Systematic Philosophical Theology

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This is a bit of my episode with Alex from The Protestant Libertarian Podcast in which we talk William Lane Craig's new book Systematic Philosophical Theology Vol. 1. Hear the whole episode below. Enjoy.

Penjammin: So what'd you think about this book in general? We're talking about, by the way, William Lane Craig's book just coming out with a multi-volume series of a systematic theology, and it's called Systematic Philosophical Theology. So for those listening in, there's a little courtesy heads up for you. What did you think about it?

Alex: I'm familiar with William Lane Craig's work. I have a lot of respect for him. I think he's a brilliant intellectual. There are some issues of course [that] I haven't agreed with him on in the past, but that's okay because I respect his output. And I think that in general he's on the right track. And I'm also not really a systematic theology guy. My background is in biblical studies, which, as William Lane Craig talks about in the book – I know he has a section where he quotes Ben Witherington and I think Brevard Childs, when he talks about how there's a difference between I guess, the theology that emerges out of biblical studies and then trying to systematize that theology into this, this kind of orderly structure, which is what he's trying to do with his book. So I obviously I do read a little bit of systematic theology for the podcast, and I have an interest in certain issues, and I'll read what the systematics think, but I'm not an expert on that by any stretch of the imagination. But it seems, at least with the Prolegomenon the introductory section of the book, he is laying out this kind of grand picture for a way of rationally systemizing theology based on kind of strict philosophical reasoning. And one of the things that I really appreciate about what he incorporates in the Prolegomena is the idea that this has to conform to what we find in the Scripture.

Alex: And he actually has this really great passage, which maybe we'll talk about in a little bit, where he discusses how actually our reading of the Bible has to be the starting point for any systematic theology. And this has always been one of my problems with systematic theology is that, as I've read some of this, it almost seems like the systematic theologians, they're born into a particular tradition, whether it's the Lutheran tradition or the reformed tradition or whatever tradition, the Catholic tradition. And instead of using the Bible to critique their tradition, you know, the kind of reading their tradition through the lens of the Bible, what they do is they read the Bible through the lens of their tradition. So you wind up having a Lutheran reading of the Bible or a reformed reading of the Bible. And I just think that as a Protestant who believes in the ultimate authority of Scripture, that should be our balance for us. Our starting point should be the Scripture, and we should work forward from there. And that's exactly what William Lane Craig argues in this book. And so I think that this might give him a huge advantage as a systematic theologian in this series. And so it'll be really interesting to see where he takes it in the long run. But knowing his work, I think he's going to do a great job with it.

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… (see “About”). Get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.