Getting a Grip on Systematic Theology with Derek Rishmawy

[00:00:00] There's a long-standing tension between the academic disciplines of systematic theology

[00:00:06] and biblical theology. And in this episode we have Derek Rishmawe from the Mirror Fidelity

[00:00:12] podcast joining us to try to bridge the gap between these two disciplines by appreciating

[00:00:18] the insights of both and giving a little more clarity on what we mean by systematics. And

[00:00:23] more importantly, why it matters. We talk about the importance of systematics, not only in giving

[00:00:28] us conceptual clarity, but also administering to our souls. Derek's a campus minister, which means

[00:00:34] he's regularly interacting with students, with Gen Zers on college campuses. And he talks about how

[00:00:41] systematics actually helps them relate to them, relate to the anxieties, fears and problems

[00:00:46] that they face in their lives. We also talk about practical ways that pastors can help

[00:00:51] their congregations grow in their grasp of systematic theology and how it informs daily

[00:00:57] living. As always, make sure to subscribe to the podcast, check us out on YouTube. You can find

[00:01:02] our YouTube channel in our show notes and you can also support us on Patreon. We'd appreciate all of

[00:01:07] those contributions. Enjoy this episode. You're listening to Thatll Preach. We have an interview

[00:01:19] today with Derek Rishmawe. He is an RUF minister at the University of California in Irving. He's

[00:01:27] also a PhD candidate in systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's also

[00:01:32] got a popular blog called Reform Dish and he co-hosts the Mirror Fidelity podcast. Derek,

[00:01:38] grateful to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on, Brian.

[00:01:42] Great to be here. I've had Alastair on who's part of Mirror Fidelity. Now you're on. I feel

[00:01:46] like I'm collecting all of the Christian celebrities. Now you gotta collect Andrew.

[00:01:52] Andrews, I think, are only really a big hitter. Everybody else, we all just like to talk to each

[00:01:58] other. That's our excuse for the podcast. The podcast is an excuse just to hang out and chat.

[00:02:05] But it's good to be here. That's a little bit. Yeah, Andrew, I guess he's the big deal now.

[00:02:09] He's got all those books out and it's that accent. I think the accent gives him a lot of

[00:02:14] mileage. The accent? Yeah, but he's got a million, but I don't know how he writes

[00:02:20] all the books that he writes. They're just, and across all these different subjects,

[00:02:28] he's smarter than I am. And I just have to accept that and learn from it and move on.

[00:02:34] But yeah, so I'm glad to know him. I'm glad to know the guys on the show and just get

[00:02:41] to learn from them and folks like the folks who you interviewed.

[00:02:44] Well, one of the things that I appreciate about your work, and I remember reading your blog,

[00:02:49] I love the title Reformed-ish. I was kind of like that's a very interesting title, but

[00:02:53] you blog on a whole host of subjects, but I know that systematic theology is something that

[00:02:58] you are particularly focused on. You're obviously getting your PhD in systematics.

[00:03:03] And I've always appreciated that you're nice to N.T. Wright, but you also have some critiques.

[00:03:10] I think you're a very fair reader of a lot of people, which I think is really important.

[00:03:17] But tell us a little bit about how, when you say you're studying systematic theology,

[00:03:21] I mean, first of all, what are you studying? What are you particularly focused on?

[00:03:27] And what got you interested in pursuing academics with regard to systematics?

[00:03:32] Yeah. So systematic theology, it's often hard to define. You kind of know it when you see it,

[00:03:38] but everybody who practices it thinks about it slightly different. Part of it is essentially

[00:03:44] reflecting on Scripture and the history of interpretation of Scripture, and kind of

[00:03:51] ordering or reordering, reorganizing Biblical truth according to

[00:03:59] kind of systematic or topical arrangements. And it's trying to think about the whole of

[00:04:06] Revelation in regards to a particular subject, and then relating that subject to everything

[00:04:11] else that the Scripture says all the other subjects. You're trying to think about what

[00:04:14] all the Bible says about God, what all the Bible says about Christ, and making sure that there's

[00:04:20] an interest systemic coherence that you're trying to present truth consistently, coherently,

[00:04:28] and then also relating it not just consistently and coherently reflecting what the Scripture

[00:04:34] says, but how that is then related to the outside world and the culture that you are

[00:04:39] preaching and teaching into. So it's relating the truth of the Scripture, it's reflecting on the

[00:04:45] truth of the Scripture in relation to the world around you, the world that the Scripture itself

[00:04:50] is describing coming into contact and then engaging. And so there's, it's kind of a different

[00:04:57] approach to the same material as, I don't know, Biblical studies or Biblical theology, right?

[00:05:03] Biblical theology will think through long range Biblical themes coming from across a whole

[00:05:08] of the can, right? Genesis to Revelation. And you're tracing the narrative development of a

[00:05:14] particular theme, the canonical development of a particular theme like the seed or the kingdom

[00:05:18] or whatever it is. Biblical studies oftentimes you're focusing in on the Gospel of Mark, right?

[00:05:23] The Gospel of Mark, what does Mark say about Christ? What does Mark say about God? What's

[00:05:29] the narrative coherence of Mark, that kind of thing? And then you're often, again relating

[00:05:34] it to the outside world, Mark's situation. What situation was Mark writing in the early church?

