My first significant exposure to historical theology occurred during college in a course that covered the creeds and councils of the early Church. I was astonished by the brilliance of these early Christian pastors, theologians, and philosophers as they wrestled with important theological truths. They often did so in response to various heretical teachings from influential teachers such as Arius and Marcion. Reading primary and secondary sources for this course caused me to feel that I had entered into a foreign land that I was largely unfamiliar with and disconnected from. And I was not better off for my lack of familiarity.
For too many evangelical pastors and laypeople, Church history is insignificant. This reality may result partly from a misunderstanding of sola Scriptura and an accompanying conviction that we don’t need the past to live faithfully as Christians in the present. I’m reminded of how I once heard Timothy George say that he started some of his Church history courses with a proclamation that a whole lot had happened between Jesus and his students’ grandmothers. Furthermore, he maintained, he had to convince them that what had happened in that period (or during that time) was important. The case for theological retrieval begins with the conviction that the past is valuable.
Some evangelicals, perceiving a lack of vital relationship between evangelicalism and historic Christianity, have converted to Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy. A common criticism that Roman Catholics leveled against Protestants in previous generations was that it was schismatic. By that charge, they meant that Protestants had separated themselves from the one true Church and continued to separate from one another thereafter.
But the critique of the Reformers, as well as later Protestants such as Baptists and Presbyterians, was that the Roman Catholic Church had forsaken the teachings of the Bible and had therefore ceased to be a true church. Therefore, as Gavin Ortlund helpfully points out in Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals, which the rest of this post will consider, the Reformation itself was an act of theological retrieval in order to recover the Bible’s true teachings.[1] Thus one doesn’t have to resort to Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy to be in continuity with the Christian tradition.
What is theological retrieval?
Ortlund doesn’t attempt to provide a formal definition of theological retrieval. Instead, he writes concerning theological retrieval: “It is better understood as a set of shared loyalties or instincts in theological method—an overall attitude guided by the conviction that premodern resources are not an obstacle in the age of progress, but a well in the age of thirst.”[2] Ortlund further explains: “This book is fueled by the conviction that one of the church’s greatest resources for navigating her present challenges is her very past—indeed her entire past.”[3]
Ortlund’s approach to theology and his emphasis on theological retrieval stands in stark contrast to the spirit of our own age and, unfortunately, the prevailing spirit among evangelicals. The prevailing disposition of our own day, which also appears in many of our churches, is that the past has very little value for the present. We are too driven by an insatiable longing for creativity, innovation, and progress. These values often exist in direct opposition to theological retrieval. Yet, as Ortlund notes throughout his book, theological retrieval has much to offer in the way of addressing perennial cultural and theological issues.
The benefits and dangers of retrieval
Ortlund highlights some of the benefits and dangers of theological retrieval. The three benefits he gives are stated metaphorically: “going to school,” “traveling to a foreign country,” and “seeing a counselor.”[4] Theological retrieval is like going to school in the sense that we learn from the teachings of Christians throughout history, particularly on topics where we tend to be weak in our own time. Theological retrieval is like traveling to a foreign country and visiting the Sistine Chapel.
The experience of theological retrieval is not merely educational. It is formative. Ortlund writes, “Almost invariably theological retrieval serves a more catalytic role of deepening our sensitivities to theological concerns we do not already feel and cultivating theological values we do not already possess. . . . These are sensibilities and emotions that are shaped by the whole experience.”[5] Theological retrieval is also like seeing a counselor, in the sense that “the retrieval of Patristic and medieval theology can resource contemporary Protestant theology” by “reframing modern debates” and “providing a premodern perspective.”[6] Like seeing a counselor who can help provide you perspective, theological retrieval can help by providing prospective on current debates and giving us new categories of thought.
Ortlund also provides several pitfalls that can accompany theological retrieval: distortion, artificiality, repristination, and minimalism. By distortion, Ortlund refers to the temptation to look to the past to confirm our present views or opinions without “doing our homework” and without dealing with an author and source in their own historical context. By artificiality, Ortlund means something similar to distortion in that we use a source or concept for a purpose for which it was never intended and does not fit.
