Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:2 (Spring 2004)
Article: Postmodern Reformed Dogmatics: Indirect Revelation and the Knowledge of God
Author: John R. Franke

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RAR 13:2 (Spring 2004) p. 129

Postmodern Reformed Dogmatics:
Indirect Revelation and
the Knowledge of God

John R. Franke

In the first article in this series we examined the character of Reformed dogmatics as a reforming enterprise committed to the continual reformation of theology according to the Word of God. The purpose of this reforming venture is that of bearing faithful witness to the truth of the gospel in the context of an ever-changing world characterized by a variety of cultural settings. This concern is captured in the Latin slogan the-ologia reformata et semper reformanda. Reformed theology is always reforming. We also suggested that postmodern thought could be properly and usefully appropriated for the task of Christian dogmatics from the perspective of the Reformed tradition. After providing a broad description of the postmodern intellectual situation we considered two aspects of postmodern thought that are of particular importance for Christian faith, the linguistic turn and the nonfoundationalist turn, pointing out their implications concerning the situated and contextual nature of all human interpretive activity. We concluded that one of the major questions arising from the linguistic and nonfoundationalist turns in postmodern thought concerns the nature of revelation. If all thought is situated and contextual, what does this mean for Christian belief in the ultimate authority of divine revelation? How do we account for situatedness and contextuality in our understanding and

RAR 13:2 (Spring 2004) p. 130

articulation of revelation? And what are the implications of these concerns for the discipline of Christian theology? In seeking to address these questions we must first turn our attention to Christology since the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the particular paradigm by which all Christian conceptions of revelation must be measured.

Christology

The classical construction of ecumenical and orthodox Christology is the definition provided by the council of Chalcedon. The guiding purpose behind the Chalcedonian formulation is soteriological in that the saving work of Christ shapes its articulation of Christ’s person. In the same way, its definition of the person of Christ serves as the indispensable premise of Christ’s saving work. The person and work of Christ are inextricably related. A high view of Christ’s person hardly seems necessary apart from an equally high view of his work, while a high view of his work is incoherent and difficult to sustain apart from an appropriately high view of his person.

The soteriological concern also shapes the way in which the aspects of Christ’s nature, the divine and the human, are defined and related. On this point George Hunsinger notes that...

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