Will Evangelicals Lead a Revival in Dogmatic Theology?

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Evangelicals have long contributed highly-respected works to biblical scholarship. Evangelicals have also earned considerable respect in the philosophical guild. Much of this labor has been spent on apologetics, which has raised the bar on Christian reasoning as well as offered trenchant defenses of Christian theism.

Yet, within this landscape of evangelical scholarship, the discipline of systematic theology has often lagged behind or been viewed with suspicion. The result has been an evangelical landscape marked by rich biblical exegesis and vibrant apologetics but one that often lacks the coherence and depth that systematic theology can provide.

For instance, some notable Christian philosophers have challenged traditional doctrines without engaging at a very serious level with the historical development of and rationale for classic formulations. Controversies over the Trinity as well as over divine simplicity, immutability, and impassibility have been occasioned less by an itch for innovation than by ignorance of these doctrines and their historical development.

Of course, evangelicals have produced systematic theologies, but they have been mostly surveys and manuals of Christian doctrine: summaries aimed at a popular audience. What was missing in neo-evangelical discussions was dogmatics: that is, deep engagement with the history of exegesis and doctrine as well as contemporary theological scholarship.

However, an exciting shift among evangelicals is occurring. A growing number of evangelical scholars are embracing systematic theology as dogmatics, recovering the catholic heritage of the Reformation while engaging constructively with the global and historical traditions of the church. This renewal of dogmatics promises a theology that is not only deeply rooted in Scripture but also enriched by the insights of history and philosophy, offering a robust foundation for faith and practice.

The neglect of dogmatics: a confluence of influences

If evangelicals have contributed so vitally to various scholarly fields, why has dogmatics been neglected until recently?

Before highlighting this heartening development, let’s first trace the occlusion of dogmatics among evangelicals. In so doing, we must observe Anglo-American evangelicalism as the product of diverse movements and even contradictory impulses.

1. Reformed catholicity

What I am calling dogmatics was, from Augustine to Aquinas, simply called sacra doctrina because it was based on special revelation. Yet dogmatics marshals the resources of other disciplines to offer rigorous scriptural exegesis combined with deep engagement with the whole Christian tradition of interpretation.

Various schools engendered their own systems of dogmatics, which we refer to as “scholastic theology.” In the wake of the Reformation, Lutheran and Reformed scholastics wrote similar systems with a particularly confessional emphasis, yet in conversation and continuity with what has come to be called the Great Tradition. Besides exhibiting the highest standards of biblical scholarship, these works show considerable familiarity with patristic and medieval theology, as well as that of other Protestant traditions.

Dogmatics marshals the resources of other disciplines to offer rigorous scriptural exegesis combined with deep engagement with the whole Christian tradition of interpretation.

The Reformers and their heirs, therefore, considered themselves Reformed Catholics, not simply Protestants. Despite the Magisterial Reformation’s disagreement with the late-medieval church over matters essential to the gospel, it maintained its connection to the catholic heritage.

2. Enlightenment and pietism

The Enlightenment severely criticized this enterprise, with Immanuel Kant concluding that there can be no constitutive knowledge of God. A science deprived of its object was obviously no science at all. One could talk about the beliefs and practices of certain religious groups, cultural influences, and psychological experiences, but not make normative metaphysical claims. Garrett E. Paul explains,

Troeltsch, following Schleiermacher, chose to refer to his theology as Glaubenslehre [doctrine of faith], rejecting the term “dogmatics.” The whole idea of dogma … had been completely undermined by research into the history of Christianity and religion in general. The Bible, the creeds, and even Jesus had all been historicized and relativized. Without dogma, theology could no longer be called dogmatics: “We are no longer in the business of fixing permanent dogmas from an inspired Bible. Instead, we formulate teachings [Lehren] which express the essence of Christian piety.”

To a certain extent, evangelical pietism not only accommodated such a transformation, but helped to bring it about. Pietism sought a “religion of the heart” that transcended confessions, setting in it individualistic and inward focus in opposition to the visible church. Eschewing controversies over doctrine and liturgy, it instead emphasized unity in experience, practice, and mission. Under Jakob Spener’s leadership and with royal support, Prussian Lutheran and Reformed churches were not to engage in internecine disputes and did not press members to swear to any particular confession.