[00:05:40] Why was he addressing them with these particular stories in this particular form? Is there a

[00:05:45] situation that he is trying to deal with or what's the first century background of the actual

[00:05:51] encounters that are being recorded? How does things taking place in the reign of Cesar

[00:05:56] Tiberius? That's more Luke. How does that impact the way we read these texts? Systematics

[00:06:01] hopefully takes into view all of those things, but a lot of what you're trying to do is get a

[00:06:09] clear sense of the forest and the trees and their proper relationship so that you can kind of

[00:06:17] make sure that you're not chopping off trees to get the picture of the forest that you want or

[00:06:23] you're expanding certain trees to kind of such that they take over the picture of the forest

[00:06:29] as a whole, right? You're trying to grasp the whole in a synthetic and clear way. As for what I'm

[00:06:36] studying particularly, I'm studying the doctrine of God and the holiness of God specifically. So

[00:06:42] thinking about what does it mean for God to be holy and trying to look at it across the

[00:06:48] canon, really old to New Testament, and part of what I'm trying to think through and work

[00:06:53] through is the way focusing in on the attribute of God's holiness is not just inherently interesting

[00:07:02] in itself, but it's an angle on looking at God's motivation and God's action and God's consistency

[00:07:11] across the covenants, across the canon, how there's a unity and the character of God. There's

[00:07:17] unity in the singular kind of action and agency of God from Genesis through the Gospels and on.

[00:07:25] So trying to think that through in relation issues of atonement, violence, and some of those things

[00:07:32] that were at least hot buttons a few years ago when I started this thing, but I think

[00:07:38] they're still relevant. But that's the big subject that I've been looking at for several

[00:07:43] years is the holiness of God as a unifying theme within Scripture and as well as just a

[00:07:54] quality of God as he reveals himself. That's interesting. I mean, you mentioned a little bit of,

[00:08:02] you talked about biblical studies, biblical theology, and systematics, and just in my

[00:08:09] perusal of the Internet, there seems to be some tension between those two. I don't want to say

[00:08:13] that there's schools of thought necessarily, but there's always a tension there. I remember,

[00:08:18] I think you were on with Lightheart. You talked about his book Creator and it was,

[00:08:22] you could see that I think Lightheart seems more of a, I love Peter Lightheart and all

[00:08:27] of that. I'm just saying that that dialogue is a very interesting one. And I'm curious

[00:08:33] what your thoughts are about the relationship between systematics and biblical theology.

[00:08:41] Yeah, that's an interesting and fraught one. There's actually been some very good interchanges on

[00:08:48] that subject between my advisor Kevin Van Hoeser and then my other professor at TED's,

[00:08:53] D.A. Carson, kind of friendly interactions about the relationship between

[00:08:57] those two disciplines where they both have an appreciation for each other,

[00:09:01] but how you'd order them together. One of the things in dispute is, in a sense,

[00:09:07] who's closer to the text. A lot of the biblical theology advocates would say, well,

[00:09:13] biblical theology is trying to organize our theological reflection on God and Christ and all

[00:09:19] that sort of stuff in ways that take their cues directly from the Bible's own categories

[00:09:27] and Bible's own conceptualities and Bible's own arrangement and organization instead of imposing

[00:09:34] upon them kind of potentially foreign categories and foreign questions that are maybe not illegitimate,

[00:09:40] but they're not the Bible's primary concern. And so some folks will kind of try and think about,

[00:09:47] okay, well, biblical theology has to logically come first. And after the exegetes who do close

[00:09:54] readings of key verses and after the biblical theologians have done their kind of literary,

[00:10:00] canonical tracing of themes, then you historians or then you systematic theologians can then start

[00:10:06] to play around and reflect on that. And the idea is after we've discerned what the meaning

[00:10:13] of the text is, then you can start to reflect on that and then play around with your philosophy

[00:10:17] and your sociology and connect it to the world. And what you want to kind of say in response to some

[00:10:23] degree is that systematic theology is, hey, I love reading good biblical theology. I love reading a

[00:10:32] good piece of exegesis, just careful commentary work. I think systematic theology has to,

[00:10:39] right? Some of the best systematicians have been close readers of scripture. Charles Hodge,

[00:10:44] systematic theology, three volumes, etc. And he's got a really long commentary on Romans, Aquinas,

[00:10:51] Summa, pages and reams and reams and volumes and direct commentary on scripture.

[00:10:59] That said, systematic theology when it's operating well is operating directly with the

[00:11:07] text. The questions it asks are not, I don't think, external to or imposed upon the text in a way

[00:11:19] that's foreign. Richard Mueller has a big deal historical theologian has a good article where

[00:11:28] he talks even about the order of systematic theology, the classical order that is often

[00:11:34] set out in systems with God, revelation, God, humanity, Christ and so on and so forth.

[00:11:41] The loci says actually if you look at it closely, it tends to map the creed and the creed actually

[00:11:46] tends to map say the order of Paul's reflections in the letter to Romans. The book of Romans is not

[00:11:56] a systematic theology, but if you look at many systematic theology, they tend to actually

[00:12:02] map out concerns that are there given in the text. The text itself points us to the

[00:12:09] primacy of understanding God as a revealer. How do we come to know the true God, the knowledge

[00:12:15] of God is a theme given to us in scripture and that happens to be a large scale question

[00:12:21] that systematic theology has been dealing with for a long time and that's not something

[00:12:25] that's been imposed from the outside. There are cultural pressures, there are cultural

[00:12:29] forces oftentimes that bring certain themes to the fore. There's a reason that the doctrine of

[00:12:36] revelation got progressively bigger in our systems after the 16th and 17th and 18th centuries where

[00:12:45] philosophy, enlightenment philosophy in those periods was putting a lot of pressure around

[00:12:51] the issue of how do we know what we know? How can we attain true knowledge?

