Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 08:23 (Mar 2004)
Article: Editorial #1 The Death Struggle of Systematic Theology
Author: Mal Couch

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Editorial #1
The Death Struggle of Systematic Theology

Mal Couch

President, Tyndale Seminary

Since the tumultuous days of the Reformation, Calvin and others began to put down in systematic fashion the doctrines that became so dear to the Protestant revolt against Rome, though systematizing the teachings of the Word of God was not new. Many of the Church Fathers had written treatises on various subjects with a certain orderly approach while defending what they considered orthodox beliefs. Many of the Catholic theologians of the Middle Ages did the same. For Catholics, the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas is considered a standard work. During the last one-hundred years, it may be a fact that our Evangelical theologians did the most to mature systematic thinking on the doctrines of the Scriptures.

Many years before, William Ames (1576–1633) compiled his The Marrow of Sacred Divinity. For a century and a half this work held sway as a clear, persuasive expression of Puritan theology and practice. In England, Holland, and New England nearly all those who aspired to the Puritan way read the book. No matter what their aspirations, undergraduates at Emmanuel College, Leyden, Harvard, and Yale had to read The Marrow in Latin as part of their basic instruction in divinity. The original cover page read:

The marrow of sacred divinity, drawn out of the Holy Scriptures, and the interpreters thereof, and brought into method, by William Ames, sometime doctor and professor of divinity in the famous university at Franeken in Friesland. Translated out of the Latin, for the benefit of such who are not acquainted with strange tongues.

John Gill (1697–1771) also stands tall with his monumental theology A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity. He was a writing minister of theology for fifty years. He held a Baptist pastorate for many years in London. He was a Calvinist, and

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probably the most knowledgeable Christian theologian of the writings of the Jewish rabbis. In his theology one can see the roots of premillennialism. He even seems to have had a limited understanding of the rapture of the Church from 1 Thessalonians 4.

But it seems as if now we are into a crisis. While biblical truth does not change, how we express such facts to a new generation must continually be updated. And that is where the rub comes. Solid Evangelical theologies that express a dispensational, premillennial, and literal understanding of the Bible seem to be lacking. In one prominent seminary that used to have theological cohesion in systematics now selects theology texts helter-skelter. The students come out confus...