Is Propositional Theology PassÉ?

Notes

¹ Charles Hodge, “The Theology of the Intellect and That of the
Feelings,” Essays and Reviews (Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857),
http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/chfeelings.htm.

² Benjamin B. Warfield, “Authority, Intellect, Heart,”
The Presbyterian Messenger, January 30, 1896,
http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/bbwaih.htm.

³ Stanley J. Grenz, “Star Trek and the Next Generation: Postmodernism
and the Future of Evangelical Theology,” in The Challenge of Postmodernism:
An Evangelical Engagement, 2d ed, ed. David S. Dockery (Baker
Academic, 2001), 85.

⁴ Stanley J. Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology (InterVarsity Press,
1993), 65.

⁵ Nancey Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern
and Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda (Trinity Press, 1996),
42, 111.

⁶ Nancey Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity: Philosophical Perspectives
on Science, Religion, and Ethics (Westview Press, 1997), 18.

⁷ Joel B. Green, “Practicing the Gospel in a Post-Critical World: The
Promise of Theological Exegesis,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society 47, no. 3 (September 2004), 393 (emphasis mine).

⁸ Kevin Vanhoozer, “The Semantics of Biblical Literature: Truth and
Scripture’s Diverse Literary Forms” in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon,
ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Academie Books, 1986), 59.

⁹ Ronald Nash, The Word of God and the Mind of Man (Zondervan, 1982),
50. For an analysis of the importance of recognizing the diversity of literary
genres in Scripture, see Vanhoozer, “The Semantics of Biblical Literature,”
49-104.

¹⁰ Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 3 (Crossway,
1999), 453; 113-114. It is not important for my purposes here to defend a
particular philosophical theory of propositions.

¹¹ Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity against the
Challenges of Postmodernism (InterVarsity Press, 2000), 112. Groothuis
may have overstated his point here, for he says that such is “the task”
of systematic theology. But he does not maintain that such a cognitive
enterprise is all one does in theology; later, he writes that the “purpose of
divine revelation is not merely the enunciation of a set of true propositions”
(120).

¹² Vanhoozer, “Semantics of Biblical Literature,” 64.

¹³ McGrath, A Passion for Truth, 178.

¹⁴ Stanley J. Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-
Theological Era (Baker Academic, 2000), 84.

¹⁵ Not everyone accused of such overemphasis is necessarily guilty of the
charge. Rodney J. Decker, for instance, points out that Carl F. H. Henry,
despite some criticisms to the contrary, recognized the importance of
both. See his “May Evangelicals Dispense with Propositional Revelation?
Challenges to a Traditional Evangelical Doctrine.” In a similar vein, Paul
K. Helseth defends Charles Hodge against the charge that he was too intellectualist
and rationalist in his view of the believer’s knowledge of God.
See “Are Postconservative Evangelicals Fundamentalists? Postconservative
Evangelicalism, Old Princeton, and the Rise of Neo-Fundamentalism” in
Reclaiming the Center: A Response to Post-Conservative Theology, ed. Millard
Erickson, Paul Helseth and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2004), 232-235.

¹⁶ John W. Montgomery, Suicide of Christian Theology (Bethany
Fellowship, 1970), 268; 291. The “sacral” element has to do with the
“realm of the holy.” It involves the recognition of the sinfulness of man
and the holiness of God and a profound reliance on the Holy Spirit in theologizing.

¹⁷ John G. Stackhouse, ed., Evangelical Futures: A Conversation on Theological
Method (Baker Books, 2000), 30.

¹⁸ Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping
Theology in a Postmodern Context (Westminster John Knox Press, 2001),
62.

¹⁹ Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Crossway Books, 1999),
240; 212.

²⁰ Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology, 65-66.

²¹ Grenz, Renewing the Center, 225.

²² John M. Frame, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Presbyterian &
Reformed, 1987), 77-78.

²³ Nash, The Word of God, 45.

²⁴ Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International
Greek Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2000), 1186-1188
(emphasis his). There are many other commentators that concur on this
point. See Thiselton for references.

²⁵ Paul Griffiths, “Denaturalizing Discourse: Abhidharmikas, Propositionalists,
and the Comparative Philosophy of Religion,” in Myth and
Philosophy, ed. Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy, (State University of
New York Press, 1990), 61. The specific example that Griffiths uses to
illustrate this move comes from the development of Buddhism.