[00:12:56] Those were biblical concerns that have always been there. How do we come to a knowledge of the

[00:13:03] Creator and rightly give Him thanks? That sort of thing. I guess what I'd say is the best

[00:13:09] biblical theologians know that what they're doing is they're doing theology. They know

[00:13:18] that the text that they're dealing with is a theological text that is aimed at

[00:13:23] giving people a true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ and in His work. The best systematic theologians

[00:13:30] recognize that they're reflecting on God as He's revealed Himself in scripture

[00:13:35] in history and in the works of God with Israel and in the Son, in His ministry through the

[00:13:42] Spirit in the Church and that sort of thing. I don't think that there has to be attention.

[00:13:48] I think the best systematics and the best biblical theology is working hand and glove.

[00:13:58] The best biblical theologians have an eye towards some of the questions that systematics

[00:14:02] is raising. One of my favorites, obviously I'm going to mention Herman Bobink,

[00:14:06] one of the great things about his expositions of text is, I think early on in his studies,

[00:14:13] it was a toss up between whether or not he was going to go become an Old Testament scholar

[00:14:17] or enter what he did do, was become a systematic theologian. You start to see his method in his

[00:14:24] system is often to develop the biblical material at length as the basis of his,

[00:14:31] you know, the initial basis of his reflections as he starts to think about a subject in history

[00:14:37] and then kind of trying to synthetically draw it all together into a clear coherent

[00:14:43] presentation of whatever doctrine he's trying to consider. Right? There, he's not ignoring but he's

[00:14:50] organizing with an end to synthesizing and clearly presenting

[00:14:59] in not a simple way but a clear way the subject that he's handling. And so, yeah,

[00:15:05] that was my long-winded way of saying I don't think there needs to be attention

[00:15:09] even if there is in kind of practice sometimes but one more thing that's I think oftentimes people

[00:15:16] just get really, my discipline is my discipline. Right? People get really prickly about, hey,

[00:15:24] you're passionate about biblical theology, you're passionate about exegesis, you're passionate

[00:15:27] about historical interpretation and that's really good and there's often just a

[00:15:33] tendency to prioritize what you're interested in and subtly or not so subtly

[00:15:41] devalue the other disciplines because of, you know, your interest. And so I think we just have to

[00:15:47] guard against doing that and recognize that all the disciplines matter for a reason. Right? There's,

[00:15:54] they all play their role in the ecosystem of Christian reflection and teaching and preaching.

[00:15:59] Well, a lot of these tensions I think came to head. I mean people talk about whether we should,

[00:16:04] whether Protestants can draw from Aquinas or the boogeyman of people bring up Greek metaphysics

[00:16:12] and it's hard. I kind of see both sides, biblical theologians, they're just like,

[00:16:17] you go to the text and you have like, it's not allowed to be saying this because we assume this

[00:16:22] and then I think on the systematic side you go, well, if you ignore some of these reflections

[00:16:29] that people have had on systematics, you're going to come up with some weird conclusions about

[00:16:34] Christology, about the Trinity that you don't realize down the line is going to cause some

[00:16:40] major problems. And so it's hard man. I mean, I see the merits in both and it's,

[00:16:47] I think like eternal generation. I remember studying that and learning about that in seminary

[00:16:51] and that seemed to be something that a lot of people, if you're biblical, feel like it's not

[00:16:57] really in the text. Like you were my son that I've begotten you isn't really about that. And then

[00:17:04] it's kind of like, okay, if you read the text is there like a text underneath that that what

[00:17:07] it's really about? And there's a surface level thing. I don't know. That's just something

[00:17:11] that I've always noticed that tension and there's smart guys on both sides. And it's hard to see

[00:17:19] you know, sometimes where it's like, you know, you don't want to be going too crazy with the text and

[00:17:26] innovating new things. But then you also wonder like, you know, is the text really teaching this?

[00:17:32] Or is this something that was a response to particular frameworks that were at the time of

[00:17:39] certain doctrines being articulated? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a

[00:17:46] that's a great example. That's a great question. I think one of the ways I've like to think about

[00:17:53] why systematic theology ends up often and I said, I need to be careful because systematic theology,

[00:18:01] it doesn't speak with one voice. There's there's, you know, tons of different systematic

[00:18:05] theologians arguing with each other about what they think the Bible teaches what

[00:18:10] metaphysics we should be engaged like is a good conversation partner. There's some

[00:18:15] systematic theologians love Aquinas, some have made them for some of those same reasons. And so,

[00:18:22] you know, my way of my way of thinking about systematic theology and these questions is

[00:18:27] essentially I assume, and I think the Bible itself teaches that the Bible is a unified

[00:18:34] truth, right? That there is ultimately a unity of revelation in scripture because God is one

[00:18:42] and God does not contradict himself. And so oftentimes what you're basically trying to do

[00:18:48] is make sure that your reading of the particular verses coheres with your reading of the whole

[00:18:53] narrative and all of your other verses, right? So if you've got a verse here that would

[00:18:59] apply that implies that God is limited and finite and doesn't know something,

[00:19:03] right? You've got a figure of speech like, you know, that God came to know X or whatever it is

[00:19:09] or repented. When in our understanding repentance usually involves a recognition or

[00:19:16] an admission of error, well then you've got all these other verses that imply that God knows

