:44

And it almost seems like with

14:47

the topics you mentioned in systematic

14:49

theology, you're looking at things

14:52

that are essentially implied

14:55

topics from the biblical texts

14:57

in certain cases, such as - the Bible

14:59

starts with God creating. It doesn't spend

15:02

a lot of time with the backstory of what happened

15:04

before God created, although there are certainly

15:07

things in scripture that lead us to think

15:09

of certain considerations that happened before

15:11

that, such as that God already

15:13

was aware that he would have to save

15:15

humanity, and there was a plan in

15:17

place for how that was going to happen. But it

15:20

does really compliment our study

15:22

of the biblical text in that way.

15:25

How did systematic theology

15:28

then develop as a discipline

15:30

in Christian history? You mentioned that

15:33

in previous times, it wasn't thought of necessarily

15:35

as different from biblical theology,

15:38

but were there particular

15:41

periods during the Reformation

15:43

or even earlier that you kind of saw

15:45

that starting to develop?

15:47

Yeah, that's another great question, and

15:50

it's almost like for any of these questions, you could probably

15:52

spend about 45 minutes each, because there's

15:55

so many things to say - so many different angles you can

15:57

take. So maybe I could mention

15:59

probably two here. I think in

16:01

the Reformation period, there was

16:03

a heightened focus on the writing

16:05

of biblical expositional commentaries.

16:09

So you think about Calvin's

16:11

commentaries on particular books of the Bible

16:13

- Now, this wasn't completely new. You already see

16:15

this even in the Church Fathers

16:17

and the medieval doctors. Aquinas wrote so

16:19

many commentaries on the scriptural texts, but

16:21

I think in the Reformation, the desire

16:23

to reform the Catholic tradition

16:26

by way of an appeal to the

16:28

Bible heightened that focus.

16:31

And so Calvin understood, for example,

16:34

that you can't just hand over

16:36

the voluminous amounts of commentaries

16:39

that he had written to just anyone, so he

16:42

started to write The Institutes of Christian Religion

16:45

as a kind of remedy to that. It

16:47

wasn't exactly a systematic theology the way we understand

16:50

it here today, but it was basically a summary

16:52

of Christian teaching for

16:54

the Church that he thought would be helpful.

16:57

And I think also you can take a look at the confessionalism

17:00

of the reform periods as a kind of proto-systematic

17:03

theology. And now some might maybe

17:06

contend with what I just said there, but basically

17:08

I think the confessions are a nice summary

17:10

of the scriptural texts that is very

17:13

logically focused, tightly

17:15

knit, and also in a way that is immediately

17:18

understandable to the Church in that present

17:20

day. Right? So you take a look at the

17:22

Westminster standards, Confession of Faith,

17:25

larger, shorter catechisms, and the Three Forms of Unity.

17:27

These were basically, I think, theological

17:29

texts that said, what do we need to believe?

17:32

What are some errors that we need to encounter in Roman

17:35

Catholicism or in the Radical Reformation

17:38

side of things. And so it presented

17:40

not only the truth of things, but also in a philosophical

17:43

expositional way, denied

17:46

errors that attended to it, right?

