Obviously, theology is a discipline and systematic theology a significant sub-discipline. As such, they will naturally grow, develop and so change across time, in part due to growing understanding, in part to respond to new or re-opened "burning issues" of a given time and place, in part to respond to worldviews and cultural agendas concerns, in part to fresh cultural contexts or generation gaps etc. The question is, how can we do so while being faithful to the faith, once for all delivered to the saints . . . or, is there such an objectively definable core?
The last comes first, as it decides all else.
To answer to it, let us recall where we closed off Part 3, with a clip from St Peter's theological will, c. 65 AD:
2 Peter 1: 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty . . . .
19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
This clearly points to the centrality of the gospel message, its authenticity, roots in eyewitness testimony and in fulfillment of prophecy. Precisely the context we find in 1 Cor 15, the sermons in the Acts, the focus of the six principles of Heb 6:1 -2, John 3:16, The Lord's Prayer and elsewhere. In that light, the core, in outline will run much as the summary in say the 325/381 Nicene Creed:
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Note, this point by point comparison with scripture.
With confidence in the 500 witnesses and in the prophecies, with our own experience of encounter with the living God through faith in Christ and a responsible answer to the attacks on the faith and scriptures in recent centuries, also respecting the fruit of centuries of work and our own knowledge and investigation of the scriptures, we should not be vulnerable to winds and waves of doctrine or the cunning and craftiness of deceitful schemers. And, we will have a basis to address the deeply entrenched doubts and skepticism we will certainly encounter in far too much of professional theology. (In this regard, the remarks of the late Eta Linnemann and others should give us pause.)
At the same time, there is genuine progress, often in response to circumstances, culture gaps, fresh insights and fresh burning issues. Relevance has to be objectively real and it has to address the felt concerns of the peoples of our Caribbean region and the wider world of our time with its outlook and with our growing sense that we are strategic for the global mission of the church. All of that, without getting unduly tangled up in and enmeshed by the fashionable intellectual currents and cultural/policy agendas of our day, or even agitprop promoted by ruthless ideologues seeking geostrategic advantage on the world stage. There is a father of lies, whose native tongue is deceit, and sadly he has many disciples.
Where, as a result, the crooked yardstick principle obtains:
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Where, further, we have the clear example of Paul at Athens, who found cultural bridging points, addressed worldviews issues and cultural contact points, using the known structure of the gospel without trying to fire off a chain of verses to those who would have no sense of the authenticity and relevance of the scriptures. Clearly, today, many are in a post-Christian form of the challenge he faced and so powerfully addressed at Mars Hill:
As I ponder the wreckage of our civilisation's intellectual heritage, I am convinced that an excellent point of general contact is with the first duties and principles of responsible reason, with linked reality root worldviews considerations:
We can readily identify at least seven inescapable first duties of reason. Inescapable, as they are so antecedent to reasoning that even the objector implicitly appeals to them; i.e. they are self-evident. Duties,-- to truth,-- to right reason,-- to prudence,-- to sound conscience,-- to neighbour, so also-- to fairness and justice etc.Such built in law is not invented by parliaments or courts, nor can these principles and duties be abolished by such. (Cf. Cicero in De Legibus, c. 50 BC.) Indeed, it is on this framework that we can set out to soundly understand and duly balance rights, freedoms and duties; which is justice. The legitimate main task of government, then, is to uphold and defend the civil peace of justice through sound community order reflecting the built in, intelligible law of our nature. Where, as my right implies your duty a true right is a binding moral claim to be respected in life, liberty, honestly aquired property, innocent reputation etc. To so justly claim a right, one must therefore demonstrably be in the right. Thus, too, we may compose sound civil law informed by that built-in law of our responsibly, rationally free morally governed nature; from such, we may identify what is unsound or false thus to be reformed or replaced even though enacted under the colour and solemn ceremonies of law. These duties, also, are a framework for understanding and articulating the corpus of built-in law of our morally governed nature, antecedent to civil laws and manifesting our roots in the Supreme Law-giver, the inherently good, utterly wise and just creator-God.This last point can be drawn out a little more. For, in a world where first duties and principles of responsible reason are inescapable, the notorious IS-OUGHT gap must be bridged. Where, from Hume et al, we know that we cannot simply go x is so, y is so, z ought to be. No, we need to go to the root of reality, the foundational level, and there we need to recognise an is that inherently also grounds ought, so there is no room for a gap to crack open as say the notorious Euthyphro dilemma suggests.
