Journal: Grace Theological Journal
Volume: GTJ 10:2 (Fall 1989)
Article: Understanding Covenant Theologians: A Study in Presuppositions
Author: Paul S. Karleen

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Understanding Covenant Theologians:
A Study in Presuppositions

Paul S. Karleen

Purpose

Sherlock Holmes once underscored the danger of hypothesizing with paying attention to facts: “It’s a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.” In all ages investigators of the biblical text have faced the same pitfall of assuming what is not in fact the case. In recent years this problem has found focus in discussions of presuppositions. One writer has gone so far as to say: “The whole of church history revolves around the presuppositions adopted in study of the Bible in different times and in different circumstances.”1 If this is true, and I believe it is, then any sensible disclosure of presuppositions will contribute to biblical scholarship. In fact, the more light we can throw on our presuppositions, the better our chance of approximating the truth.

In this study I have two main goals: 1) to answer in part the question of whether or not in his Understanding Dispensationalists Vern Poythress has read dispensationalism accurately and 2) to offer some contributions to the ongoing investigation of dispensationalism by contrasting it with a competing system.2 Since my assigned topic is a single book, it would be very easy to single out for attack the author and the system he represents. However, my purpose is not to

GTJ 10:2 (Fall 89) p. 126

criticize Poythress, or covenant theology, but to use the book to help define the two systems. Since I cannot possibly cover in detail all the relevant passages that Poythress deals with, or even a portion of them, I want to attempt to show that covenant theology and dispensationalism are different for some reasons that are not usually dealt with. While I believe that the book constitutes a valuable contribution to the dialogue between covenant and dispensational theologians, I am also convinced that the book is more about covenant theology than dispensationalism.3 So I want to try to learn about dispensationalism from what we see about covenant theology.

The Process of Interacting with Data4

In recent years many have attempted to formalize ways in which human beings interact with utterances and texts. Such work includes describing how we formulate, test and revise hypotheses about texts and how we bring prior knowledge to bear on any interpretive act.5 This promises to have far-reaching implications for theo...