17:48

So you see these different genres where you...in the

17:51

Reformation, but really it was in the

17:53

modern era with some

17:55

concerning developments, which

17:57

basically started to say things like, "Well,

18:00

the Bible is grounded in history and

18:03

the Bible therefore should be read as

18:05

free from the doctrines

18:07

of the Church." And so

18:10

the origin of biblical studies actually

18:13

it comes with this Enlightenment

18:16

and philosophical assumption

18:18

that the Bible in and of itself is not

18:20

a theological text. It's just a human

18:23

book, like any other human book, and

18:25

you should be able to read it free from

18:27

the constraints of churchly

18:30

confession. And so

18:32

when the modern research

18:35

university started to say, therefore, "Well,

18:37

we got to therefore distinguish between the

18:39

historical study of the Bible

18:42

on the one hand and churchly

18:44

dogma on the other," and

18:46

that became a really strict bifurcation

18:48

in the modern research university. Figures behind

18:51

that are figures like Friedrich

18:53

Schleiermacher in the 19th

18:56

century and so on. So there's that kind

18:59

of movement, and I think what happened after that

19:01

is theologians started to

19:03

say, "Okay, maybe there's something helpful

19:06

about this division between historical biblical

19:08

study on the one hand and churchly dogmatics

19:10

on the other, but how do we therefore

19:13

reevaluate this

19:15

division in a theological

19:17

way?" And they started to say, therefore,

19:19

that in the historical exegesis

19:22

of the biblical texts , we

19:24

can use some of the methods

19:26

of historical grammatical exegesis, that

19:29

the modernists have taught us, but at the same time,

19:31

not completely divorced that from churchly dogma. So

19:35

we started to say, therefore, there's a distinction

19:37

between biblical studies and systematic theology,

19:40

not division. This is a cause for

19:43

self-reflection perhaps, because I don't think many

19:45

of us realize how much of the modern seminary

19:47

curriculum is indebted to movements

19:49

in the modern research university and the Enlightenment.

19:52

But there's always going to be, I think, a

19:54

tension, but also a reciprocal

19:58

relation between where

20:00

the Church is and where the modern

20:02

culture is, and I think this is one way where

20:04

we see it for better or for worse.

20:08

Yeah, I think that's a good point. And it

20:10

seems like in every era

20:13

of Church history, there's

20:15

been a kind of swinging of the pendulum

20:18

slightly in one direction or another. For

20:20

instance, I've spent some time

20:23

studying medieval Christianity for

20:25

the novels that I write and just for some

20:27

theological interests, and that

20:31

period was characterized by

20:33

very sort of high-minded philosophical

20:36

considerations. So they

20:38

had something like

20:40

systematic theology and that it was arranged by topics,

20:45

but it imported

20:48

philosophical ideas very

20:50

heavily, probably more than you

20:52

would see today. And

20:54

the Reformation, I think, was in

20:57

part a

20:59

correction against what

21:02

they saw as a lot

21:04

of philosophizing and getting away

21:06

from the plain gospel

21:08

and the scriptural text. So

21:10

like you said, there was this big explosion

21:13

of commentaries and things like that, and then

21:16

maybe you have to correct back in the other direction

21:18

a little bit, but that is interesting

21:20

that you can think at every point there

21:23

is sort of a going back and forth

21:25

between those two things.

21:28

So how is

21:30

a book on systematic theology

21:33

usually set up? If I were to go to

21:36

the library - if I had a library

21:38

nearby, that stocked systematic theology works.

21:41

Luckily I do, but assuming that you're in a city that does - and

21:45

you get, say, Herman

21:48

Bavinck's systematic theology,

21:50

or Louis Berkhof or someone

21:52

like that, how would

21:54

you go about navigating it?

21:57

How would you expect to find it arranged?

22:00

Yeah, that's a great question.

