Second Feature

Recent work in theological methodology among some evangelicals has tended to minimize propositional theology (PT). These theologians question the validity and importance of this approach to the theological task, and express a certain level of suspicion towards systematic theology as traditionally conceived. This attitude is not completely new. Charles Hodge, for example, writes of a viewpoint of his day which maintained that “Christianity consists not in propositions–it is life in the soul.”¹ Similarly, B. B. Warfield refers to the tendency to exaggerate the “principle of the heart” and minimize “rational thinking” in theology.² But what is different about the current situation is a depreciation of the role of propositions in doing theology.

Let me offer some representative examples. Stanley Grenz states that evangelicals need to rethink the function of theological propositions.³ He argues that concern with the organization of “facts” and “biblical summarization” is a result of the influence of early modernity on evangelical theologians.⁴ Nancey Murphy is suspicious of the “propositional theory of religious language” because it is the outcome of the modernist referential theory of language which she takes to be inadequate.⁵ Furthermore, she maintains that this emphasis on propositions reflects the modernist tendency towards reductionism.⁶ Likewise, Joel Green states that if evangelicals are to do theological exegesis in a “post-critical world,” they need to embrace the “promise” of narrative theology. He defines narrative theology as “a constellation of approaches to the theological task typically joined by their antipathy towards forms of theology concerned with the systematic organization of propositions grounded in ahistorical principles, and their attempt to discern an overall aim and ongoing plot in the ways of God as these are revealed in Scripture.”⁷

What shall we think about the project of PT in light of these concerns? My aim is to offer a brief defense of PT. I will mount my defense in two ways. First, I will consider three common arguments that have been presented in the literature against the project of PT and show that the arguments are not persuasive. Second, I will offer some positive reasons as to why I think PT needs to be retained as an essential task of systematic theology. However, in saying that PT is an essential task of systematic theology, I am not thereby saying that it is the only task at which systematic theology aims. But before I turn to the criticisms that have been presented against propositional theology, I need to first explain what I mean by propositional theology.

Propositional theology is related to another term that theologians use, namely, propositional revelation. Kevin Vanhoozer explains that the general thrust of propositional revelation is that “revelation discloses truth