284 - The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options

The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options

Edited by Robert K. Johnston

Atlanta, John Knox, 1985. 257 Pp. $17.95 ($11.95 Paper).

Inasmuch as the theological task is never an easy one and the way in which the biblical basis of our Christianity becomes a part of contemporary theological formulation is not entirely self-evident, symposia like Johnston's The Use of the Bible are to be welcomed. Although the use of the word "evangelical" in the title might appear to some to be a limiting factor, there is a surprising diversity of opinion in this volume. The editor's comment that "it is increasingly difficult to provide an inclusive definition of evangelicalism" is borne out by the essays he gathers together into the present volume. We have, for example, from James Packer, a discussion of the movement from exegesis to theology that harks back consciously and conscientiously to the roots of Protestantism in the Reformation and post-Reformation periods. Packer assumes the sola scriptura, moves from Scripture to doctrine by way of the analogy of faith, and listens carefully to the Protestant confessions, to the theology and exegesis of Calvin, and to the writings of the English Puritans. From a rather different perspective, Clark Pinnock effectively apologizes for the more traditional elements in his theology and strives to argue that truth must spring directly from the text by way of an exegesis committed to the doctrine of biblical infallibility. Donald Bloesch supplies us with a rather Barthian plea for "christological exegesis" of both testaments, while Robert Webber calls for an approach that listens to Scripture in the light particularly of the theology of the patristic period and seeks a teaching that is both "evangelical" and "catholic." Donald Dayton argues from the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral" of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience against a fundamentalistic absolutization of teaching-such as the role of women in the church-toward an almost magisterial use of reason and experience that can open the text for use in the present. David Wells similarly calls for "contextualization" of the message, for a realization that theology is constructed with the needs and questions of present-day culture in mind.

This brief survey of six out of the ten approaches in the book testifies amply to the diversity of opinion and to the fact witnessed, at least in this volume, that "evangelical" indicates a commitment to the biblical foundation of Christian theology but hardly signifies a monolithic approach. That in itself is salutary. And it must be a fact of life and practice as long as evangelicalism in America is a movement that cuts across denominational lines. Dayton's view appears to be a normative Wesleyan one, whereas Webber's fits into a traditional Anglican paradigm. If we look to the four essays not surveyed above, we find that

285 - The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options

John Howard Yoder's catechetical and corrective use of Scripture coupled with his emphasis on the New Testament use of Scripture fits as much into his Mennonite perspective as into the evangelical model; that Russel Spittler's essay reflects the encounter of young Pentecostal denominations with the larger theological world and with a more critical exegesis than that of their founders; and that those of William Dyrness and Gabriel Fackre both reflect the Reformation sola scriptura and the trajectory of Reformed theology that might be expected of Reformed and Congregational writers.

The volume, then, provides models for "doing theology" on the evangelical side of most of the major American religious or theological traditions. What is finally more important, however, is whether all of these approaches are useful or productive. Here, of course, we enter the less-objective realm of the reviewer's own theological and methodological preferences. Pinnock's view, which poses the lonely exegete over against the text and excludes the tradition as a positive guide even in a secondary sense, seems to confuse the genres of "biblical" and "systematic" theology and to be unwilling to admit that a great number of our most cherished doctrines, for example, trinity and christology, come from a centuries-long churchly meditation on the implications of the text or that quite a few of the most pointed issues confronting God-language are posed by reason and philosophy. Bloesch's "christological" exegesis not only fails to do justice to the Old Testament, but most probably ends in pressing a theological grind, albeit one dear to the heart of Christianity, over both Scripture and system. Much clearer and more useful models would seem to come from Webber, Packer, Fackre, Dayton, and Wells, each of whom allows both for the value of tradition and the needs of the present, thereby recognizing that theology in the present involves more than a hermeneutical leap out of the text into the twentieth century.

RICHARD A. MULLER

Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, California