Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction Chapter 6 The Sources of Theology Wiley-Blackwell 2010

Scripture The Old Testament –The Hebrew Bible –The First Testament –Tanakh (law, prophet, and writings) The New Testament –Gospels –Acts –Letters (epistles) –Revelation Other works: deutero-canonical and apocryphal writings –Distinction between Old Testament and Apocrypha –Canon and authority Wiley-Blackwell 2010

The relation of the Old and New Testaments –Theological principles and ideas v. cultic practices –Marcion –Martin Luther –John Calvin –Second Vatican Council The canon of Scripture: historical and theological issues –Historical issues Consensus Disputes –Theological issues The church has authority over Scripture Scripture has authority over the church The church and Bible belong together Wiley-Blackwell 2010

The Word of God –Jesus Christ (God incarnate) –The gospel of Christ –The Bible Narrative theology –Narrative as main literary type in Scripture –Avoids abstraction –Affirmation that God meets us in history –Tension between limited human characters and God’s omniscience Methods of interpretation of Scripture –Alexandrian school Allegory –Antiochene school Historical context Wiley-Blackwell 2010

–Western church Ambrose of Milan Augustine of Hippo Typology –Middle Ages Literal sense Allegorical sense Tropological or moral sense Anagogical sense –Reformation Erasmus Huldrych Zwingli –Enlightenment Rational approach Historical approach Sociological approach Literary approach –Liberation theology Wiley-Blackwell 2010

Theories of the inspiration of Scripture –2 Timothy 3:16-17 –John Calvin Doctrine of accommodation –1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church –Enlightenment Johann Gottfried Herder Charles Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield Subjective understanding of inspiration (Augustus H. Strong) Wiley-Blackwell 2010

Tradition In the New Testament Irenaeus and Gnosticism Vincent of Lérins –Universality, antiquity, consensus Johann Adam Möhler Tradition and traditionalism –Catechism of the Catholic Church (1944) –John Meyendorff, Living Tradition A single-source theory of tradition A dual-source theory of tradition Total rejection of tradition Theology and worship: the importance of liturgical tradition –Lex orandi, lex credendi –Gnosticism and Arianism Wiley-Blackwell 2010

Reason Reason and revelation: three models –Theology is a rational discipline –Theology “republishes” the insights of reason –Theology is redundant; reason reigns supreme Deism –“The Age of Reason” –John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding –Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as Creation Enlightenment rationalism –Christian Wolff, Reasonable Thoughts about God, the World, the Human Soul, and just about everything else –Reason v. rationalism Criticisms of Enlightenment rationalism –Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Wiley-Blackwell 2010

Experience Religious experience –The Wesleyan quadrilateral –William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience Ineffability Noetic quality Transciency Passivity Existentialism: a philosophy of human experience –Søren Kierkegaard ( ) –Martin Heidegger ( ), Being and Time –Rudolf Bultmann and New Testament studies Experience and theology: two approaches –Experience as the basis for theology Paul Tillich ( ), The Courage to Be –Theology as the interpreter of Scripture Augustine C.S. Lewis ( ) Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique of experience-based theologies Wiley-Blackwell 2010