WHAT IS REFORMED THEOLOGY?
Understanding the Basics
By:- R.C. SPROUL
-founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries
-senior minister of preaching at St. Andrew’s Chapel in Florida
-director of Serve International
-ordained minister in Presbyterian Church of America
Introduction:
-In the nineteenth century theologians and historians, busy with a comparative analysis of
world religion, sought to distill the essence of religion itself and reduce Christianity to its
least common denominator.
-The term Wesen (being or essence) appeared in a plethora of German theological studies,
including Adolf Harnack’s book What is Christianity? Harnack reduced Christianity to two
essential affirmations, the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of
man, neither of which is espoused by the Bible in the sense articulated by Harnack.
A Theology, Not a Religion
-Historically the study of religion has been subsumed under the headings of anthropology,
sociology, or even psychology.
-the study of religion is chiefly the study of a certain kind of human behaviour, be it under
the rubric of anthropology, sociology, or psychology.
-The study of theology, on the other hand is the study of God.
-Religion is anthropocentric; theology is theocentric. The difference between religion and
theology is ultimately the difference between God and man.
- it is a difference of subject matter. The subject matter of theology proper is God; the
subject matter of religion is man.
The Study of Scripture:
-the Bible was called verbum Dei(Word of God) or the Vox Dei( voice of God).
-Classical Christianity would say that the gospel is a message that is both about God and
from God.
The study of Nature:
-Natural theology: studying nature for clues it gives about God’s character. Natural theology
refers to information about God that is gleaned from nature.
-People approach natural theology from two distinct vantage point.
First: natural theology as a theology derived from sheer human speculation-by unaided
reason reflecting philosophically on nature.
Second: natural theology as the product of and based on natural revelation. Revelation is
something God does. It is his action of self-disclosure.
-Both Roman Catholicism and historic Reformed theology embraced natural theology
gleaned from natural revelation. Because the Bible clearly teaches that, in addition to God’s
revelation of himself in Scripture, there is also the sphere of divine revelation found in
nature.
-Classical theology made as acute distinction between special revelation and general
revelation.
-Special revelation: it provides specific information about God that cannot be found in
nature. Nature doesnot teach us God’s plan for salvation; Scripture does. The Bible is also
called special revelation because the information contained in it is unknown by people who
have never read the Bible or had it proclaimed to them.
-General revelation: it reveals feneral truths about God and because its audience is
universal. Every person is exposed to some degree to God’s revelation in creation.
-our theology should be informed by both the Bible and nature. The two come from the
same revelatory source, God himself. The two revelations do not conflict; they reflect the
harmony of God’s self-disclosures.
-When we engage in the quest to understand God, it is theology. When our quest is limited
to understanding how people react to theology, it is religion.
Ways of studying theology:
1) The study of scripture
2) The study of History
3) The study of Nature
4) Speculative philosophical theology: this approach can be driven either by a prior
commitment to natural revelation of by a conscious attempt to counter natural
revelation. The first is a legitimate reason for the Christian; the second is as act of
treason against God, based on the pretense of human autonomy.
Queen of the Sciences: God-centered View of Theology
Theology
Soteriology Anthropology
Christology
-In the classical curriculum theology is the queen of the sciences and all other disciplines
are her handmaidens. In the modern curriculum man is king and the former queen is
relegated to a peripheral status of insignificance.
Man-centered View of Theology
Anthropology
Sociology Religion
Culture
Theology
-A church without theology or a theology without God are simply not options for the
Christian faith. One can have religion without God or theology, but one cannot have
Christianity without them.
Theology and Religion at Sinai
-False religion flows out of false theology.
-David F. Wells notes that: “In the past, the doing of theology encompassed three essential
aspects in both the Church and the academy: 1) the confessional element, 2) reflection on
this confession, and 3) the cultivation of a set of virtues that are grounded in the first two
elements.”
- We speak and view Reformed theology as a theology that has confessional, reflective, and
behavioural aspects.
Part 1: FOUNDATIONS OF REFORMED THEOLOGY
1. Centered on God
2. Based on God’s Word alone
3. Committed to faith alone
4. Devoted to Jesus Christ
5. Structured by three covenants
1. Centered on God:
-Reformed theology is systematic. Why? Because it attempts to understand doctrine
in a coherent and unified manner.
-Historically the systematic theologian assumed that the Bible is the Word of God,
and as such is not filled with internal conflict and confusion.
-When one approaches the Bible as purely a human document, one need not
reconcile the teachings of its various authors. As a result they attempt to explain the
Bible in light of and under the control of a system brought to the Bible from the
outside. They set biblical authors in opposition to each other, and they see the Bible
itself as a collection of conflicting theologies.
-Classical Reformed theology, on the other hand, does regard the Bible as God’s
Word. Its quest for a systematic theology is as effort to discover and define the
system of doctrine taught internally by the Scriptures themselves.