3. The atomization of disciplines

Pietism also encouraged a dichotomy between biblical theology and dogmatics.

In 1783, J. S. Gabler gave an inaugural address, titled “On the Proper Distinction Between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology.” First, he distinguished religion (evangelical piety) and theology (learned discourse). From there he separated biblical and dogmatic theology, stipulating,

There is truly a biblical theology, of historical origin, conveying what the holy writers felt about divine matters; on the other hand there is a dogmatic theology of didactic origin, teaching what each theologian philosophises rationally about divine things, according to the measure of his ability or of the times, age, place, sect, school, and other similar factors.

The influential dichotomy that Gabler proposed above presupposes that theologians are not exegetes and exegetes are not theologians. Accordingly, biblical scholars work with the primary text while dogmaticians bury their noses in secondary sources. The antithesis of Gabler’s programmatic address would be a picture of B. B. Warfield and Gerhardus Vos walking arm in arm through the Princeton yard on the Sabbath.

New Testament scholar Francis Watson offered his own take on why British evangelicalism has been uninterested in dogmatics, registering anxiety about this increasing polarization and atomization within disciplines related to theology:

It is believed that theological concerns have an inevitable tendency to distort the autonomous processes of biblical exegesis—a prejudice so strong that to identity a theological motivation underlying an exegetical position is often held to be sufficient refutation. Third, there is an unwillingness to accept the existence and the significance of theology as a discipline in its own right.

4. Modern missionary movement

The evangelical revivals perpetuated the pietist tradition and the nineteenth-century missionary movement evidenced a similar attitude, bringing this heritage to the Majority World. Many viewed theology as a luxury for those with too much time on their hands or, worse, something that had a chilling effect on missions. Moreover, with some justification, indigenous Christians as well as missionaries associated theology with liberalism.

Opinion held that church dogmatics encouraged splintering, impeding cross-denominational cooperation. So to facilitate cooperation, doctrinal agreements were kept to a minimum. Doctrine in general and confessional theologies especially were seen as extra baggage from the Old World. Missionaries often saw their internecine debates as a European phenomenon that had little to do with advancing the cause of Christ in the world. In the great work that American Protestantism undertook in missions, the Sunday school movement, and social reform, doctrinal and liturgical distinctives often represented Old World concerns that placed unnecessary weight on evangelical activism.

In my own experience, such attitudes toward systematic theology persist deeply in the Majority World. In a post-colonial era it is often labeled “Western,” though in fact the pietist suspicion of church theology was just as much a Western phenomenon. At the same time, Western theologians rarely engaged non-Western counterparts, still viewing the Majority World more as the mission field than as part of the global theological conversation.

5. Hegemonic pragmatism

The same assumptions were evident in Anglo-American evangelicalism at home. Catechism classes were increasingly replaced by the non-denominational instruction materials of the Sunday school movement. Protestant hegemony encouraged breadth at the expense of depth. A broadly anti-intellectual trend, encouraged by passionate activism, imbued evangelicalism with an intensely pragmatic character.

After winding up his lecture tour in the United States before returning to his death in a Nazi concentration camp, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of a “Protestantism without the Reformation.” I think Bonhoeffer overstates his case, but only just a little, when he judges

God has granted American Christianity no Reformation. He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God. … American theology and the American church as a whole have never been able to understand the meaning of “criticism” by the Word of God and all that signifies … In American theology, Christianity is still essentially religion and ethics … Because of this the person and work of Christ must, for theology, sink into the background and in the long run remain misunderstood, because it is not recognized as the sole ground of radical judgment and radical forgiveness.

6. Theology under a common denominator

This pragmatism reflects itself in evangelicalism’s interest in broad coalitions.

For instance, in 1920, B. B. Warfield evaluated the “creed” being put forward for a “plan of union for evangelical churches.” Warfield observed that the new confession being proposed “contains nothing which is not believed by Evangelicals,” and yet “nothing which is not believed … by the adherents of the Church of Rome, for example.” He goes on:

There is nothing about justification by faith in this creed. And that means that all the gains obtained in that great religious movement which we call the Reformation are cast out of with window. … There is nothing about the atonement in the blood of Christ in this creed. And that means that the whole gain of the long mediaeval search after truth is thrown summarily aside. … There is nothing about sin and grace in this creed. … We need not confess our sins anymore; we need not recognize the existence of such a thing. We need believe in the Holy Spirit only “as guide and comforter”—do not the Rationalists do the same? And this means that all the gain the whole world has reaped from the great Augustinian conflict goes out of the window with the rest. … It is just as true that the gains of the still earlier debates which occupied the first age of the Church’s life, through which we attained to the understanding of the fundamental truths of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ are discarded by this creed also. There is no Trinity in this creed; no Deity of Christ—or of the Holy Spirit.

Neo-evangelicalism, led by Carl Henry, Billy Graham, and others, eschewed anti-intellectualism, resulting in a reconfiguration of American Protestantism. In confronting modernist theology, fundamentalism had largely retreated from the academy. It remained fiercely committed to the “fundamentals,” often defending them, though with a simplistic biblicism.

Yet the neo-evangelical movement still reflected the mainline aims to represent a broad coalition. In its statement of faith, the National Association of Evangelicals affirms the Trinity, the deity of Christ, “the vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood,” and the necessity of a supernatural rebirth. However, there is no mention of justification and the only conviction concerning the church is belief in “the spiritual unity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are not even mentioned. On the one hand, this has allowed remarkable interdenominational cooperation between different confessions.

On the other hand, it has created an entity—evangelicalism—that often represents an alternative confession that discourages the tradition of church dogmatics.

7. A naive biblicism

Finally, evangelicalism inherits from pietism and fundamentalism a biblicist tendency, as evident in its frequent opposition of biblical studies to church dogmatics. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors of Lutheran and Reformed dogmatics were also pioneers in biblical languages, philology, philosophy, and even science. However, across the liberal–conservative divide, “scholasticism” was held in suspicion.

Not surprisingly, biblicist approaches to theology have led to dusty debates over revisionist formulations of classical theism and the Trinity that displays little familiarity with the long tradition of Christian reflection on these important points. Open theists rejected classical theism as a castle built by Plato and Aristotle, accusing it of failing to follow the simple meaning of biblical passages. Closer to home, a number of prominent evangelical theologians have questioned such divine attributes as immutability, simplicity, and impassibility as unbiblical philosophical speculations. N. T. Wright criticized the Reformation understanding of Paul’s teaching on justification while acknowledging that he is unfamiliar with the primary texts of this tradition. It simply does not matter because we will finally discover What St. Paul Really Said.

In mainline circles, too, the debate between biblical scholars Brevard Childs and Walter Brueggemann illustrates apparent tensions between biblical theology and church dogmatics. Brueggemann challenged Childs’ “canonical interpretation” of Scripture as a euphemism for privileging the church’s reading of the text over the reading of the oppressed, to which Childs responded that

The whole point of focusing on Scripture as canon in opposition to the anthropocentric tradition of liberal protestantism is to emphasize that the biblical text and its theological function as authoritative form belong inextricably together.

In Reformed circles, the apologist Cornelius Van Til often criticized Protestant scholasticism as a return to the broken cisterns of medieval theology. There was a tendency to speak of a distinctly biblical (i.e., Reformed) doctrine of everything: the Trinity, the divine attributes, justification, etc. Thus, not only in liberal circles but in conservative ones, a biblicist tendency delayed a dogmatics revival in evangelicalism.

The need for dogmatics: history and philosophy

According to Francis Turretin, the Socinians, like the ancient Arians, rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, alleging that “the whole doctrine is metaphysical rather than biblical.”

In contrast, the best rule I have found comes from the first chapter of the Westminster Confession: All that is necessary to be known in Scripture “is either set down expressly in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from the same” (WCF 1.6). For example, although there is no verse that says, “God is one in essence and three in Persons,” there are many passages to anchor our belief that God is One and yet the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. By good and necessary consequence, the Trinity is deduced from the Scriptures and not from philosophical speculation. As Aquinas explains well, theology and philosophy must be kept distinct because dogmas like the Trinity and the person and work of Christ are supernaturally revealed.

