Definition and Divisions of Theology (8 of 16 notes)

Part One
INTRODUCTION: 4 SOURCES AND DIVISIONS OF THEOLOGY SOURCES
A DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY
By Charles F Baker

Kaehler has this to say: “Biblical Theology, or the orderly presentation of the doctrinal contents of Scripture, is a comparatively modern branch of theological science. In general the term expresses not so much the construction of a theology which is Biblical in an especial sense as a method of dealing with Biblical matter which is midway between exegesis and dogmatics.” He says that at the beginning the aim was to make the Bible the only and sole source of Christian doctrine by allowing it to speak for itself, but that a one-sided maintenance of the historical and religious-historical method in the hands of liberal theologians resulted in what he calls, “the self-immolation of the discipline.” He therefore goes on to say: “Accordingly it is not the task of Biblical Theology to criticize the theology of the Bible and to judge it by the measure of a probable understanding of the original to be obtained scientifically but to show as a matter of fact what the contents of the Bible are and at the same time to bring into view the different forms and shapes in which these contents are offered.”¹⁰

10          M. Kaehler, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1949) II, p. 183.

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