-Because theology is systematic, every doctrine of the faith touches in some way
every other doctrine. For example, how we understand the person of Christ affects
how we understand his work of redemption. If we vies Jesus merely as a great
human teacher, then we are inclined to see his mission as primarily one of moral
instruction or influence. It we regard him as the Son of God incarnate, then this
frames our understanding of his mission.
-Reformed theology is first and foremost theocentric rather than anthropocentric,
That is, it is God centered rather than man-centered. This God-centeredness by no
means denigrates the value of human beings. On the contrary it establishes their
value.
- Reformed theology maintains a high view of the worth and dignity of human
beings. It differs radically at this point form all forms of humanism in that humanism
assigns as intrinsic dignity to man, while Reformed theology sees the dignity of man
as being extrinsic. That is to say, man’s dignity is not inherent. It does not exist in and
of itself. Ours is a derived, dependent and received dignity. In and of ourselves we
are of dust. But God has assigned a remarkable value and worth to us as his
creatures made in his image. He is the source of our life and our very being. He has
cloaked us with a robe of value and worth.
-The question is posed: Is the goal or purpose of God’s plan of redemption the
manifestation of the glory of God? Or is it the manifestation of the value of fallen
humanity? Is the goal man-centered or God-centered? If we were forced to choose
between these options, we would have to opt for the primacy of God’s glory.
-Reformed theology applies the doctrine of God relentlessly to all other doctrines,
making it the chief control factor in all theology.
-For example, every Christian willingly affirm that God is sovereign. Sovereignty is a
divine attribute confessed almost universally in historic Christianity. When we press
the doctrine of divine sovereignty into other realm, it is often weakened or
destroyed altogether by saying, “ God’s sovereignty is limited by human freedom.” In
this statement God’s sovereignty is not absolute and bounded by a limit and that
limit is human freedom.
Reformed theology indeed insists that a real measure of freedom has been assigned
to man by the Creator. But that freedom is not absolute and man is not autonomous.
Our freedom is always and everywhere limited by God’s sovereignty. If God never
violates human freedom, it is not because of any limit on his sovereignty. It is
because he sovereignly decrees not to. Any limit here is not a limit imposed on God
by us, but a limit God sovereignly imposes on himself.
In Reformed theology, if God is not sovereign over the entire created order, then he
is not sovereign at all.
# REFORMED THEOLOGY IS CATHOLIC:
- in the seventeenth century a dispute arose in the Reformed community in
Holland. A group of theologians became known as the Remonstrants because
they remonstranted (protested) against five articles of Reformed theology. These
five points later became known as the “Five Points of Calvinism,” which have
been summarized by the popular acrostic TULIP. This acrostic stands for Total
depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and the
Perseverance of the saints. The Synod of Dort condemned the Remontrants and
reaffirmed the five points as integral to orthodox Reformed theology.
- Although these five points may be central to Reformed theology, they by no
means exhaust this system of doctrine. There is much more to Reformed
theology than the five points.
- Reformed theology is not only systematic but also catholic, sharing much in
common with other communions that are part of historic Christianity.
- The sixteenth- century Reformers were not interested in creating a new religion.
They were interested, not in innovation, but in renovation. They were reformers,
not revolutionaries. Just like Old Testament prophets, they called the church
back to its apostolic and biblical roots.
- The rejected church tradition Reformers as a source of divine revelation, they did
not thereby despise the entire scope of Christian tradition.
- The term tradition here refers to that which is “given over.”
- The church is to pass on the apostolic tradition to each successive generation. In
this process, however, there is always the danger of adding accretions to the
apostolic tradition that are contrary to the original. That is why the Reformers
insisted that their work of reformation was not complete. The church is called to
be semper reformanda, “always reforming.”
- When I teach the sacraments, I know many of my students are Baptists and do
not embrace the doctrine of infant baptism. I point out to them that the practice
of infant baptism is the majority position in church history among the majority of
Christian communions.... I do ask my Baptist students to examine the majority
position to see why that tradition holds the view that it does. Likewise I insist
that students who disagree with the Baptist position listen carefully to the case
the Baptists make for believer’s baptism.
- Such act creates as environment of mutual understanding even in the midst of
serious disagreement.
# REFORMATION THEOLOGY IS EVANGELICAL
- Historian have often suggested that the two chief causes of the Reformation
were the issues of authority and justification. Frequently the issue of authority is
called the Reformation’s formal cause, while the issue of justification is called its
material cause. By this is meant that the core issue was justification, while the
backdrop to the controversy was authority.
- The twin slogan of sola Scriptura and sola fide became the battle cries of the
Reformation.
- When we declare that Reformed theology is evangelical, we mean that Reformed
theology shares with other Protestant groups a commitment to the historic
doctrine of sola Scriptura and sola fide.
- In the twentieth century both the concept of biblical authority and the nature
and significance of justification by faith alone have been challenged from within
the community of confessing evangelicals. It is no longer safe to assume that if a
person calls himself as evangelical that he is committed to either sola Scriptura or
sola fide.
# GOD IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE
