Dan McClellan on reading the Bible univocally

[Rob Bowman]

Dan,

I am going to comment on your blog post,

[Kevin Christensen]

A few comments from the gallery.

The more than one thousand texts that treat Yahweh as Elohim (=El Elyon) are explained away as reflecting a conflation of the two deities under the pressures of socio-political factors, while the two texts that might speak of them as two different gods are regarded as representative of the earlier view.

There are more than two texts that distinguish the texts. Elohim, the Hebrew for God, a plural can often be generic gods, as in the RSV Deut. 32:43, which expands the MT based on addition text in the DDS.

Praise, O heavens, his people,

Worship him all you gods (

[maklelan]

Dan,

I am going to comment on your blog post,

[maklelan]

You wrote:

I am going to parody the above paragraph for the purpose of making a serious point. Suppose you ran across a blogger whose church did not teach that baptism was necessary for salvation. In fact, to make this more realistic, let

[Calm]

some professional Mormon theologians........ It is only when evangelical Christians cite the Bible against LDS doctrine that some Mormons start looking down their noses at the na

[cksalmon]

The Book of Moses, for instance, is called a translation despite no actual Vorlage in any other language.

Just so that I can understand your position, Mak, do you hold (1) that no Vorlage has ever existed

or (2) that it is no longer extant, but once existed.

I can't help but believe that your answer will clarify, to some degree, what you intend by "transmitted" in this regard.

cks

[maklelan]

Just so that I can understand your position, Mak, do you hold (1) that no Vorlage has ever existed

or (2) that it is no longer extant, but once existed.

I can't help but believe that your answer will clarify, to some degree, what you intend by "transmitted" in this regard.

cks

I simply hold that Joseph Smith did not have a parent text in front of him. I'm not addressing the question of whether or not the Book of Moses existed in antiquity in written form.

[Rob Bowman]

Calmoriah,

Robert Millet is an obvious example of a professional Mormon theologian. So is Stephen Robinson.

Please define what you think "systematic theology" means, if it does not mean a coherent, organized theology.

Two quick questions to help clarify your discussion...

Could you identify those you see as "professional Mormon theologians", please.

Do you believe that LDS have a systematic theology (as defined in the academic community, not as describing a "coherent" or "organized" theology) or do you agree with Dan that we do not?

Thank you.

[Calm]

I probably should not have used "coherent" as that implies a step by step logical linkage existing and that is not present in LDS doctrine. There is some revealed doctrine that may even appear to be contradictory at this time because we don't know the underlying principle....nor do we attempt to define it by reason as our doctrine comes from revelation.

For "coherent" I was thinking more along the lines of "understandable".

There have been several threads that have discussed the issue in detail---basically LDS don't do the type of theology that is called in academia "systematic theology". Our theology, what there is of it, is derived from revelation and any gaps to be filled in will only be filled in by revelation and it is a premise of our faith that our doctrine is incomplete and therefore while it can be organized, it does not exist as a 'whole system'. More detailed discussion here:

http://www.mormonapo...entry1208047940

[Calm]

The other thread I was looking for appears to have been lost so I will simply quote two comments Dan Peterson made that sum up the issue quite nicely imo (one of them is from the thread I linked to above I believe):

Daniel Peterson, on Jul 11 2006, 02:43 PM, said:

A reasonably good discussion of what the term systematic theology includes and entails can be found at

http://www.answers.c...ematic-theology

Notably, since at least the nineteenth century -- but I would certainly include massive works like St. Thomas's thirteenth-centurySumma Theologiae and Summa contra gentiles under this category, as well -- systematic theology has been characterized by the urge to create rigorously coherent systems that can, in principle at least, be deduced from a relatively small number of axioms, somewhat on the model of Euclidean geometry.

Latter-day Saints simply don't do this. We've produced no such works.

Daniel Peterson, on Oct 10 2006, 11:02 AM, said:

Systematic theology is a technical term whose meaning is not derivable merely by looking up the meaning of theology and the meaning of systematic and combining them. When I deny that Mormonism does or has "systematic theology," I'm saying nothing about whether or not Mormon doctrine is self-consistent, makes sense, or anything of that sort. I'm denying that Mormonism does the kind of theology that appears in other Christian denominations and goes by that name.

To get an idea of what I mean, pick up a copy of the one of the multivolume works of Systematic Theology published under that title by James Leo Garrett, Wolfhart Pannenberg, or Francis Sch

[Rob Bowman]

Calmoriah,

Evangelicals also don't do "systematic theology" in the sense specified by Dan Peterson ("rigorously coherent systems that can, in principle at least, be deduced from a

relatively small number of axioms, somewhat on the model of Euclidean geometry"). Nor would I agree that Thomas Aquinas produced systematic theology as so defined, although he engaged philosophical issues (primarily with respect to philosophical objections to Christian doctrine). Evangelicals view theology as dependent on revelation; it is "systematic" insofar as it is possible to organize our understanding of the teachings of God's revelation in Scripture in a way that shows how these teachings are interrelated and coherent. Most evangelicals would entirely agree that our best systematic theology will acknowledge gaps in our knowledge as well as limitations in demonstrating the coherence of revealed truth.

Wayne Grudem, Millard Erickson, and Thomas Oden are three good examples of contemporary evangelical theologians who have written widely used and respected textbooks on systematic theology.

By the way, I never said anything about Mormons doing systematic theology. I said something about evangelicals doing it. I was already aware of Mormon disavowals that they don't engage in systematic theology.