Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 26:1 (Spring 2022)
Article: A Biblical Methodology For Theology And Philosophy And Its Dispensational Outcomes
Author: Christopher B. Cone

JMAT 26:1 (Spring 2022) p. 31

A Biblical Methodology For Theology And Philosophy And Its Dispensational Outcomes

Christopher Cone

Key Words: Theology, Philosophy, Calvinism, Kuyper, Worldview

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Introduction

Theology and philosophy are sometimes considered to be separate disciplines with differing foundational axioms and disparate, often contradictory outcomes. Contrary to that separation of disciplines, this work proposes to show that both have their necessary place within the broader discipline of worldview—and more precisely, biblical worldview—and that the two (theology and philosophy) need not, nor should not be in tension with one another. Within a biblical worldview, the biblical philosophy (or the love of wisdom) according to Christ2 provides methodology and building blocks resulting in a generally dispensational (at least) theological system, with many

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systematic theological propositions fitting within the descriptive philosophical category of metaphysics, and theological outcomes evident in the prescriptive categories of ethics and sociopolitical thought. A biblical methodology for handling philosophical and theological data guides the interlocutor toward a cogent system of worldview that integrates also other disciplines which otherwise might be seen as unrelated or even contradictory.

A Case Study In Worldview: Abraham Kuyper’s Competing “Life Systems”

Abraham Kuyper referred to the concept of worldview as life system, asserting that Calvinism itself provides the ultimate life system—the “manifestation of the Christian principle.”3 Kuyper supposed there to be three particular conditions necessary for a life system: or “three fundamental relations of all human life … (1) our relation to God, (2) our relation to man, and (3) our relation to the world.”4 While Paganism, Islam, and Romanism all address the three conditions, Kuyper was particularly concerned that modernism was seemingly triumphing over Christianity:

Two life systems are wrestling with one another, in mortal combat. Modernism is bound to build a world of its own from the data of the natural man, and to construct man himself from the data of nature; while, on the other hand, all those who reverently bend the knee to Christ and worship Him as the Son of the living God, and God himself, are bent upon saving the ‘Christian Heritage.’5

Modernism isn’t t...