What is Systematic Theology?

Introduction

At Simple Theologian our goal is to make theology accessible to everyone. Most theology books are big, thick, and pretty intimidating. To be honest, I think the phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover” may have started with theology books. You take one look and have no desire to even make the attempt.

What’s so great about a medium like Medium (do you see what I did there?) is that you can take this information and send it out in bite sized chunks. You have heard the old saying, “How does one eat and elephant? One bite at a time.” You can think of Simple Theologian as your place to enjoy one spoonful at a time of robust Reformed theology.

This will be the longest post in the publication. It will be a helpful reference for you. It will also be sitting here on the featured section for you to come back to any time you need a refresh.

Definition

Systematic Theology (ST) seeks to layout the ideas and concepts presented in the Bible in a systematic way. ST is built upon the foundations of what’s known as Biblical Theology.

Biblical Theology is the study of each author within the Bible to understand what they’ve written. For instance, Pauline Theology is where you study all Paul’s letters in the New Testament and pull together all the theological threads that you find. This is done for all the authors of Scripture (yes there was more than one) and then those ideas all get pulled together in a systematic way and that’s how we get “Systematic Theology.”

You might think of Systematic Theology as a huge mosaic and Biblical Theology as the tiles that make it up. You have to have both to make the picture complete.

Foundation

We are not writing a new ST here at the Simple Theologian. We are building from a foundation that has passed the test of time. Our work is based on that of Louis Berkhof’s magisterial Systematic Theology.

Berkhof is the standard by which modern reformed theologies are tested. Originally published in 1934 this text is still used in seminaries and is in the library of most Reformed pastors. Therefore, we have chosen to build from his work as it is widely accepted and has staying power.

We would encourage you to grab a copy and consider reading the chapter that we are working through in any given post. You don’t need to do that, but you may find it beneficial and it will stretch you.

Structure

Every ST has a structure and its structure helps you understand the mind of the author and what he or she feels is foundational and important. Berkhof breaks his down into six parts. The following will give you a general overview (you will be able to use these headings as search terms):

1. The Doctrine of God — Also known as “Theology Proper”. Berkhof keenly aware that who God is, is of central importance to theology and begins his study here. This doctrine is organized around the “being of God” and the “works of God”.
2. The Doctrine of Man in Relation to God — also known as “Anthropology.” This section looks at humanity in their original state, in the state of sin, and in the covenant of grace. With this section coming second in Berkhof’s work we see that he is building from a “covenantal” framework. This means that he has introduced the main players, God and Man. He also introduced to us the basic structure humanity’s problem and God’s solution.
3. The Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ — This is also known as “Christology.” While Jesus is talked about under “The Doctrine of God” he has a special purpose as the second person of the Trinity. Jesus’ work is God’s solution to the problem of man. We will dive into theperson of Christ, the states of Christ (fancy term for Jesus in time and out of time), and the offices of Christ (his jobs).
4. The Doctrine of the Application of the Work of Redemption — This is known as “soteriology” or the study of salvation. In this section Berkhof endeavors to explain how does a person “get saved.” There’s a lot in this one! We will touch on the Holy Spirit, common grace, union in Christ,calling, conversion, faith, justification, sanctification, and perseverance. Wow those are a lot of $10 words for “getting saved.” But they are important and we need to understand them.
5. The Doctrine of the Church and of the Means of Grace — You could call this one “Church and Sacraments.” Here Berkhof walks us through who and what the Church is, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. In other words, now that you “got saved” what do you do?
6. The Doctrine of the Last Things — The fancy word for this is “Eschatology.” What we appreciate about Berkhof’s approach here is that looks at this from individual level (what happens when I die?) and from the general level (what happens when Jesus returns?). This section rightly closes the story that Berkhof set out to tell when he began with God. One could say that the story begins with the glory of God and ends that way.

Search

We will not be writing the posts in order of the book. The authors of the Simple Theologian are just like you. Certain days or weeks we are wrestling with different questions about what we believe. We will be using Medium’s tagging as a means for you to search out topics that you want to find after they’ve been written. You should use the topics in bold above as your starting point and you can use the topics in italics to focus your search.

Conclusion

We hope that this provides you with a helpful overview and introduction to the Simple Theologian. The best way for you to keep up to date on what we publishing here is to login, hit “follow”, and then you’ll get an email every time we publish. You may want to click on the little bookmark below to keep this post at your fingertips.

Thanks for reading Simple Theologian, to God be the glory!

The post What is Systematic Theology? appeared first on The Journal by Daniel M. Rose. It was written by Daniel M. Rose.

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