22:02

I think it really depends on which particular

22:05

texts you're thinking about. Like you said, in

22:07

the medieval period, you

22:09

actually would get more treatments

22:12

on particular topics perhaps even

22:14

in isolation, right? So there's particular

22:16

treatments by Bonaventure purely on

22:19

the doctrine of illumination: kind of just a

22:21

one-off study on illumination,

22:23

his journey of the mind to God. But

22:26

I think in Bavinck's example

22:28

- in Bavinck's case, because he came after

22:30

the rise of modern biblical study and modern

22:33

biblical criticism, he has this heightened

22:35

interest to talk

22:37

about theology in that

22:40

narratival fashion, right? So he would really start

22:42

off with the doctrine of revelation and then doctrine

22:44

of God and creation, fall,

22:46

redemption, and last

22:48

things. His Four volumes is really set up according

22:50

to that biblical plotline. And I think

22:53

in Bavinck's case as well, you get

22:55

this more rigorous historical

22:57

attention to the development of doctrine. So

23:00

oftentimes in the

23:02

modern period and afterwards,

23:04

you get a systematic theology -not just

23:07

their summary of these particular doctrines,

23:09

but also their sense of how the doctrine

23:12

had developed. So in Bavinck's case, again, you would start

23:14

with the biblical exegesis, and then

23:17

after that, you would go to the Church

23:19

Fathers, to the medieval doctors,

23:22

to the Reformation, to the moderns,

23:24

and then Bavinck's own restatements

23:27

toward the end of his particular chapter. So

23:29

whatever doctrine you dive into in the middle of

23:31

his dogmatics, you would get that kind

23:33

of chronological, genealogical

23:36

tracing out of that particular

23:38

doctrine. I think that's really, really helpful. So

23:40

if you want to get a more concise

23:44

philosophical treatment of a particular

23:46

doctrine, maybe going to an Aquinas

23:48

or a Bonaventure would be useful, but if

23:50

you want this more historically conscious

23:52

tracing out of a particular

23:55

doctrine, then diving into Bavinck and isolating

23:57

a chapter in Bavinck on a particular doctor would help you

23:59

do that.

24:01

Yeah, and for those

24:03

who have any experience

24:05

with reading Aquinas , it

24:09

could be very confusing for the modern reader

24:11

because it's set up very much

24:13

in the question

24:15

and answer format that was popular

24:17

in the time, and it can

24:19

get a little difficult to determine

24:22

which part is actually him stating

24:25

what he believes and which part is him stating

24:27

what someone else believes. And there isn't the historical

24:29

necessarily - like you

24:31

said, going through all the different historical periods

24:33

like you might see nowadays, so that

24:36

is interesting just to think about how it's

24:38

developed over the years. Yeah, so thank

24:41

you for that. Some

24:43

Christians have contended that systematic

24:46

theology either causes

24:48

us to ignore the original

24:50

biblical context and narrative, or

24:53

causes us to delve into areas of

24:55

speculation that God never intended.

24:58

As a teacher of systemic theology

25:00

, how do you respond to such

25:03

criticisms? I've heard this particularly

25:05

from - certain theological

25:07

movements tend to make these

25:09

arguments more than others, but what

25:12

do you think when you hear something like that?

25:14

Yeah, I think my first gut instinct

25:16

is maybe to

25:18

say that, "Well, the

25:21

biblical text itself, I think,

25:24

and the arrangement of the biblical text requires

25:26

particular theological choices and

25:28

theological judgments, right?" The

25:30

fact that the canon was set up in a particular

25:33

way was, I think, partly

25:35

a product of the Church's ecclesial

25:38

and theological confession about what they

25:40

think the presentation requires, right?

