Hey Andrew,

Thanks for the response. You’re right (from twitter) — I think most of the parties involved are a bit fatigued on this issue, but it’s worth discussing if the conversation is cordial. Thanks for the tone.

It does seem that you and Gibson, and you and I, may be talking across each other, given that you indicate that both Gibson’s response and my response somehow has not addressed your concerns. I’ll try to express my thoughts more clearly and will probably leave it at that, leaving further discussion for another day.

My first central question above is actually not a “yes or no” question, but is “What constitutes biblically warranted theological conclusions?” In other words, I’d like to know what you mean by a “biblical writer teaching a doctrine.” That phrase in itself can imply many things, and depending what you mean by it, you will use it in your biblical hermeneutics. So there is something in back of a biblical writer teaching a doctrine, and that’s what you mean by that phrase. That’s what I’m wanting to address.

I confess to not knowing what Steve Holmes means when he says that doing theology is “imagining what must be the case for everything in the Bible to be true.” It sounds engaging, but it also is a bit vague for this conversation, and therefore doesn’t seem very functional. Doing theology can involve a great deal of things–exegesis, biblical theology, historical theology, systematics, apologetics, practical theology, hermeneutics, and on and on. It can also involve a child-like reading of Scripture with the aid of the Spirit.

You’re right, I do think there are some questions which we regard as inappropriate to ask of biblical texts. I may be with you in theory on how we distinguish inappropriate questions from appropriate questions: “we define them according to the questions the biblical writers themselves were asking and/or answering.” But this is again very vague, and addresses only one aspect out of many elements involved in biblical interpretation. What question was Hosea asking when he wrote “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Matthew, and the Spirit working through him, tells us that this passage is about Christ. Was Hosea asking that question? Maybe, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? We’re not after the speculative psychology of biblical writers as normative for hermeneutics.

At the risk of turning this response into a rant, let me repeat what you say: “If this debate provokes further discussion on how we do theology, I think that would be a very good thing.” Thanks for thinking through these important questions.

Thanks for the thoughtful engagement. I don’t know whether you saw my second piece; you’ve linked to it above, but the way you’ve responded to my position indicates you may not have read it! I explicitly answer your first question in the negative, and explain how I think theology is to be done like this: ‘My assumptions here are twofold: firstly that, if no biblical writer teaches a doctrine, we should not be including it as a necessary part of our theological system, whether or not we should be writing seven hundred page books about it; and secondly, that doing theology is a question of, in Steve Holmes’s words, “imagining what must be the case for everything in the Bible to be true.” If this debate provokes further discussion on how we do theology, I think that would be a very good thing.’

Presumably you (like Derek, with whom I’ve also talked about this a bit) think there are *some* questions which we regard as inappropriate to ask of biblical texts. How do you tell which they are? My argument in the second piece is that we define them according to the questions the biblical writers themselves were asking and/or answering. Assuming that’s not your view, as per the above, I’d love to hear how you *do* tell the difference.

Appreciating the dialogue! Best wishes,
Andrew

Thanks for the thought provoking piece! I think the categories that you referred to really help relieve some unnecessary tension in the way the doctrine is often explained.