[00:19:22] all things. And even that says he doesn't repent like a man because he doesn't make errors because

[00:19:27] he's known all things, he's decreed all things, in which case you're forced to reflect, okay,

[00:19:33] that text taken at face value without any recognition of literary figures, without

[00:19:40] any metaphysical considerations of what would it mean for God to literally repent in the way that

[00:19:49] you and I do. That would lead to contradictions with these 50 or 60 other things that have been

[00:19:57] taught about him, even in the same book of the Bible, right? So that means I can't just read it

[00:20:02] straight. It means the author himself was probably communicating something with that metaphor. It is

[00:20:10] speaking truly about God in some way but not necessarily what you might take at a face value

[00:20:16] reading. And so what I think good systematic theology is is just very careful, slow reflection

[00:20:23] on the whole and trying to understand how these things cohere together. And so this was part of

[00:20:33] my conversation with Peter Leithart, the reference around the issue of creator, is

[00:20:38] trying to think around what does it mean for God to be the God who reveals himself in the

[00:20:46] dynamics of history, who talks to you and I as time-bound, limited finite beings who nevertheless

[00:20:54] the same narrative says created space and earth and time and therefore doesn't seem to be limited

[00:21:01] by them. Like he has the expanse of the heavens, Lord of time, Lord of history. That means he's

[00:21:08] got to be above it. He's got to be transcending these things. And so some of these timed or

[00:21:12] tensed language for him can't be operating in the straightforward fashion that we might initially

[00:21:19] read because the text itself is telling us that we can't just take it that way. And so

[00:21:28] I think that that's often at work in some of these disputes is what kind of text we're

[00:21:36] dealing with. Are we assuming a unity in that way? And even recognizing that either way you cut it,

[00:21:43] you are bringing the table a certain kind of philosophic understanding about the way these

[00:21:49] texts work and the way time works and the way what existence is and that sort of thing.

[00:21:54] Now that said, that doesn't mean that in the history of interpretation every single proof text

[00:22:00] that a church father used to justify a particular doctrine is going to be a text that you or I might.

[00:22:06] I think that there's actually a lot more going on with some of those early

[00:22:11] church proof texts. There's great articles on say for instance Proverbs 8 as speaking to the

[00:22:18] eternal sonship of the second person of the Trinity and creation through wisdom and all

[00:22:24] that speaking of the eternal generation of the sun there is a deeply biblical logic going on there

[00:22:31] that can be justified according to like even contemporary methods of recognizing the use

[00:22:40] of these texts by New Testament authors. And I can see that and reevaluate proof text that I might

[00:22:47] have written off a long time ago while at the same time saying like I'm not going to accept

[00:22:52] necessarily every proof text that was used by somebody in the 13th century for a certain doctrine.

[00:23:02] And I don't think that really necessarily shifts my belief in that doctrine or

[00:23:11] unsettles the doctrine in and of itself. And this is where I think having

[00:23:14] a humbly Protestant approach to reflecting on the history of interpretation and tradition

[00:23:24] is helpful is there is a primacy to the word. There is a primacy of the original sources.

[00:23:30] There is returning at Fontes to the text to the sources while at the same time understanding

[00:23:37] that you are reading them in a tradition you're coming alongside and you don't know everything

[00:23:42] and not everybody who's come before you has been a fool and a fraud and so you can learn from history

[00:23:48] and so it's actually good to slow down and realize no that there might be something there

[00:23:54] and I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand just because I know I feel like there's an

[00:23:58] expiration date on when that commentary was written or something like that.

[00:24:02] In seminary Mike Allen as a professor and Scott Swain and they're big into that kind of

[00:24:10] retrieval of classical theism and theology before the reformers. And man I remember being like

[00:24:16] I'm in seminary and I'm like we're reading Aquinas and Augustine and you know some of their

[00:24:22] soteriology might have been very decidedly non-prostate but their doctrine of God was

[00:24:29] so powerful and I remember thinking like man I know a lot about justification

[00:24:36] but I just haven't thought about God his being is essence his nature and that was pretty eye

[00:24:41] opening and I've also noticed that even in systematics there's kind of an ecumenical spirit.

[00:24:46] I mean you said there's different it's not one unified voice but I've noticed

[00:24:49] a lot of Protestant systematics being like hey these Catholics have something really important

[00:24:53] to offer on doctrine of God and there seems to be more cross pollination today because of the

[00:24:59] internet because we're not killing each other anymore you know that seems to be very fruitful

[00:25:05] yeah so I'm curious what you think about the future of systematics as these traditions that

[00:25:11] have been long separated by politics and all kinds of historical factors there's a cross

[00:25:16] pollination happening. I'm just curious about your thoughts on that Protestant and Catholics

[00:25:20] dialoguing together on systematic doctrine of God things of that nature. Yeah I mean

[00:25:26] I think it's great I've learned a lot from Roman Catholic and some Eastern Orthodox scholars

[00:25:31] especially in these areas I think anybody who's read Matthew Lebring has benefited from his

[00:25:37] he's been big in these conversations around you know retrieving kind of classical approaches

[00:25:44] and by classical often it means you know Augusta and Aquinas and and Salomon for him

[00:25:48] the kind of the big Roman Catholic doctors. I think it's great I think it's beautiful

[00:25:54] and I think it's actually fairly again Protestant in so far as a lot of the early reformers

[00:26:02] the reason that there was no there's no real dispute around the doctrine of God who he was

[00:26:11] who his essence his attributes and that sort of thing those first first generation or so because

