Historical Theology

Four Divisions

Historical theology is the branch of theological inquiry which aims to explore the historical development of Christian doctrines, and identify the factors which were influential in their formulation and adoption. Historical theology therefore has direct and close links with the disciplines of church history and systematic theology, despite differing from them both.

Church history is of major importance to historical theology, in that it identifies factors within the history of the Christian church which are of importance to understanding the development of aspects of Christian theology. Historical theology is the branch of theology which aims to explore the historical situations within which ideas developed or were specifically formulated. It aims to lay bare the connection between context and theology. For example, it demonstrates that it was no accident that the doctrine of justification by faith first became of foundational significance in the late Renaissance. It shows how, for example, the concept of salvation, found in Latin American liberation theology, is closely linked with the socioeconomic situation of the region. It illustrates how secular cultural trends – such as liberalism or conservatism – find their corresponding expression in theology. Church history and historical theology thus relate to each other in a positive and symbiotic manner. 2. Systematic theology aims to provide a contemporary statement of the leading themes of the Christian faith. A full understanding of the historical development of that doctrine is essential to its contemporary restatement. Yet historical theology does more than simply provide the background material to modern theological statements. It indicates the extent to which theological formulations are conditioned by the environment in which they emerge. Contemporary theological statements are no exception to this rule. Historical theology indicates the way in which ideas that were actively appropriated by one generation are often abandoned as an embarrassment by another. Historical theology thus has both a pedagogic and a critical role, aiming to inform systematic theologians about what has been thought in the past (and why!), while identifying the factors that make some form of restatement necessary. Theology has a history. This insight is too easily overlooked, especially by those of a more philosophical inclination. Christian theology can be regarded as an attempt to make sense of the foundational resources of faith in the light of what each day and age regards as firstrate methods. This means that local circumstances have a major impact upon theological formulations. Christian theology regards itself as universal, in that it is concerned with the application of God’s saving action toward every period in history. Yet it is also characterized by its particularity as an experience of God’s saving work in particular cultures, and is shaped by the insights and limitations of persons who were themselves seeking to live the gospel within a particular context. The universality of Christianity is thus complemented with – rather than contradicted by – its particular application. The development of historical theology The origins of historical theology are generally agreed to lie in the sixteenth century. The Reformation witnessed an intense debate over Christian authenticity, in which the continuity between both the Protestant and Catholic reformations and the early church came to be seen as critically important. As a result, writers on both sides of the debate found that they had to become familiar with both patristic theology and the modification of these ideas in the Middle Ages. Although this study was undertaken primarily for polemical reasons, it led to the production of a large number of works of reference in this field, including editions of the works of patristic writers. A perhaps more important development took place during the eighteenth century, with the rise of the movement known as “the history of dogma,” usually known in its German form, Dogmengeschichte . The basic assumption of this movement was that the doctrinal formulations of the church (“dogmas”), especially during the patristic period, were heavily conditioned by the social and cultural conditions of the era. This conditioning, which could be uncovered and subjected to critical scrutiny and evaluation by historical methods, made such doctrinal formulations inappropriate for the modern church, which was obliged to develop restatements of these doctrines appropriate to the modern period. Historical research thus led to the “deconstruction” of such doctrines, allowing them to be reformulated in terms more suitable to the modern age. This program can be seen in the writings of G. S. Steinbart (1738–1809), who argued that the Augustinian doctrine of original sin – foundational to traditional understandings of baptism and the work of Christ – was basically little more than a hangover from Augustine’s Manichaean period. It represented the intrusion of pagan ideas into Christianity, and had no place in a proper Christian theology. Steinbart’s analysis, which extended to include Anselm of Canterbury’s doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ, represents a classic instance of the criticism of dogma by a critical study of its origins. This program, extended by writers such as F. C. Baur (1792–1860) and A. B. Ritschl (1822–89), reached its climax in the work of Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930). In his History of Dogma (which occupies seven volumes in English translation), Harnack argued that dogma was not itself a Christian notion. Rather, it arose through the expansion of Christianity from its original Palestinian background to a Hellenistic context, especially in the Greek-speaking city of Alexandria. As a result, Christian writers absorbed the Hellenistic tendency to conceptualize and use a metaphysical framework to articulate the gospel. Harnack saw the doctrine of the incarnation as perhaps the most obvious instance of the influence of Hellenism upon Christianity, and argued that historical analysis opened the way for its elimination. For Harnack, the gospel was about Jesus himself, and the impact which he had upon people. The shift from soteriology to the abstract metaphysical speculation of Christology is, for Harnack, an insidious yet reversible theological development. Harnack singled out Martin Luther as one who attempted to eliminate metaphysics from theology, and commended him as an example to posterity. Although Harnack’s thesis of the “Hellenization” of the gospel is now regarded as somewhat overstated, the general principles he developed are still regarded as valid. The historian of dogma can still discern areas of Christian theology in which a number of central conditioning assumptions appear to derive from Greek metaphysics. The modern debate about whether God can suffer (which we shall explore further below) has highlighted how the classical notion of the apatheia of God seems to rest upon the assumptions of Greek metaphysics, rather than the Old and New Testament witness to the acts of God in history. Harnack’s particular interest in historical theology rested on his belief that history provided a means for the correction or elimination of dogma. This “critical” function of historical theology remains important, and we shall explore it in more detail presently. Yet Harnack’s massive amount of writing in this field also caused growing interest in the field of historical theology as a subject worthy of interest in its own right. Historical theology as a pedagogic tool Many students of church history neglect the role of ideas, in order to focus on the sociological, economic, and institutional aspect of this fascinating subject. Yet one can never hope to understand some of the most important episodes in that history without at least some understanding of the ideas that so influenced the course of church history. Just as a historian of the Russian Revolution cannot ignore the ideas of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V. I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, so the church historian needs to understand the ideas of Athanasius, Augustine, and Luther (to name but three). Historical theology acts as a major resource to those studying church history, allowing them to understand the specific nature of the ideas which affected the church at critical periods in that history. Historical theology does not, however, merely help us to understand the past; it is a resource for theology in the present. Many critics of modern theology have argued that the discipline behaves as if it were the first to deal with the issue in question, or that all previous attempts to wrestle with the issue could be disregarded completely. It is virtually impossible to do theology as if it had never been done before. There is always an element of looking over one’s shoulder, to see how things were done in the past, and what answers were then given. Part of the notion of “tradition” is a willingness to take seriously the theological heritage of the past. The Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968) argues that theology necessarily involves a dialogue with the past:

We cannot be in the church without taking as much responsibility for the theology of the past as for the theology of the present. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher and all the rest are not dead but living. They still speak and demand a hearing as living voices, as surely as we know that they and we belong together in the church.

It is therefore of importance that the reader becomes familiar with the rich legacy of the Christian past, which provides vital reference points for the modern debate. Historical theology thus provides an essential pedagogical resource for the contemporary statement of theology. The following points are of especial importance in this respect: 1. Historical theology provides us with a “state of the question” report on major theological themes, allowing us to identify what has already been discussed. 2. By studying the discussion of theological issues in the past, an understanding may be gained of both the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches to questions. 3. Historical theology allows us to identify “landmarks” in the development of Christian thinking, which remain relevant and important today. Such “landmarks” include writers (such as Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas), debates (such as the Donatist and Arian controversies), and documents (such as the Nicene Creed).

Source: Alister McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (2012), xiii, 8-11.