Biblical Theology and Philosophy: Relationship and Definitions

Introduction: Philosophy and Biblical Theology

Historically, biblical theology and philosophy have had much in common and have often complemented each other. At the same time, philosophers and theologians have in certain cases considered themselves mortal enemies. Most Christian doctrines carry critical implications or presuppositions for philosophy. This paper begins with an examination of the relationship between philosophy and Christianity, then defines biblical theology based on three Christian doctrines that influence philosophy: the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Incarnation. Other doctrines — such as those concerning God's attributes and providence — are excluded because they are not unique to Christianity. Unlike the doctrine of Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist and the origin of sin, these three doctrines have long been discussed and applied in relation to philosophy (Amanze, 2012).

The debate on Christian traditions and the relationship between philosophy and biblical theology continues. An influential apologist and Christian theologian of the early church, Tertullian, did not believe any relationship exists between philosophy and theology. According to his argument, the intrusion of secular philosophical thought into biblical theology was not in order. Therefore, even though some theological claims seemed reasonable to certain philosophers, a true Christian should never waver (McLean, 2012). According to Tertullian, philosophy tends to corrupt biblical theology and generate beliefs grounded in neither orthodox tradition nor the early customs of Christians. He famously asked what Athens has to do with Jerusalem — Athens representing Hellenistic philosophy, and Jerusalem symbolizing Christianity as the early church's intellectual center and a location of critical importance (Legaspi, 2010).

With the coincidence between the two disciplines, philosophy can easily fall under biblical theology, and the converse may also be true. People who do not accept divine revelation as expressed in religious texts are more likely to be persuaded through philosophical arguments. For example, an atheist who rejects religious authority may be persuaded through philosophical reasoning to believe that God exists. Philosophical techniques can also help a theologian to clarify ambiguity or errors in theological arguments. Theology may offer enough information to conclude that Jesus Christ possessed both divine and human natures, yet fail to explain the precise relationship between those two natures (DeWeese, 2011).

This is where philosophy can assist the theologian — helping to discern logically inconsistent models and to better comprehend Christ's nature as both human and divine. Based on the view that a relationship exists between philosophy and biblical theology, arguments drawn from revelation render a discussion theological, while arguments not grounded in biblical concepts remain philosophical. This is one way the two disciplines can be clearly differentiated. However, when one scholar reaches a conclusion, others with different views are likely to offer contradictions. Those who advocate for an integrated model perceive such conflicts as merely apparent, since the claims made by one thinker cannot be genuinely contradicted by another unless the former has made some error — a position grounded in the belief that God created the world and revealed truth both through scripture and through natural reason (In Bartholomew, 2011).

Early Christian Thinkers on the Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology

Other theological leaders were more open to relating philosophy with biblical theology. According to Justin Martyr, figures such as Socrates and Heraclitus possessed the divine light of revelation and were, in his view, authentic philosophers. He believed Christianity to be the True Philosophy and accordingly used philosophical terms and techniques to argue for the Christian faith. Another influential theologian, St. Augustine, laid the basis for much of Western philosophy and theology through his writings. He adopted a more moderate approach: according to him, philosophy and biblical theology complement each other, though he cautioned against allowing philosophy to override theology (Amanze, 2012).

St. Thomas Aquinas introduced the Thomistic model to explain the relationship between the two disciplines. According to this model, biblical theology and philosophy are distinct — particularly in their starting points. Philosophy begins with the natural faculties of perception: people hear, see, touch, taste, and smell, and reliable data gathered through these senses is processed by natural mental faculties. Biblical theology, by contrast, begins with divine authority and the revelations found in the Bible, much as a student accepts the foundational assertions of a physics professor on trust (DeWeese, 2011).

Although Augustine thought the two disciplines complemented each other, he maintained this was only true when philosophical reflection is grounded in a prior intellectual commitment to the truth at the core of Christian faith. In his view, the legitimacy of Christian faith commitments is what gives philosophy its authenticity. Justin Martyr, for his part, recommended the use of philosophical approaches grounded in traditional Christian values. With philosophers and theologians frequently working together, interacting, and addressing overlapping questions, the two disciplines have always been intertwined. Philosophy has been credited with contributing to the development of Western theology (Addinall, 1991).

Medieval Scholasticism and Modern Analytic Theology

Thomas Aquinas, for example, drew most of his key concepts from Aristotle. During the Middle Ages, scholasticism was an important dimension of both theology and philosophy. Theologians such as Albertus Magnus, Anselm of Canterbury, William of Ockham, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and Peter Abelard engaged in both disciplines simultaneously (Amanze, 2012).

Today, Anthony Thiselton has demonstrated how philosophy assists with scripture interpretation through his concept of the "Fusion of Horizons," particularly in the field of hermeneutics. Philosophy provides interpretive frameworks for understanding revelation. By contrast, Sadhu Sundar Singh believed that it is the Holy Spirit who gives the correct interpretation of revelation. It is also evident that cultural frameworks influence theological development. Within the Christian tradition, many philosophers — both ancient and modern — have drawn on Christian concepts in their philosophical works. Examples include James K.A. Smith, William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Jean-Luc Marion, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Paul Tillich (Johnson, 2014).

English-language philosophy in the 20th century, including philosophy of religion, was largely practiced without engagement with biblical theology. Three factors appear most critical in explaining this separation. First, English-language philosophers throughout the century were predominantly atheists (Johnson, 2014). Second, 20th-century philosophers regarded biblical theology as either meaningless or in need of critical scrutiny because it involved religious claims. The view that theology was meaningless was driven by the tenets of logical positivism, which held that statements without empirical content lacked value or meaning. The Trinity doctrine, for example, lacks empirical content and was therefore considered meaningless by these philosophers. The second concern — that theology required scrutiny — was inspired by Wittgenstein's argument that language only has meaning within particular contexts, and that religious language was not aimed at expressing objective truths about the world (McLean, 2012).