25:43

So there's lots of different

25:46

scholarly movements on this, but the theological

25:48

interpretation of scripture movement that came out, I think, in

25:50

the last two decades or so pointed

25:53

out to the fact that even in the way that the canon

25:55

was arranged in the early Church, it's

25:58

reflective of theological judgments. So

26:00

in other words, there's never been a time

26:03

or period where there was a purely

26:05

neutral historical standpoint

26:08

from which to read the biblical texts. It always

26:10

came with theological assumptions

26:12

about reading these different

26:14

authors, whether you're

26:16

in the Apocalypse of John

26:19

or in the Book of Mark or something

26:21

that Peter had wrote, that these authors

26:24

were writing in

26:26

a way that was inspired by a single

26:28

divine author, right? That

26:30

was a theological judgment. That's a theological

26:32

confession. So even as you're studying

26:34

the Bible as a biblical

26:36

historian, you have

26:38

to come to grips with the

26:40

fact that if you're reading the Bible as a canon,

26:44

you're really bringing into it a theological consideration. And

26:48

to push us even further, I

26:50

would suggest that even the

26:52

most basic plot line summary

26:54

of the Bible of creation, fall, consummation,

26:58

or redemption, consummation is

27:00

itself a theological summary of

27:02

the Bible, right? The moment you move away from

27:04

what the words of the Bible and history

27:06

of the Bible actually says to any

27:09

summary that you have of the Bible's plotline, you're already

27:11

saying that this is one story - that

27:13

there's a single divine plan, and here's

27:15

a coherent way of summarizing the biblical

27:18

texts . You can't escape from theological judgments,

27:20

in other words. And so if

27:22

this kind of criticism is coming from an evangelical

27:25

or Christian biblical studies scholar,

27:29

then I would suggest to this person that

27:31

you're already presupposing theology,

27:33

even as you're studying the biblical texts.

27:36

And when you're studying the biblical texts, in

27:39

the work of exegesis there will

27:41

always be theological questions

27:44

that would arise, that prompt you toward

27:46

asking about questions

27:48

about being, questions about knowing,

27:50

questions about ethics that

27:53

go beyond strict exegesis, I

27:54

think. You know, when you are reading

27:57

Exodus 3:14, God says, "I AM who

27:59

I AM." That prompts you toward

28:01

particular questions about what this circular

28:03

way of describing God means exactly. When

28:06

you're asking questions about how

28:09

God created everything out of

28:11

his Word, what does that actually

28:13

mean? It requires some philosophical

28:15

exploration. And then when you're asking the

28:17

question of, "How do I communicate what I see

28:20

in my exegesis to the Church in the

28:22

modern world?" then you're asking questions

28:24

about, "What are the philosophies that are present

28:27

today and how do I communicate it to the modern world?"

28:29

So instead of I think dividing the two, again,

28:32

we do well to think about these disciplines

28:34

as really complementing one another, and you

28:36

can't really do one without the other, right?

28:39

And this is why, again , in history, theology

28:41

and biblical studies have also gone hand-in-hand as

28:44

sacred doctrine.

28:46

And thinking back to what you mentioned

28:48

about the doctrine of revelation

28:51

or a doctrine of scripture,

28:54

when you come to the biblical text

28:56

, you come, like you said, with a set of assumptions

28:58

about what this book is. And in

29:01

a certain sense, your belief that it is

29:04

the Word of God and that it's

29:06

worth reading has to stand a little bit

29:08

outside of the text itself, because

29:11

the text tells you that, but you have

29:13

to have some faith in yourself to believe

29:15

the text. So I think,

29:17

like you said, there are - I

29:19

don't think anyone comes to it neutrally - comes

29:22

to the study of the Bible neutrally.

29:24

So that's probably a good way of thinking

29:26

about it. I mentioned that you've

29:28

done really extensive research on

29:31

Herman Bavinck, who wrote an influential

29:33

work of systematic theology in the 19th century.

29:36

How does his approach to systematic

29:38

theology compare to others

29:40

in the broadly Reformed tradition?

29:43

It probably would be way

29:45

too long of an answer to compare him to everyone else who's

29:47

written systematic theology, so let's keep it

29:49

within at least the Reformed world.

29:51

Yeah, really, really useful

29:53

question here. I think one way

29:56

to think about his work, again, is his

29:58

rigorously genealogical approach to

30:00

the history of theology, right? He

30:02

never just says

30:04

a doctrine as if it just drops out of

30:06

heaven. He's always aware that whatever

30:08

he says is in the context of his present

30:11

moment , and he's standing upon the giants of

30:14

these church dogmaticians that have come before

30:16

him, right? So that's, I think, incredibly

30:18

useful, because theologians today

30:20

need to be aware that everything

30:22

that we say here today is responsible

30:25

to the history of the Church,

30:27

right? We can't just say things in isolation.

