Response To John Franke -- By: Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 65:2 (Fall 2003)
Article: Response To John Franke
Author: Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.


Response To John Franke

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.

[Richard Gaffin is the Charles Krahe Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. This article is written in response to John R. Franke’s article, “Reforming Theology: Toward a Postmodern Reformed Dogmatics,” WTJ 65 (2003): 1-26].

Dr. Franke’s nonfoundationalist proposal for reforming Reformed theology today addresses perennially important issues of theological epistemology. I limit myself here to a couple of concerns, focused primarily as questions—with a rhetorical edge, to be sure, but also seeking clarification.

First, while the article is impelled by the time-honored theologia reformata et semper reformanda, there is an imbalance at best; the “always to be reformed” part seems to pretty thoroughly eclipse existing “Reformed theology.” In fact, it does not seem to be putting it too strongly to say that there is nothing in the article, with its proposals, that is distinctively Reformed or seeks to build on an existing Reformed agenda. I have to ask, what is there in the article that could not be written by a non-Reformed theologian?

This question is reinforced when toward the beginning we are told (3):

It is also important to remember that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as Reformed, Lutheran, or Roman Catholic dogmatics, but only Christian dogmatics pursued from the perspective of a particular ecclesial tradition. It is not the goal of dogmatics to promote a sectarian spirit in the church. Rather, the various traditions within the Christian church, united by consensual ecumenical orthodoxy, offer their distinctive witness to the whole Christian faith through the act of dogmatics as a contribution to the common task of the whole Church, in its various confessional and ecclesial expressions, to clarify the teaching of the one faith.

There are a number of things that could be said about this, not all of them critical. I think, for instance, of the warning against a sectarian spirit and the implicit call to humility for each of us involved in the theological task, especially in dogmatics. But how is its primary thrust, reflected throughout the article as a whole, to be squared with the outlook, say, of B. B. Warfield? Addressing the relationship between the Reformed tradition and others, he rejects the view (akin to Franke’s) that they differ merely “as correlative species of a broader class.”1 Rather, he says, they relate “as a perfectly developed representative differs from an imperfectly developed representative of the same species.”2 While I would

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