Yet in the face of challenges to these doctrines in specific times and places, the church has had to formulate biblical teaching by drawing on the language and conceptual categories of non-Christian thought. This process begins already in the New Testament itself, where Platonic and Stoic images are used to convey quite non-Platonic and non-Stoic convictions. For example, the Word was not only the “only-begotten” through whom God created the world, but “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14 ESV).

Apart from a recognition of the history of dogma, biblical exegetes and philosophers alike may easily glide over the rationale for essential doctrines.

Dogmatics cannot ignore the history of philosophy, since both are intertwined. For example, in his book Most Moved Mover (2001), after asserting that classical theism is based on Plato and Aristotle, Clark Pinnock, with great irony, acknowledges that he is following Hegel.

A crucial category that biblicism overlooks is “mixed articles”—that is, doctrines that are drawn from Scripture but formulated with the precision of philosophical terms and categories. It is these mixed articles that give to theology its own particular science. Yet for many today, theology is not exegetical enough for biblicists and not rational enough for philosophers. This biblicist proof-texting and philosophical criticism offer a one-two punch to crucial theological constructions.

Christians have a fixed text. However, its reception history is conditioned by two millennia of contextual readings. We are all aware that we must interpret the Scriptures in their own cultural–linguistic milieu, but we may be less aware of this history of interpretation and how our own readings are shaped by prejudices—both good and bad—that color our reading of Scripture. Apart from a recognition of the history of dogma, biblical exegetes and philosophers alike may easily glide over the rationale for essential doctrines such as divine simplicity, immutability, impassability, and so forth.

The renewal of dogmatics: Barth and beyond

Let’s turn now to more encouraging trends that have led us to brighter days for Christian dogmatics.

Undoubtedly, the first award goes to Karl Barth.

Reformation vs. Neo-Protestant theology

When Barth took the honorary chair in Reformed theology at Göttingen, he began reading “the mysteries of specifically Reformed theology.” Poring over John Calvin, he said he discovered

a waterfall, a primitive forest, a demonic power, something straight down from the Himalayas, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I just don’t have the organs, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, let alone to describe it properly.

Then he picked up Heinrich Heppe’s Reformed Dogmatics, a compendium of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed orthodox writers. Having previously described Protestant scholasticism as “an empty canal,” he now, as he put it, “felt for the first time that he was visibly in the realm of the church.” Especially in Reformed orthodoxy, he said he discovered “things that I would never have dreamed could really be true when I was a student or when I was a pastor in Safenwil.” Even in the Church Dogmatics, he went so far as to declare, “Fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet.”

He would come to understand modern “Protestantism”—what he calls “Neo-Protestantism”—as not Christianity at all. He said,

It is heir not so much to the Reformers as to the left-wing opposition that the Reformers had to fight against. Unbroken threads undoubtedly lead us from the Anabaptists to Pietism, Zinzendorf, and Schleiermacher, and from the Radicals to the Socinians, the Remonstrants, the Rationalists, and Schleiermacher again, and then from Schleiermacher to ourselves.

Thus, in his first lectures on dogmatics at Göttingen, Barth exhorted,

We are a generation that has to learn again, sometimes even by name, what are the presuppositions that a Thomas, an Augustine before him, and a Calvin after him could quietly take for granted. … Is not the word “dogmatics” an ominous one, a bogey that causes the children of light as well as the children of the world to shudder?

The dangerous act of speaking for God

Barth chides the convenience of academic distance in investigating particular religious figures:

There is nothing dangerous or suspect about this if we at least know how to walk warily around the burning bush. … With the help of the Bible and other good books, we can always say something with reference to human needs and from the fount of our own experience … There is nothing dangerous or suspect about all this. But there is a point—and no theologian can evade it—at which theology does become dangerous and suspect. This is the point where the twofold question arises: What are you going to say? … Not how impressively or how clearly or how well adapted to your hearers and the present age—these are all secondary concerns—but what? … We have to consider the fact that “in some way” we have to speak about God. The question puts a pistol at the breast of theologians and through them at that of the public. … One can well understand why even theologians prefer an undogmatic Christianity.

