Just Be a Philosopher Already: On Being a Thomistic Theologian

For me I only have the capacity to follow a Dogmatic or Systematic theology insofar that I believe it is sticking to the theo-logic inherent to the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. This is what keeps it Biblical. This is what keeps it from adulterating and going beyond the 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡; that is, by going to its inner and upward reality in the Godman (Theanthropos), Jesus Christ. In other words, speculative theologies, ones that reason from the being of humanity to the being of God; ones that reason discursively about nature vis-à-vis God, as if nature holds vestiges of God; are balderdash to me! If that is all I had to go with theologically I would fully walk away from the theological endeavor. The Biblical witness, the Biblical attestation to its triune reality in the God revealed (Deus revelatus), can be the only line of theological reasoning the Christian can really take. Not in assertion, as if just claiming loudly, over and over again, “that we follow the Scripture Principle,” but in concrete fact; i.e., that Scripture indeed is the only source and ground of the theological engagement.

These theologians constantly touting Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle as the bee’s-knees of theological performance might as well do it right. They might as well become professional philosophers of religion, and at least learn how to think philosophically in nuanced and correct ways if they are going to elevate a philosopher-king as their theologian, rather than the actual Biblical witness. Instead, they lazily lay claim to the whole of church history, as if the Patristics, for example, were simply doing what Thomas Aquinas was doing with Aristotle in mediaeval times. Indeed, they sublate their bad philosophical takes as theology takes, as if they are ultimately takes provided for by Biblical exegesis.

Athanasian Reformed