After centuries of debate, there is just one serious candidate to bridge this. And if you doubt, simply propose an alternative ______ and justify at the bar of worldview comparative difficulties _______; the exercise will soon enough show the point.
The sole serious candidate is a familiar figure: the inherently good and utterly wise creator God, a necessary and maximally great being. One, worthy of our loyalty and of the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good that accords with our evident nature.
There are many other facets, explored here on, in context.
Obviously, God as seen in the dim philosophical outline of generic ethical theism, can readily be connected to God as encountered in the gospel, the scriptures and real life encounter of life-transforming discipleship.
But how does all of this connect to theologising and systematisation, bridging general core and particular contexts, cultures, generations, times, issues, etc?
An obvious answer is the articulating power of the fullness of Christ principle that is most powerfully developed in Eph 1 and 4, informed by the Christ as cornerstone principle, in the further context of the operational form of our mandate presented in Eph 4:9 - 24 (and yes, the seven mountains community/culture/civilisation mapping model is useful too in helping us think through contexts, issues, dynamics, trends, challenges, strategic engagement etc -- leading to the 4R's progression framework).
First, the operational form of the mandate, leading to the 4R's framework as the gospel engages a community:
Second, we see here, an implied Bible and prophetic/eschatological timeline framework, which anchors our time and place to God's programme of redemption and culmination:
creation --> fall --> family and nation --> covenant, prophetic nation --> messiah, hinge of prophecy --> fulfillment with witnesses in the gospel's passion core --> mission to the world --> "that Day" and culmination.
In this light, messiah is already eschatological, and the last days were already in effect at Pentecost -- Peter, Ac 2:17 (quoting Joel 2),
"in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh . . . . 32 This [prophesied, fulfilling, blessing, healing, betrayed, crucified] Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing . . . "
-- and arguably all the way back to the days of Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel when the famous seventy weeks clock was set in motion and when Daniel gave the explanation of Nebuchadnezzar's vision of dominant civilisations in the image of Nimrod and the stone cut without hands:
Third, personalising, this then focusses on the Heb 6:1 - 2 six first principles that are at the heart of the response of discipleship (where R1 is gateway to the six principles) and brings to central focus, Christ as cornerstone. Also, naturally drawing out the scripture principle and its flow in God's timeline:
Such then allows us to freely engage culture and context, calling people to discipleship and challenging nations to live in light of the gospel, under God:
So we see how the core can be recognised and how we can then bridge and use the fullness of Christ theme under the operational form of the gospel-bearing missionary mandate, to engage any particular issue, concern, cultural feature etc, X. Simplifying:
STEP 1: Identify X and map it to the adapted 7 M's framework, clarifying how it fits in in a society.
STEP 2: Recognise the core substantial faith once for all delivered to the saints and how its authenticity can be established generally and in the given context.
STEP 3: Recognise the Cornerstone principle, the linked programme of God's action, our missionary mandate and how the Christocentric fullness vision serves as an articulating, operationalising principle.
STEP 4: Consider again X as it is and what it would become, X* were it filled with Christ's redemptive, transforming power and just judgement.
STEP 5: Do a "gap analysis," X* - X = delta-X, defining the change and change process involved.
STEP 6: Is X redeemable or reformable, or would it have to go out of existence as it is intrinsically evil and destructive, not just warped by evils? (That is, X* = 0 so delta-X = -X.) If the latter, is that cessation credibly feasible now [why?], or is it only feasible in future or on "that day." In the latter cases, how can it be ameliorated, or how can we set a counter-cultural demonstration example, a foretaste of what will be in fullness at the coming?
STEP 7: If through general progress of gospel ethics, heart softening and sound advance of civilisation under reforming influence, abolition or major reformation/transformation are feasible today, how can this be carried forward through the church's acting as an embassy of the Kingdom of God?
STEP 8: Exert prophetic, intellectual and cultural leadership in respect to X, through the span of the gospel and its integral ethics; as a part of the church's operations under its mandate.
STEP 9: Integrate into the structure of theology and incorporate into the systematic framework in an appropriate way, in balance with the rest of what we must collectively be faithful to.
Surely, that allows integration and contextualisation without sacrificing commitment to the core faith once for all delivered to the saints. END