[00:26:16] they just assumed yeah obviously he's invisible and mortal God only wise immutable and changeable

[00:26:21] you know yeah that's not that's not what it's that's not what that issue justification is the

[00:26:26] sacraments and church worship and so on and so forth and so they kind of assumed it and so

[00:26:33] oftentimes they didn't teach it as much and then and then the second generation of reformers

[00:26:39] you know dogmaticians like Turritin or and so on and so forth when those things came up

[00:26:45] started coming up for a dispute with some of the radical anabaptists and the radical

[00:26:51] kind of rationalists they're like hey you know what we've been fighting with the Catholics for so long

[00:26:55] on so many things but nevertheless they're they're good on they're good on God's knowledge

[00:27:02] or they're good on God's sovereignty or at least the Dominicans are right so you'll have reformed

[00:27:06] theologians quoting Dominican arguments against Arminians and that sort of thing and I think

[00:27:13] some of that same spirit has kind of emerged right now in the 21st century late 20th century

[00:27:18] around issues around the doctrine of God and the Trinity and realizing that there's

[00:27:23] there's a lot of overlap here and especially I think under the pressure of an increasing

[00:27:30] secularism you're really realizing like look we have still fairly live debates around

[00:27:37] justification that I'm you know I for one don't want to cede for an instant like I'm a

[00:27:44] I'm a Presbyterian Westminster confession affirming guy and nevertheless when it comes

[00:27:51] to the challenges of a post-Christian secularizing society whose basic metaphysics and understanding

[00:28:01] of the human person understanding of the world as either coming from the hand of God or not

[00:28:09] of all sorts of things you start to understand

[00:28:14] the way you know something like C.S. Lewis's mere Christianity

[00:28:19] it starts to become more of a live practical thing for you to cultivate because like in

[00:28:25] my work as a campus minister I have to I do have to talk about Roman Catholic I do have to

[00:28:31] talk about sometimes the very clear distinctions between the Protestant doctrine of justification

[00:28:35] which I think has massively important practical pastoral value and at the same time when it

[00:28:43] comes to looking around the campus and a lot of the major ideological disputes and a lot of

[00:28:47] the major social and political issues you know the brother you know the priest up the way

[00:28:56] and I have far more in common around our basic understanding of the nature of life as you know

[00:29:03] being given unto God and the glory of God and that sort of thing and who God is then

[00:29:09] you know a secular atheist or secular progressive or kind of a vaguely spiritual

[00:29:16] non-Christian and I can learn a lot from them about how they engage

[00:29:23] those people with those basic fundamental worldview questions right so I think that's for me at a

[00:29:29] practical level super helpful and then in theology I mean I think that there's a lot

[00:29:35] of helpful overlap I will say I do worry at some points though about kind of late 20th century

[00:29:44] early 21st century ecumenism that would to downplay the differences right so I I do think the

[00:29:54] Protestant doctrine of justification matters and the distinction matters like having you know your

[00:30:02] righteousness imputed to you and Christ you know the double imputation of of Christ's work on the

[00:30:10] cross and and our sin and all that sort of thing that has significant impacts pastorally and

[00:30:17] theological and I think it's just true to scripture and under the guise of learning from

[00:30:24] from our Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters and and kind of partnering with them

[00:30:30] in certain things I don't want to lose that I think we can overcompensate and overcorrect because

[00:30:36] of the the fights we've had in the past there are significant issues at stake there and so I

[00:30:42] I don't I like the I like I like the collaboration as long as it's a clear and honest and open

[00:30:51] confessional collaboration and I think that's part of actually one of the benefits of kind of

[00:30:55] having a confessional not just mindset but but actual affiliation is you know I'm a

[00:31:01] Presbyterian minister I have my Westminster confession and one of the great things is

[00:31:07] I can say like look I'm these are my guardrails these are my scriptures and here's the thing

[00:31:12] there's a whole bunch of sections here where they're teaching the scriptural truth that

[00:31:17] my confession affirms and so I have the freedom to go out and learn and appropriate from

[00:31:21] from these different areas because I've I've got some things already squared away these things are

[00:31:27] not in flux for me so so that's I think part of what is maybe necessary going forward is is

[00:31:37] is an ecumenism from within or a collaboration or a learning from within

[00:31:44] a well thought out place within your own tradition within your own boundaries and so

[00:31:51] I'll say that if you don't have a handle on your own traditions distinctives

[00:31:57] that's when things can start to kind of go south for you when we're engaging in these

[00:32:03] sorts of collaborations and so that's just one thing I'd add there.

[00:32:07] No I appreciate that caveat because I think when it comes to soteriology and justification

[00:32:12] those tensions aren't as readily apparent to us today when I think a lot of the battles

[00:32:17] anthropology and you know what it means to like gender all this stuff and so then it's

[00:32:24] like justified before God we all kind of say it's important but it just doesn't seem to be

[00:32:28] as pressing today but just because it doesn't seem pressing today doesn't mean it's still

[00:32:32] not a really really important doctrine to be clear about and you know so I appreciate you

[00:32:39] adding that little caveat. You did mention that you're a campus minister and you know I'm

[00:32:44] you know I'm in a revived Florida State University got a lot of college students you think about

[00:32:49] systematic theology it just doesn't really sell conference tickets you know what I mean it's not

[00:32:54] like the the big hype thing you know I don't know if passion is going to have you know our

[00:32:58] systematic theology conference but like you were mentioning this touches on core