The third danger is one that especially concerns me, not only about the use of early church or medieval sources, but also about the use of modern sources as a form of repristination. Repristination refers to the temptation to present a historical concept or source as a final authority on a subject simply because it is revered or old. This approach often fails to deal with current issues raised by modern debates by simply representing older views “as though premodernity offered us a way out of these challenges simply by preexisting them.”[7] The final danger is minimalism, which simply means that we look to the past, with all of its variety, ignore or downplay that variety, and attempt to find a common denominator in order to achieve some sort of unity. These are certainly very real dangers in theological retrieval.
Retrieval in practice
In the larger portion of Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals, Ortlund demonstrates the practice of theological retrieval. This section is fascinating! One of the more intriguing sections comes in chapter four when Ortlund considers Boethius (c. 477–524) on foreknowledge, the extra Calvinisticum, and Thomas Torrance on the ascension. In dealing with these somewhat complex topics, Ortlund employs an author/story metaphor to discuss God/creation by using J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth and the very real place of Oxford, England to explain these key doctrines. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, set in Middle-earth, while in Oxford. He is the author. Oxford is a real place. Middle-earth is the fictional place that Tolkien is creating with his own pen while in Oxford. Keep each of these things in mind.
The extra Calvinisticum attempts to explain how Christ both rules the world as the divine Son of God (Colossians 1:15–20), while simultaneously living a true incarnate life. The incarnation, using this metaphor of Middle-earth, is analogous to Tolkien, who lives a very real life in Oxford, writing himself into his narrative in Middle-earth. Tolkien does not cease to exist in Oxford. But he also now exists in Middle-earth. Oxford and Middle-earth are two different places (one fictional in the metaphor), but Tolkien “remains one.”[8] Similarly, Christ is not limited to His earthly existence in the incarnation. He does not cease to be God. He also does not cease to maintain the cosmos by his power. He is fully God and fully man, living a very real human life on Earth, but never ceasing to be the divine Son or performing His divine work.
Ortlund continues to use this metaphor by considering the ascension. He’s worth quoting at length here:
[A]t the incarnation the Word enters a body without leaving heaven; at the ascension the Word enters heaven without leaving a body. As the extra serves to preserve the full deity of Christ in his descending to us, the bodily and space-time nature of the ascension serves to preserve his full humanity in his ascending from us. God enters the world without ceasing to be God; God then leaves the world without ceasing to be man.[9]
To return to the metaphor of Tolkien and Middle-earth, or that of an author and a story: “If the incarnation functions something like the author writing himself into his own story, the ascension would be like the author pulling the world of that story back into his own world. . . . It would be like Tolkien transporting something of Middle-earth back into Oxford.”[10] With this in mind, “It is as though there has been a kind of ‘ontological upgrading’ of the reality of Middle-earth: it has gone from a reality that exists in one reality to a reality that now exists in two.”[11]
Ortlund also explores divine simplicity, the nature of the atonement, and pastoral care. In each of these sections, he explains key points made earlier in the book. First, theological retrieval should not lead to a repristination that does not take modern questions and debates into account when theologizing. Second, and maybe more importantly, theological retrieval helps us take into account the broader Christian theological tradition without unnecessarily eliminating some options as conservative, moderate, or liberal because they have come to be identified with those labels in recent decades or centuries.
Conclusion
By
exploring Christian history and the Christian theological tradition, we are not
only embracing the fact that all truth is God’s truth but also embracing the
wonderful theological heritage that is our own. Christian history, as Ortlund
rightly notes, is our story.[12] Both pastors and scholars
must seek diligently to understand the past on its own terms and in its own
context. We must engage in the difficult, careful task of theological
retrieval. We are not the smartest people to have ever lived. We cannot solve
every modern or ancient theological problem on our own. But with God’s help, as
we consider the teachings of the Bible and those Christians who have reflected
on great theological truths centuries before us, we may learn to understand God,
His Word, and the world more faithfully.
[1]Gavin Ortlund, Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 31.
[2]Ibid., 17.
[3]Ibid., 20.
[4]Ibid., 68.
[5]Ibid., 71.
[6]Ibid., 72.
[7]Ibid.,74.
[8]Ibid., 105.
[9]Ibid., 110.
[10]Ibid., 112.
[11]Ibid., 113.
[12]Ibid., 85.
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