The Fear of the Lord: Essays on Theological Method
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
This volume examines what it means to proceed in the path of wisdom by beginning with fear of God, that is, mindfulness always and everywhere of God’s being and presence.
Michael Allen describes the praxis of fearing the Lord, how that posture of contemplative pursuit marks the theological task and defines our theological method; in so doing it takes up the significant topics of divine revelation, theological exegesis, intellectual asceticism, and retrieval/ressourcement from a distinctly doctrinal perspective. In each of these conversations, doing theology in the presence of God functions as a consistent thread. God is not mere object but truly functions as subject in the process of theological growth, though God’s presence and agency fund rather than negate creaturely theological responsibility.
The Fear of the Lord: Essays on Theological Method explores some of the most central questions of contemporary theological method – revelation, Scripture, theological interpretation, retrieval, intellectual asceticism, scholastic method – by asking in each and every case what it means to think fundamentally of the perfect and present God involved and active in these spheres.
- Examines what it means to proceed in the path of wisdom by beginning with fear of God
- Describes the praxis of fearing the Lord
- Explores some of the most central questions of contemporary theological method
- Introduction
- The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom
- Chapter 1 “In Your Light We See Light”: The Future and Promise of Theology
- Chapter 2 Living and Active
- Chapter 3 The Creature of the Word
- Chapter 4 Divine Transcendence and the Reading of Scripture
- Chapter 5 Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology
- Chapter 6 On Apocalyptic Theology
- Chapter 7 Disputation for Scholastic Theology
- Chapter 8 Dogmatics as Ascetics
- Chapter 9 The Contemplative and the Active Life
- Chapter 10 Reformed Retrieval
- Chapter 11 Retrieval and the Prophetic Imagination
- Bibliography
- Index
Allen explains and exhibits the dogmatic task as a human activity within the divine economy of grace reliant on the Triune God both for the content of right human speech and for the internal principle of knowing, the illumination of the Spirit, to embrace these divine truths in genuine faith.
—Presbyterion
Teachers in the congregational and academic context will profit from reading this rich volume ... and absorb the numerous, positive [insights] for their theological work.
—AfeT Reviews (Bloomsbury Translation)
With his characteristic verve and confident engagement with theological conversations past and present, Michael Allen puts us all in his debt. Whether taking up exegetical, dogmatic, or ascetical issues, Allen consistently sheds light, reads charitably, and bears Christian witness in pursuit of a richly contemporary and classical Reformed articulation of faith. Highly recommended!
—Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary, USA