[00:33:04] truths it touches a bit talking about reality it's talking about God and all things relationship

[00:33:08] to him in what ways does systematic theology help you minister well to the students that you're meeting

[00:33:16] that's a great question I think it helps me a lot actually because one of the things that

[00:33:22] systematic theology typically has you do is keep an eye on the world right it's trying to relate

[00:33:27] the biblical truth coherently to the world and one of the things that students want to know

[00:33:31] is it this thing is true and then you know how does it make sense together right how does this impact

[00:33:38] my my actual life I get questions that kind of demand systematic training all the time I don't

[00:33:48] know how many remember one day we were working out on campus when we had conversations with

[00:33:54] a variety of different students in a single conversation in a single day I had a conversation

[00:33:59] with a young Mormon missionaries about eternal eternal generation and the trinity and the nature

[00:34:05] of God then you have conversations about issues in ethics right with with the sexuality and and

[00:34:13] kind of the trustworthiness of like why are you getting your ethics from this book that's

[00:34:18] that's bringing new doctrine of revelation right and you have the kind of cultural

[00:34:24] apologetics the kind of apologetics you have to do on campus for students requires not just an

[00:34:34] understanding of the interest systemic coherence of the bible right with or or the narrative

[00:34:43] flow or the greek or the Hebrew although that matters a lot and it does come up

[00:34:48] um it you have to be able to connect it and have it make purchase on their lives right now

[00:34:55] I mean the big questions of what difference does it make to me right now whether or not

[00:35:02] there is a god who exists or not once equal let's talk about your existence

[00:35:07] what does it matter to you how you live right now if your existence is the result of

[00:35:12] a god who made all things who has a purpose and plan for all of human history including your own

[00:35:18] life um like that kind of that kind of thinking right systematics ethics ontology right the

[00:35:28] fact that your existence is sustained this very moment minute by minute uh by uh an infinitely

[00:35:38] powerful and good god that's directly relevant to the kinds of decisions you're making right now about

[00:35:46] your career the money that how you're going to spend your money uh what you're going to pursue

[00:35:53] relationships all sorts of things and so um I think I think it it it

[00:35:59] it this systematic theology as a discipline in so far as it is is constantly trying to relate

[00:36:09] biblical truth to the truth claims of the surrounding world um that's exactly uh what many

[00:36:17] college students are hungering for and want to know right they also want to know how to make

[00:36:23] sense of things right I think a lot of times you young Christians they struggle with sharing their

[00:36:29] faith they struggle with reading the bible because they're actually just lost right it's a big complicated

[00:36:35] old book and it's culturally foreign to them and one of the nice things about working through

[00:36:42] something like j.i. Packers knowing god right that book is basically a systematic theology

[00:36:50] uh pietistically you know inclined uh working through that text with a college student

[00:36:58] and giving these big tentpole doctrines these big tentpole truths uh gives them a lot more

[00:37:03] confidence to approach the scriptures right with a basic sense of who god is what he's

[00:37:09] about what the main storyline is the main accomplishments and works of scripture uh

[00:37:15] the main I don't know the relevance of this to their daily life um that is that could that

[00:37:22] could be a massive game changer for a student is is kind of taking them through hey let's let's cover

[00:37:27] some basic ground I'm working through right now uh a group of with a group of students the west

[00:37:32] minster confession uh I've got these you know four or five guys or or just working through

[00:37:39] chapter by chapter subject by subject they come to me with the questions already

[00:37:44] prepared they actually want to know why is it that I'm trusting scripture this way

[00:37:50] you know where do you get this view of god as sovereign and true and you know its impact

[00:37:57] on my life of you know trusting him uh with the daily day to day decisions in my life so

[00:38:03] honestly I could keep going here for a while but systematic theology

[00:38:08] is the way it trains you to think about scripture and and and its relation to the world

[00:38:15] is invaluable for campus ministry it's how I it's how I think through a lot of my teaching

[00:38:22] week to week and my engagements with students I've found that students really love thinking

[00:38:28] about god's transcendence so that's something that never really occurs to them but when you

[00:38:32] think about that a lot of times we have this implicit idea that you know god's like a a bigger

[00:38:38] version of us you know us with superpowers us times you know a million or something like that

[00:38:44] and then you think about his being his transcendence he's you know not like us all those kind of

[00:38:50] classic ideas even though it's something like simplicity like it actually people are

[00:38:54] kind of like curious about it because it I think it elevates our minds away from

[00:38:59] kind of creaturely realities to be like when we talk about god we're talking about something very

[00:39:05] we're talking about someone very different from us that requires us to really think deeply about

[00:39:12] scripture and reality and all these types of things and actually at least in my mind whenever I

[00:39:16] started to learn about this stuff was like this it it's um I think it does create a reverence

[00:39:24] and an awe for like what we're talking about when we're when we're using this language about

[00:39:28] god and I'm sure when you talk to students they already have a systematic theology in their mind

[00:39:32] it just may not be a very good one right yeah um what are the stakes I mean yeah about I mean

[00:39:38] you're obviously devoting a lot of your life to the study of systematics and maybe even you want

[00:39:42] to talk specifically about the holiness of god but personally what do you think the stakes are

[00:39:46] what's going to happen if we don't have a good systematic theology for the church

[00:39:51] um I mean I think you already mentioned it uh you already do have one it the question is

[00:39:57] whether or not it's good whether or not it's you've reflected on it um whether or not it's