30:31

And then I think another useful way of

30:33

thinking about what Bavinck was doing is

30:35

he was trying to proclaim

30:39

this confessional, catholic,

30:41

Reform tradition to the modern

30:43

world. He saw that as a responsibility

30:45

of the theologian, the Church dogmatician. He

30:49

actually argued that each generation

30:51

requires a new systematic theology,

30:53

not because the truth changes, but

30:55

because the world changes. And so

30:57

how you articulate the same truth should

31:00

use the philosophical

31:02

tools, concepts, terms, and

31:05

even the cultural lingo of

31:07

the current day. So you see in Bavinck, I

31:09

think, a very consistent

31:11

desire to articulate that truth in

31:13

a way that is winsome, relevant,

31:16

and penetrative to

31:19

his modern academic milieu. So

31:21

I think that's incredibly useful for us to think about as

31:23

well - that I think the Church, like

31:26

you said, does go through a kind of pendulum

31:28

swing between one pole to another, and

31:30

I think one of the poles that we could tend

31:33

to get used to is kind of the isolationalist pole

31:36

that says, "Hey, all we need is just

31:38

to be in the Church." And there's

31:40

a sense in which that's completely right and true.

31:42

We believe that the Church is beautiful. This is the

31:44

people of God. God has redeemed us to be

31:46

a set apart people. That's very, very

31:48

true and Bavinck would affirm that. But

31:50

at the same time, we are still in this world - that we're

31:53

not of the world, and we are to communicate

31:55

and be salt and light in this world. And how

31:57

can we therefore be a light in this world unless

32:00

we read what others are

32:02

doing and saying right there? And so

32:05

I think that that's what Bavinck was doing in a very

32:07

unique way, and even in his own period,

32:10

you would see Church dogmatics

32:12

- not just Barth's, but I

32:14

mean, theologies that were being written

32:16

by his contemporaries. But

32:18

I think he was particularly acutely aware of

32:21

those twin responsibilities of being

32:23

in the catholic tradition, Reformed

32:26

broad tradition, and at the same time engage

32:28

in modern culture.

32:31

Yeah, and the thing for those

32:33

who are not familiar with Bavinck - the

32:35

thing that's interesting with him

32:38

is that he was writing originally

32:41

in Dutch, so in a sense

32:43

- he's an older theologian in the

32:45

sense that yeah, he lived in the 19th century,

32:48

but it's only been

32:50

within the past few decades that a lot of his stuff

32:53

has been translated. I mentioned that you've been involved

32:55

in helping with the translation of some of his work, so

32:58

in a way he seems

33:00

very contemporary, even though he

33:02

was writing a while ago, because the

33:05

exposure to him in the American

33:07

church is still only ramping up

33:09

now. So it's just a

33:11

very interesting case of

33:13

how we connect to history in that way. So

33:17

if an average Christian, without a seminary

33:19

education wanted to study systematic

33:22

theology, where would you recommend

33:24

that they begin? Could you maybe suggest

33:27

a resource or two that are more

33:29

accessible for the average person?

33:32

Yeah, that's a

33:34

really useful question. I think perhaps

33:37

it might be a bit intimidating to just

33:39

jump into Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, four volumes that it is, so

33:43

I would suggest actually some contemporary

33:45

treatments of particular doctrines would

33:47

be really useful just as a starting point. I

33:50

can think of maybe Scott Swain's little

33:53

introduction to the doctrine of the Trinity, or even particular

33:57

popular works that are useful

34:00

in introducing, let's say, the Westminster

34:02

Standards, Chad VanDixhoorn's Confessing the Faith.

34:04

That would be really useful. But if

34:06

you're thinking about primary sources, let's

34:08

say in someone like a Bavinck, then

34:11

his Wonderful Works of God would be a great

34:13

place to start. I think there, if

34:16

it's Church Dogmatics - sorry, Reformed Dogmatics.

34:19

I don't know why I keep saying Church Dogmatics today. I

34:21

haven't been thinking about Karl Barth too much recently.

34:23

But his

34:26

Reformed Dogmatics is a very

34:28

footnoted, historically rigorous

34:31

text. His Wonderful Works of God

34:33

was written for the ordinary

34:35

person. In the preface, he actually says modern

34:38

people are so busy nowadays and so

34:40

totally bombarded by the news and

34:42

work that they scarcely have

34:45

time to read theology, and that's

34:47

why he wrote The Wonderful Works of God: to

34:49

engage with that kind of readership

34:51

. So his Wonderful Works of God would also

34:53

be a great place to start there. Can

34:55

I circle back to the question that you asked before?