Nevertheless, “every theologian has to be a dogmatician.” He adds:

There is only one God. No statement is more dangerous or revolutionary than this for all mythologies and ideologies. When this truth is known, then the 450 priests of Baal at Carmel are called to account, and many other priests with them.

The Word comes first, bringing its own doctrines. Then dogmatics is for preaching, Barth believed. “Dogmatics and preaching are related in the same way as service at headquarters and at the front”; “Christian preaching is edifying speech; dogmatics is scientific examination of this speech.”

Yet so much preaching, even the best, is filled too much with “the human, temporal, and secular element that bars free course in the Word.” Dogmatics is needed because “to every age the church’s preaching has been sick.”

One example is the ever-present threat of Pelagianism. Another example, he says, is ignorance or rejection of divine simplicity, which inevitably leads to the confusion of Creator and creation.

Revival beyond Barth

Receptions of Barth in the evangelical academy were varied and often polarized into extremes of lionizing and demonizing. But whatever of Barth’s theology is justifiably eschewed and criticized, his call for dogmatics to speak humbly yet courageous of God from God echoes in the renewal of dogmatics today.

The influence of Reformed orthodoxy in American evangelicalism came from Old Princeton. But through translation efforts in recent years, Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics has spawned a virtual sub-discipline. John Webster told me that he felt Bavinck represented the most up-to-date interaction with modern theology and culture of his day from a classic Reformed perspective. Many have found Bavinck not only an astute exegete of Scripture and modern theology, but a gateway to the old theologians.

We cannot fail to mention the pioneering work of Richard Muller in this regard, who encouraged a wide revival of interest in Reformed scholasticism, including fresh English translations of Latin works. By coming in closer contact with this tradition, we go deeper into the broader catholic heritage that they held in high esteem.

The state of dogmatics: 5 encouraging signs

The old guard must be respected for its stance on biblical inerrancy, but this is hardly the main point of Christianity. In fact, this doctrine itself needs the protective armor of other doctrines as well as the development of the canon and its authority in the ancient church.

Dogmatics serves preaching; in fact, theologians are preachers, too. Precisely for that reason, we should move beyond surveys, manuals, and formulas to re-engage the Christian tradition as well as our contemporary contexts.

Today, I am encouraged by the maturation of systematic theology in evangelical circles. These efforts share a combination of characteristics.

1. A high view of Scripture

They are impelled by a high view of Scripture as the only norm for faith and practice and thus exhibit rigorous exegesis of a unified canon.

Unless God has revealed himself, Kant is right: Theologians are anthropologists, psychologists, or professors of religious studies. But because God has spoken truly, reliably, and inerrantly, we have significant work to do. Every doctrine must be grounded in God’s self-revelation that reaches its apex in the incarnate Son.

2. Hermeneutical sensitivity

The projects I have in mind are sensitive to hermeneutical considerations. They reflect contextual considerations, beyond mere proof-texting and the repetition of formulas.

3. Historical retrieval

These efforts are informed by and engage seriously with the history of dogma as an ongoing conversation that invites interaction with Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars. At the same time, they reflect their distinct confessional context.

4. Philosophical attunement

Aware of “mixed articles,” such projects consider the philosophical influences in the history of doctrine. They appropriate its insights with critical discernment, with Scripture operating as the normative authority.

5. Global conversance

We are just at the beginning of a new era of global theological conversation. We have seen a host of regional theologies in recent decades, but now we are seeing genuine partnerships emerge among theologians and biblical scholars in the global church.

Through this engagement, we come to see how all of our cultural locations, including the Western one, shape and sometimes misshape our horizon. Such mutual encouragement and admonition—between different confessions, disciplines, and cultures—hold tremendous promise for a fuller, richer, and more representative evangelical theology that is done by and for the global church.

Conclusion

A new breeze is blowing and it is filled with promise as the Lord leads us together.

If there is one dominating characteristic of this renewal, it is that we can and must speak of the triune God. This is the warrant for dogmatics. And we can only speak of God because he has spoken of himself.