[00:40:02] coherent uh what I remember distinctly uh in college I studied philosophy at UCI and I

[00:40:10] I had the pleasure of having an entire medieval philosophy class on just on Augustine uh and

[00:40:16] I don't know I don't know if that's legitimate my professor decided to do it it was great

[00:40:19] I remember for the first time when we worked through some of Augustine's reflections on the

[00:40:25] eternity of god and the way god's knowledge worked uh that he didn't have sequential thoughts like you

[00:40:33] or I just consider one thing after each took in the whole grasp of everything all at once

[00:40:38] and the immensity of that thought I remember sitting there for about a half an hour afterwards

[00:40:43] just thinking that is that is a completely different range of being I don't have a scale

[00:40:51] for that kind of thing the thing that that did for me concretely was it started to open up a different

[00:40:56] layer of trust in god because that scale and that scope of his thought of his sovereignty of his

[00:41:05] ability to take in the hole and see and discern and not even just taking the hole but but but

[00:41:10] eventually I wasn't a Calvinist in college but eventually coming to the recognition that

[00:41:14] he's actually decreed things uh with that kind of infinite wisdom opened up space for me to begin

[00:41:26] to trust him and not be as paralyzed by the life choices that were ahead of me right and I think

[00:41:33] I think I'm thinking about Gen Z right now a lot of these students are dealing with basically

[00:41:38] crippling fear and anxiety everybody is culturally there's the higher levels of reported anxiety

[00:41:44] and and then there's questions about whether or not we're anxiously getting ourselves into more

[00:41:49] anxiety but it's there it's there yeah and being able to reflect on the nature and the existence

[00:41:56] and the attributes and the transcendence of god who is above and beyond you who in the middle of a

[00:42:01] changing and unstable world that you don't know the future of god does god is unchanging and

[00:42:06] god is unchangeably good right god is not a part good and part kind of in it for himself god is

[00:42:14] got a simple god is unified god has always been eternally committed to and and personally existing

[00:42:22] as the perfection of all goodness right and god's plan from all of eternity has been good

[00:42:28] for those who he has called and predestined and loved and justified and and glorified and

[00:42:34] having students reflect on these big tentpole doctrines is just deeply orienting for them

[00:42:46] in a disorienting world and I think part of the challenge when we don't have that when we aren't

[00:42:52] teaching students basic doctrine oftentimes we're not we're not replacing with anything else anyways

[00:42:59] right I find that if you're not a if you're not a churcet is interested in teaching doctrine oftentimes

[00:43:06] you're not even carefully reflecting on just teaching basic scripture scripture will get you

[00:43:12] there but if you don't again the big the big orienting thoughts in your life the big orienting

[00:43:20] thoughts in your heart and mind will be other things they will be falsehoods they will be

[00:43:24] misapprehensions and you know when you start to think poorly about god you think poorly about

[00:43:29] everything else eventually there's a knock on effect in your life so in my experience

[00:43:40] having a reflection having a conscious reflection on the nature of god and the nature of christ's

[00:43:44] work and the nature of these things and anything is clearly in mind right instead of a vague

[00:43:50] instead of a vague sense of like oh a student might be able to say yeah god says me and he loves me

[00:43:56] and he's and he gives it to me through jesus okay why does that work right having a student come to

[00:44:03] the point where they maturely reflect on the fact that no christ has actually answered for your sins

[00:44:09] in the cross he has paid for these things that nagging guilt that you have in the back

[00:44:13] of your head I know I was told Jesus loves me but what about what I did on Tuesday no

[00:44:19] you actually meet for the specificness of your sin you need the specificity of I don't know it

[00:44:25] sounds so cheesy but a clear definition of what Jesus has done that you can answer it with christ

[00:44:30] has paid he has cleansed me from my sin I am righteous in him I am united with him right all

[00:44:38] the identity questions right you don't have a big tentpole doctrine like union with christ

[00:44:44] um you are not going to be able to go out into the world with a with with the biblical

[00:44:55] truth that should be orienting you in all and all that you are in christ your your

[00:45:00] your inheritance in christ your adoption as a son or a daughter of god as somebody who has

[00:45:08] sanctification and glory as the goal of everything that they're doing and as god's

[00:45:12] plan for you um I just think the daily impact the day to day way of approaching everything

[00:45:20] is just shifts it's it's a radical perspective shift for these students and so

[00:45:27] I just feel that deeply and I've seen it I've seen the light I've seen the light bulb go on

[00:45:32] in students minds when suddenly it hits them I'm justified or god has glory in my future

[00:45:39] oh I'm made in the image of god right I actually have inherent dignity and value not my my performance

[00:45:46] isn't my dignity and value christ is um those are all those are all game changers and uh

[00:45:54] and if you don't have them you're just going out there I don't know unarmed

[00:46:00] without the truth that god wants for you that's some powerful stuff you know it's

[00:46:05] and even just the process of having to meditate on these truths I think it'd be life changing for a

[00:46:10] lot of people um how do you how do you get a church to get into systematic theology you know I mean I

[00:46:19] don't know that you need to teach everybody about eternal generation all these types of things but

[00:46:24] how what's a practical way to get people engaged with this lay men and women in a local church

[00:46:30] ways that you've seen work or ideas that you have about that

[00:46:34] yeah um you know there's there's better and worse ways there's hand-fisted ways um

[00:46:41] I think I think churches should generally just be preaching through scripture I'm uh

[00:46:46] generally electione continue a guy so just preach preach through books of the bible

