Theology is knowledge of God as given in the gospel and appropriated in the church. “In earnest invocation of God it is necessary to consider what one wants to address, what God is, how he is known, where and how he has revealed himself, and both if and why he hears our pleas and cries” (Melanchthon, Loci Communes – 1558). Such “knowledge” of God in faith is named dogma (Greek: what is taught concerning God) and the study of it, dogmatics. Dogmatism (not a good thing!) arises when judgments of faith are taken for granted as a starting point for speculation, whether about God, humanity or whatever. Critical dogmatics by contrast is the scholarly attempt to come in faith to an ordered and coherent form the teachings of the Christian message that God may be known, the church confess and the world redeemed. Such statement critically tests the church’s proclamation and mission for its fidelity to the Word of God (dogmatics), and in the process engages with rival or alternative doctrines of human deliverance both within and outside the church (ad hoc apologetics) and sometimes aspires to a comprehensive interpretation of human experience in construction of a “world-absorbing narrative” (systematics). This course accordingly facilitates knowledge of core Christian beliefs according to the Holy Scriptures as understood by the Confessions of the Lutheran Church. It facilitates critical reflection on the grounds for these beliefs, interconnections between them and ways in which they are imparted. —Paul Hinlicky
Dr. Hinlicky is teaching “Creation and the Triune God” this Spring.