Third, many leading academic theologians grew sceptical of humanity's ability to think and speak meaningfully about God. Rather than abandoning Christianity's traditional doctrines altogether, they rejected quasi-scientific and metaphysical theological methods in favor of alternative construals — existentialist, metaphorical, and postmodern — derived from those methods. This accounts for the rift between methodological "analytic" and "non-analytic" philosophers, which has been replicated, to some extent, as a divide between analytic philosophers of religion and their biblical-theological counterparts. Over the last four decades, however, philosophers of religion have returned to assessing Christianity's traditional doctrines using classical philosophical tools, applied in more varied ways than were initially envisioned through Thomistic or Augustinian models (Addinall, 1991).

Traditional philosophers of religion have refused to maintain rigid distinctions between the two disciplines in order to keep pace with emerging academic trends. As a result, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish the work of contemporary philosophers from that of biblical theologians. What was once considered strictly theological now appears in the works of modern philosophers. Today, both disciplines employ the term "analytic theology" to describe theological work that explores doctrines using the techniques, resources, and literature of traditional analytic philosophy. This terminology signals that, despite often going unacknowledged, work labelled "philosophical theology" is as much theology as it is philosophy (Legaspi, 2010).

What Is Biblical Theology?

The study of biblical doctrines in their chronological and historical context as they are organized in the Bible is known as biblical theology. Unlike systematic theology, which organizes doctrines by topic, biblical theology analyzes God's unfolding revelation as it occurred in history. Biblical theology may separate and expound the biblical teaching of a particular portion of scripture — such as the writings of John or the theology of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) — or it may emphasize a specific time period, such as the theology of the united kingdom era. It may also study particular biblical themes or motifs; for instance, a study of "the remnant" would trace how that motif is introduced and developed throughout scripture (Hamilton, 2014).

A German biblical scholar, J.P. Gabler, has been credited with founding biblical theology as a formal discipline. During his inaugural professorship address in 1787, he called for a clear distinction between doctrinal or systematic theology and biblical theology. According to Gabler, biblical theology is a rigorous study of the beliefs and teachings of different eras in biblical history, and must remain independent of modern doctrinal, denominational, cultural, and philosophical influences. His principles were largely sound, and he shaped the development of biblical theology for many subsequent generations (Velde et al., 2014).

The Bible, however, cannot be studied with complete objectivity. Each interpreter brings different presuppositions to the text, and these biases significantly influence how scripture is interpreted. The field of biblical theology therefore contains a wide variety of opinions and interpretations. Biblical theology relies heavily on the theologian's hermeneutics — the techniques used to interpret scripture are an integral part of the discipline, and the quality of one's interpretive method directly shapes the quality of one's biblical theology (Hamilton, 2010).

Systematic theology, for example, seeks to determine what the Bible as a whole says about angels, examining every relevant passage and organizing the findings into a body of truth called "angelology," from Genesis to Revelation. Biblical theology, by contrast, traces the understanding of angels as it develops historically throughout the Bible — beginning with the Pentateuch and following God's progressive revelation on the subject through each subsequent stage of scripture. Conclusions are drawn about how the understanding of angels may have changed as more revelation became available. Ultimately, biblical theology pictures the Bible as a single unified narrative rather than a collection of unrelated doctrines (Hamilton, 2010).

Conclusion

Clearly, philosophy and biblical studies were treated as distinct disciplines in the early centuries. The two fields have been regarded as related and complementary in various respects, yet they were also vigorously separated — intellectually and methodologically — for significant periods, particularly in the 20th century. Today, however, there is almost no clear boundary between the two disciplines in contemporary academic practice. Philosophy is extensively used in biblical theology, and biblical theology is drawn upon in philosophical inquiry.

Biblical theology is the study of the Bible as a whole unit, from the first book to the last. It attempts to tell the biblical story as a coherent narrative based on what is written in Christian scripture. Just as life itself involves both normative and authoritative dimensions, so does the biblical story — it is the account of God's creation, the glory of salvation through His sacrificial Son, and ultimate judgment. The convergence of philosophy and biblical theology in contemporary scholarship reflects the enduring human effort to integrate reason and revelation in the pursuit of truth.

References

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Amanze, N. (2012). Biblical studies, theology, religion and philosophy: An introduction for African universities.

Carson, D. A. (2012). Christ and culture revisited. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Eerdmans.

DeWeese, G. J. (2011). Doing philosophy as a Christian. Westmont: InterVarsity Press.

Hamilton, J. M. (2010). God's glory in salvation through judgment: A biblical theology. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Hamilton, J. M. (2014). What is biblical theology?: A guide to the Bible's story, symbolism, and patterns.

In Bartholomew, C. G. (2011). "Behind" the text: History and biblical interpretation.

Johnson, D. (2014). Biblical knowing: A scriptural epistemology of error. Havertown: James Clarke & Co.

Legaspi, M. C. (2010). The death of scripture and the rise of biblical studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McLean, B. H. (2012). Biblical interpretation and philosophical hermeneutics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Velde, M., Visscher, G. H., Van, V. J., Kamphuis, B., Venema, C. P., Anderson, R. D., Visser, A. J., & Kwakkel, G. (2014). Correctly handling the word of truth: Reformed hermeneutics today.

Vos, G. (2003). Biblical theology: Old and New Testaments. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Wellum, S. J. (2016). God the Son incarnate: The doctrine of Christ.