Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Not Encouraging

John Woodbridge and Randall H. Balmer have just made me feel gloomy about my present toil:

“To review the intricacies of Reformed thought concerning biblical authority in brief compass is a perilous if not impossible task.” (p254)

“The problem of selecting representative spokesmen emerges when one treats so broad an expression as “Reformed thought” or the “Reformed tradition.”” (note 25, p397)

in Carson and Woodbridge (ed.s), Scripture and Truth (Baker, 1983)

7 comments:

Ros said...

Might as well give up then. Why not learn to play the piano instead?

Marc Lloyd said...

Thank you Ros for your very helpful comment. Hope that being accross the pond hasnt withered your irony musclues just yet, by the way.

I fear I might find the piano equally taxing, however. Snoozing in a confy chair might be more the thing.

Anonymous said...

Do you need to narrow it down to a particular period of Refd theol? E.g., the theols of word and sacs of mid 17c English Reformed, or perhaps Hodge and Nevin in the States, or something? Would that work given the systematic nature of your thesis? Or perhaps representative contemp Reformed theologians?

Marc Lloyd said...

Thanks Matthew.

Yes, maybe some way of limiting things will be necessary.

Another obvious way of limiting the whole project would be just either (1) Bible as sacrament or (2) supper as word but I kinda like the idea of an inter-play.

At the moment I'm reading about Warfield's doctrine of Scripture and then I'll have another chat to Dr Ovey.

I'm not actually sure how useful Warfield will be for the final cut as he mainly just defends inspiration, inerrancy etc. rather than articulating a rounded doctrine of Scripture (e.g. little on perspecuity, sufficiency etc. in what I've read so far).

I kinda envisaged this chapter as a contemporary sketch of Reformed / Evangelical doctrine of Scripture at its best today. How does this help in our doctrine of the supper and how might it be helped by seeing the Bible as sacramental? etc. But we shall see!

When to write-up and how much and in how much detail to read...

Plodding on...

Ros said...

I think the word 'sketch' is always helpful in such circumstances.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you re interplay. It'd be a shame just to focus on one.

Michael McClenahan said...

Marc,

Be cheered! (is that a WW book? don't know.) You have a great advantage over most commentators on the Reformed tradition - you actually read the primary texts. That is a great help in research. As your own work develops you'll be constantly amazed (horrified?) at the infrequent interaction with the actual Reformed theologians of the Reformed tradition.