A Summary of Vos's Redemptive-Historical Method: Part 2

Hey, Joanna,

Just a couple other resources:

The February issue of the Westminster Bookstore's Monthly Newsletter (which I help publish) will have a review of John Carrick's book, which you mentioned, and will offer it for sale at 20% off. The Newsletter should be at www.wts.edu/bookstore/newsletter.html after the first of the month.

The issue it raises in the last paragraph, whether BT and systematic theology are compatible, is the central issue Dr. Gaffin tried to address this last fall in his long inaugural lecture as the new chair of Biblical and Systematic Theology here. Gaffin argues that BT and ST are compatible, and necessary to each other, when both are done biblically. I agree. The reason he argues this is that some BT folks claim ST is an improper method of studying/representing scripture, because scripture is a "story," ST tries to objectify the non-objectifiable, ST is abstract, ST is not based on exegesis, and on the other hand, some ST folks claim that BT denies orthodox doctrine, muddies it, ignores the concern for studying and teaching orthodox doctrine, denies the premise of the internal logical consistency of God's revelation. Some BT does this; some ST falls to the criticisms mentioned too. But I agree with Gaffin: if both are done correctly, then we respect both the historical aspect of scripture, and the systematic aspect of scripture. It seems wrong to me to consider either aspect to be primary; both are "equally ultimate" or equally essential to God's revelation of Himself and of His covenant, both in history, and in scripture. BT should comprehensively inform ST, ST should comprehensively inform BT. It is this kind of harmonious relation which I tried to accomplish in my two papers on the Ten Commandments (http://www.alwaysreformed.com/publicdocs/studies_in_theology/otht_paper.html) and the Lord's Prayer (http://www.alwaysreformed.com/publicdocs/studies_in_theology/gospels_paper.html). Gaffin was concerned that those who want to hold on to traditional reformed theology should not consider his assuming this new chair, and the close wedding of BT with ST, to be a departure from the central lines of the reformed tradition; he tries to demonstrate that in his lecture. BT is new, but its concerns are not utterly new to the reformed tradition; covenant theology has always shared many of the same concerns.

Gaffin's lecture is online at http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?f=/wts/Gaffin20021016.rm

John Murray, "Systematic Theology," Collected Writings of John Murray, Volume 4: Studies in Theology (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1982) pp. 1-21, is a helpful discussion of the relation between BT and ST; he is in line with Vos but makes a couple corrections to Vos. (You should read Vos's inaugural address first; it is the first chapter in Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980), titled "The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline." Gaffin's introduction to that volume is helpful too.)

One correction he makes is that liberal BT tends to exclusively focus on God's deeds as revelatory, and ignore God's words, especially, God's words in scripture. (This is point 3., pp. 12-14.) Vos corrected liberal BT by focusing on God's deeds primarily, but always in accord with and by means of God's word-revelation of those deeds in scripture, never out of accord with it, or by another means. Murray is offering a correction to Vos implicitly, however, in that Vos could have focused more directly on God's word in his method; Vos's concern throughout is to talk about revelatory deeds.

This emphasis on God's deeds rather than His words, on history as events rather than as the interpretation of them, a somewhat Romanticism-tinged emphasis on history as an organic, living reality rather than a mechanical, systematic, static, conceptual thing, is characteristic of 19^th Century German Historicism.

It seems to me that this emphasis in Vos still needs a bit of correction; I think Murray sensed that as well. What motivates me is especially the way that (in the field of epistemology) the second commandment commands us to give God's commandments--His words--interpretive primacy over His deeds (of creation, providence, redemption.) Vos seems to emphasize that God's deeds have interpretive primacy over His words. In regard to the way in which events are entities with being--metaphysical entities--it remains true that their being is truly primary relative to their meaning; on this point Vos's emphasis is correct. But BOTH orders must be respected in our theological method -- being -> meaning (and thereby deed -> word, events -> interpretation, indicative -> imperative) in regard to the order of metaphysics -> epistemology, but ALSO word -> deed in regard to the order God commands us to use in our epistemological interpretation of the two modes of His revelation (word-revelation interprets deed-revelation.)

Well, sorry for another long email. "Just a couple other resources" ...yeah, and a bunch of commentary. I hope the reading material and Gaffin's lecture might be of some help to you.

In Christ,

Tim