The Value Of Historical Theology For Today
Chauvinism of the present. That is the expression I use to describe the attitude which assumes that we are the best and brightest generation of Christians. Chauvinism of the present says, “we have got it all together, so we do not need to consider what anyone before us has had to say about Christian truth.” Those who are infected with this attitude act as if God stopped working in history shortly after the death of the Apostle John and began again only in recent times.
I teach the historical theology courses at Talbot School of Theology. Many students approach a history class with the enthusiasm they have for a visit to the dentist. So I take the bull by the horns and begin the semester by asking the class, “Why study historical theology? After all, you could be at the beach instead of sitting here.” Now, I believe in the total depravity of seminary students, and I know that most of the students sitting in front of me are not there for the sheer joy of historical inquiry. Therefore, I start the ball rolling by giving one obvious answer: “You cannot get a degree from Talbot without these courses!” All heads nod in vigorous assent.
“But,” I ask, “could there possibly be more noble reasons? Is there a chance that you might benefit significantly from courses in historical theology? Can they make you more effective in your ministry? In your own walk with the Lord?”
Let me suggest a few benefits of seriously considering the great thinkers of the past, thus avoiding the chauvinism of the present.
We Learn From Past Mistakes
A knowledge of historical theology can help us identify and refute false teaching. As Talbot’s Dr. Henry Holloman has stated in his inimitable Southern style, “The teachings of the new cults are really just old heresies dressed up in space suits.” Robert and Gretchen Passantino, experts in the field of religious cults, observe, “almost every doctrinal deviation held by the cults today was held by other cults in the first four or five centuries of the Christian church. Reading an account of the heresies in the early church reads like a catalog of the beliefs of the major cults today.” [2]
The church rose to the challenge of false teaching and refuted early “isms” like Gnosticism, modalism, Arianism and Pelagianism. In studying the writings of church fathers like Augustine, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Athanasius, one can discover much good “ammunition” for refuting everything from New Age spiritism to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ denial of Christ’s deity. In fact, when reading Athanasius (who wrote against Arius, a false teacher who denied Christ’s true divinity), one must continually remember that he is attacking a fourth century heretic from Alexandria and not the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn! Solomon’s claim that “there is nothing new under the sun” applies to religious beliefs as aptly as it does to everything else.
We Learn From Past Success
A second reason for studying historical theology is the flip side of the first: to gain an appreciation for good theology. In my own theological reflections I often find that past models provide solutions to modern problems. Most of the significant doctrinal issues have already been considered thoroughly, and the brightest minds of the church have labored hard on them over the centuries.
For example, there is a considerable hubbub these days over “Lordship salvation”: can Jesus be your Savior without being Lord of your life? The considerable light which the Reformation and seventeenth-century post-Reformation Protestant writers shed on this topic is often overlooked. The controversies these men faced with Roman Catholics, Socinians, and Remonstrants [3] forced them to clarify with precision the nature of saving faith and the relationship between works and saving faith in the so-called ordo salutis (“order of salvation”). Even though they did not address the issue exactly as we do today, they provided significant groundwork and pointed toward fruitful ways to solve the problem.
Another current issue illuminated by past thinkers is the immutability (unchangeableness) of God’s being and foreknowledge. There have been a spate of books and articles recently which deny that God can know our future, affirming instead that God literally changes in what He knows, and that He is bound by time. [4] Issues like these may seem to be the abstract wranglings of demented theologs--issues having no day-to-day relevance. While I will not pronounce one way or the other on the dementia of the theologians involved, I will say that I know Christians whose spiritual lives have been damaged seriously by these books, which attempt to whittle down God to man’s level. In fact, I recently received a letter from one such believer, whose spiritual life was in shambles as a result of this “limited God” teaching.
There may even be people in your assembly wondering, “How can I trust a God who is of one mind today and of another tomorrow?” “Is God really in control of my future?” “What kind of confidence can I have in a God who is Himself striving toward perfection?” In fact, I have talked to Christians in my own assembly who were confused about verses which they thought affirmed that God literally changes His mind. I have been able to help many people asking these questions by giving them the arguments of Stephen Charnock, a seventeenth-century Puritan theologian. His classic Discourses on the Existence and Attributes of God has greatly benefited many individuals troubled about the steadfastness of God’s sovereignty and immutability. [5]
Now, I am not suggesting that all the problems troubling us have been solved by past thinkers. The threat of nuclear holocaust, the ethical ramifications of in-vitro fertilization, and the question of maintaining the terminally ill on artificial life support systems were not contemplated by these writers. Nor am I suggesting that we must accept their solutions uncritically or without modification. After all: Scripture is the final authority. But I am suggesting that it is chauvinism of the present to think we are shedding all the light when past thinkers have already illuminated the path.
We Find History To Be A Theological Laboratory
Another reason to study historical theology is that it provides a laboratory for testing our own theological ideas. The science of theology, however, is not like the natural sciences: you cannot take a theological postulate and determine its truth with litmus paper. In fact, we often do not realize the implications of our theology until the damage is already done—and then it is too late! Yet, by studying the doctrinal systems of the past, we can see where certain assumptions and approaches have led in the past and might well lead in the future.
About fifteen years ago, before I began attending a Brethren assembly, I was involved with a small, independent Christian fellowship. Several of our young people went with a missionary group on a short-term missionary assignment. Being a missions-minded church, we were all for it, and we supported them with our money and our prayers. Unfortunately, all was not well with what they were taught at the schools they attended. This group seemed to have an exceedingly strong view of our human responsibility. They used the buzz-words “holiness of life” and “total commitment to Christ.” While we were all for “holiness of life” and “total commitment to Christ” (biblically understood), something seemed out of balance and unhealthy in their approach.
At first we could not quite put our finger on the problem. Some of the young people came back talking about the possibility of attaining sinlessness in this life. “How,” they reasoned, “could Christ command us to be perfect if He knows full well that we can’t do it?” Soon they were denying the biblical doctrine of original sin as unfair and inconsistent with the notion that each person is responsible for his or her own sins (and not for the sins of Adam or of anyone else). Their theology shocked me, but the biggest shocks were to follow: before long, they denied God’s foreknowledge, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, and even the substitutionary atonement.
This happened when I was just starting seminary and had not yet studied the history of doctrine. I knew my Bible well enough to recognize this teaching as blasphemy, but I was ill-prepared to refute it with the kind of detailed refutation that was necessary. I found myself unable to discern their hidden “theological agenda.” Their denial of original sin had a certain logic to it, but why deny God’s foreknowledge, Christ’s propitiatory work on the cross, and the imputation of that work through faith?
Had I known then what I know now, I would have seen the clear antecedents of their theology in past theological systems, specifically Pelagianism, Grotianism, and Socinianism. I would have also understood that, historically, systems which understate the degree of man’s depravity undermine Christ’s work in equal measure. They were trying to heal a dead man with a Band Aid. They could not see that someone dead in sin (Eph. 2:1–3) needs a full-blown resurrection.
We Are Inspired By The Piety Of The Past
A fourth reason for studying church history is that we can be strengthened spiritually as we encounter past models of true Christian piety. What Christian can fail to be moved by Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, inspired to a deeper faith commitment by the biography of George Müller, led to a greater trust in the mercy of Christ through Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, or set aflame to evangelize the world by contemplating Hudson Taylor’s zeal and dedication?
To keep such examples before my students, I sometimes begin my classes with a prayer by a significant Christian in church history. When we study the prayers of these giants of the faith, we are often humbled by the superficiality of our own prayer lives! The prayers of people like John Knox, Martin Luther, George Muller, and John Wesley are both stimulating and edifying. Studying their prayers also helps build within us a sense of the “communion of saints”: that we stand in a long tradition of believers in Christ who have trusted the Lord and approached Him in prayer.
To begin your own study of Christian history, I highly recommend a subscription to Christian History magazine (P.O. Box 11618, Des Moines, IA 50340; Phone: 1–800-873–6986). Each issue features a certain person or movement as its theme. For example, past issues have focused on the lives and ministries of D. L. Moody, John Wesley, C. H. Spurgeon, and C. S. Lewis. The articles are written by historians, but in a non-technical, easy style. You will love it! In terms of books to add to your library, I suggest you get Bruce Shelley’s Church History in Plain Language (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1982). This book will help give you the historical “lay of the land.” Also good is Eerdmans Handbook to the History of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977). This volume is rich with pictures, diagrams, and photographs, which help the historical materials come alive. For more serious study, Philip Schaff’s 8 volume History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1910, reprinted April 1986) is still unsurpassed. You can obtain it at a hefty discount through Christian Book Distributors (Box 3687, Peabody, Mass. 01961–3687. Phone: 617–532-5300). Those of you interested specifically in the history of Christian doctrine (i. e., Historical Theology) should look at Justo Gonzalez, History of Christian Thought (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), and also Louis Berkhof’s History of Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1937; reprinted August 1980).
We Gain A Priceless Perspective
We are all aware of our fellowship with other believers in our own local assembly, but we need to be reminded equally of our connection with the family of God throughout the centuries. Our theological and biblical perspective was not lowered from heaven on a sheet; in many ways we are indebted to great Christians of the past who have meditated on God’s word and communicated it to His body.
Because it all looks so obvious to our hindsight, we quickly forget that the Christian teaching we hold so dear was hammered out in the heat of controversy and bought with many godly lives. We attain our perspective on God and His Word in a good measure from those who have labored before us “in the word and in doctrine” (1 Tim. 5:17). In regard to the great mysteries of the Faith we are often dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants.
Notes
- Alan Gomes is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Talbot School of Theology. He attends Grace Bible Chapel in Fullerton, California.
- Robert and Gretchen Passantino, Answers to the Cultist at Your Door (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1981), 37–38.
- ”Socinians” refer to the followers of Faustus Socinus (1539–1604). Socinus was the theological leader of the Unitarian church, which was particularly active in Poland and in what is now Romania. Modern Unitarians trace their lineage to him. The term Remonstrants refers to the followers of Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609). They are called ”Remonstrants” because they lodged a complaint (”remonstrance”) with the Reformed (Calvinistic) churches in the Netherlands, seeking toleration for their views on predestination and grace. The Remonstrants were expelled from the Reformed church at the Synod of Dort in 1618–19.
- E.g., Richard Rice, God's Foreknowledge and Man's Free Will (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1985); Predestination and Free Will: Four Views, ed. by Randall Basinger and David Basinger (Downer's Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986); H. Roy Elseth, Did God Know? (St. Paul: Calvary United Church, 1977); Gordon C. Olson, Sharing Your Faith (Chicago: Bible Research Fellowship, 1976); Gordon C. Olson, The Truth Shall Make You Free (Franklin Park, Ill.: Bible Research Fellowship, 1980), etc.
- I have written a refutation of this ”limited foreknowledge” view in an article which appeared in the Summer 1987 edition of the Christian Research Journal. The article is entitled, ”God in Man's Image: Foreknowledge, Freedom, and the `Openness' of God.” An interesting book on this subject from a biblically sound perspective is Robert A. Morey's Battle of the Gods (Southbridge, Mass.: Crown Publications, 1989).
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