34:57

Absolutely.

34:57

You asked, "How does Bavinck differ

35:02

a little bit from other theological

35:04

works in his day?" You know, I think it's

35:06

useful here to distinguish him from maybe

35:08

the Dutch pietist tradition, or maybe even

35:10

the Puritan tradition that

35:12

we might be used to reading in the Reformed world: the

35:15

Puritan Paperbacks that are - I'm

35:17

not saying they're bad. They're very good. I

35:19

think of a lot of the Puritan Paperbacks that you see,

35:22

you get almost a desire to write

35:24

evergreen exposition of

35:26

doctrine. In other words, they desire

35:29

to write something completely timeless: an historically

35:32

distinguished piece of work

35:34

that simply tells you what the doctrine

35:37

in a very devotional way. And

35:39

I think Bavinck would probably say something like, "That's

35:42

useful at all, but it's not going to be

35:44

helpful to penetrate

35:47

the modern world." And I think that's one

35:49

way to distinguish Bavinck's works from the Puritan

35:52

tradition is that he

35:55

thinks that an evergreen kind

35:57

of desire is a limited good.

36:00

I think he would actually argue that the theologian

36:02

has a harder job of, yes, actually

36:05

trying to reinvent something every generation.

36:07

And I think that's worth thinking about, because

36:09

I think sometimes we think to write something

36:12

evergreen and timeless is actually a more pious,

36:14

more holy thing to do. Bavinck would actually

36:16

suggest that that's actually a more - it

36:19

reflects a lack of ambition perhaps.

36:21

And controversial or not, but that's another insight

36:24

that Bavinck would challenge our readership

36:26

today, "Hey, don't just

36:28

deny the world, but see the world

36:30

as an opportunity for you to say something

36:33

fresh." Well,

36:35

and that's getting also into

36:37

the Neocalvinist tradition

36:39

that you also have researched

36:41

a lot. So yeah, these

36:44

debates are ongoing. I think ever since

36:46

the Church began

36:49

there have been debates over, "How much

36:51

should we incorporate philosophy into

36:53

our theology?" and "How much should

36:55

we be engaging with the world or

36:57

trying to be separate from it?" These are questions that

37:00

never go away, so it's been

37:02

good to talk about some of them today. Thank you so

37:04

much for coming on to answer

37:07

these questions, and I hope that it's been a good

37:09

introduction for a lot of people. Thank you, Amy. It's great to be here.

37:14

[MUSIC PLAYS]

37:38

I need to know there is justice, that it will roll in abundance, and that you're building a city where we arrive as immigrants and you call us citizens and you welcome us as children home. [MUSIC STOPS]

37:40

It was great to have Gray on the podcast today.

37:43

I'm especially thankful that we were able to make

37:45

an interview work despite the 12 hour time difference.

37:48

As always, the music is the song "Citizens"

37:50

by Jon Guerra. I'd like to give a special

37:52

shout out today to my husband Jai for caring

37:54

for our son Thomas while I've conducted these interviews,

37:57

and to Thomas for taking time to nap so that

37:59

I can edit them. May

38:01

the Lord bless you and keep you. May

38:03

the Lord make his face to shine on you and give

38:05

you peace. May the Lord lift up

38:07

his countenance on you and be gracious to you.

38:10

Amen. Have a great week.

38:13

[MUSIC PLAYS] Is there a way to live always living

38:16

in enemy hallways? Don't

38:18

know my foes from my friends and don't know

38:21

my friends anymore. Power has several prizes.

38:26

Handcuffs can come in all sizes.

38:29

Love has a million disguises,

38:31

but winning

38:33

is simply not one.

38:34

[MUSIC STOPS]