[00:46:50] one of the best things a preacher can do is um think it is start to read these things themselves

[00:46:57] and just recognize uh when you're working through a text when there are opportunities to actually

[00:47:03] show the way like the the way this is the biblical grounding for a doctrine that you or I

[00:47:10] believe and teaches essential to faith teach doctrinally right have that section of the

[00:47:17] sermon uh expounding how this text among others is one of the groundings for doctrine just

[00:47:23] just doing it from up front you don't have to do a whole lecture series on doctrine as your sermon

[00:47:29] series although a good series through the preaching through the apostles creed and expounding it that

[00:47:35] way is is a great one um book clubs are a pretty classic way just taking some some of your most

[00:47:42] interested folks who want to learn offering up classes on that local church I'm at right now

[00:47:50] they just offered up a class on the Westminster standards and we're not a massive church or

[00:47:54] something like that and you know get 30 people signed up like that uh people are interested

[00:48:00] in knowing that there's a clear and coherent um body of knowledge that they can rely on and

[00:48:06] lean on and so uh good book studies classic books uh you know finding something that's user friendly

[00:48:13] and accessible while at the same time not dumbed down I mean I I do like the reading of old books

[00:48:20] this gets you into the church history stuff I mean just taking somebody through

[00:48:24] Athanasius is on the incarnation that's a treat right having um having a culture of one-on-one

[00:48:33] discipleship that includes includes doctrinally based discipleship just having that as part of

[00:48:42] your understanding of what it means to have a fully equipped somebody in Christ it's not the whole

[00:48:48] of whole of things right but one of the things you have to do alongside teaching somebody to pray

[00:48:54] to read their Bible uh be a member of a church is teach them the basic doctrine and the basic

[00:49:00] body of doctrine that are the essentials of faith and and and not just not just the essentials

[00:49:06] but the the truths that we we believe um that's part of what it means to build people up in Christ

[00:49:14] once you start to grasp that you know doctrine is not just about um kind of abstract propositions

[00:49:20] floating in the air but our descriptions of the reality of your salvation right the doctrine

[00:49:27] of the atonement is not just a proposition about Christ died for your sins etc it is it is

[00:49:33] it's actually a re description of the meaning of what it means for Christ to hang on a cross

[00:49:41] blood dripping down in order to save you um and it means the foundation of your daily ability to

[00:49:50] get up and live as a forgiven person and forgive your spouse and your children and ask for

[00:49:55] forgiveness and repent you're just going to start to see oh yeah I'm of course I'm going to

[00:50:00] teach doctrine I want people to I want my people to be uh forgivers I want them to be repenters

[00:50:05] so of course I'm going to explain the atonement um that sort of thing once that starts to become

[00:50:11] your mindset there's you start to realize it's it's not some extra thing you do it just informs

[00:50:16] everything you do it's a great way to put it yeah I mean at some point doctrine has got to land

[00:50:21] in the actual lives that we live and then you realize oh this is actually this isn't just

[00:50:26] again abstract musings like you were mentioning this is about life this is about the god who is and

[00:50:32] then me in relation to that to him and uh and that's that's an important thing maybe just

[00:50:38] draw on this to a close I'm curious about you know just the future of systematics are there any

[00:50:41] conversations you're really interested in right now about systematics or maybe even fields of study

[00:50:46] that you think need more uh good minds thinking on in terms of systematics it's funny I've

[00:50:54] been kind of stuck in dissertation land and trying to try to try to get my way out of there so

[00:51:00] trying to look ahead is hard I mean obviously the retrieval conversation has been happening for a while

[00:51:04] people trying to look back to the past retrieve what's good and and and use that as a way of

[00:51:10] kind of breaking through maybe contemporary log jams uh problems in in doctrine that sort of

[00:51:15] thing I think that's going to keep going for a while uh there's probably going to be some push

[00:51:20] back soon there already kind of has been the doctrine of god is going to continue I think

[00:51:27] to be a hot area of of conversation as more and more people are looking at more and more

[00:51:33] uh subjects and but probably the one that is there's going to be no end in sight is

[00:51:40] reflections around anthropology reflections around the doctrine of humanity thinking that through

[00:51:48] uh in new and old ways is going to be one of the things that I think uh

[00:51:57] it's there's no avoiding it and because of its pastoral and churchly relevance uh and

[00:52:04] its relevance to our political disputes in the day and and that sort of thing and so

[00:52:10] in terms of subject matters subject matter I think anthropology is one of the things that

[00:52:15] people are whether or not it's your favorite uh subject in in in the discipline it's increasingly

[00:52:22] a necessary area of focus is just careful reflection on what it means to be human what it means to

[00:52:28] be an image of god what it means to receive your being from god uh that is going to be

[00:52:35] I think an important conversation in in systematics in the future when are you uh planning

[00:52:40] on finishing your dissertation this year hopefully I've got like almost all of it written I have to

[00:52:45] revise uh it's way too long but I've got to revise revise revise and then hopefully submit and defend

[00:52:52] so I'm praying by the end of this year my wife is praying by the end of everybody is it's got

[00:52:57] to be done so yeah that's great that's great well do you have a working title for it we'll

[00:53:02] see what happens right now I think it's uh I think it's our god is a consuming fire oh I

[00:53:06] like that uh biblical dogmatic yeah yeah so biblical dogmatic account of the holiness of god

[00:53:13] but we'll play around with a little bit more gotcha gotcha well Derek thank you so much for taking

[00:53:17] the time appreciate all the work that you're doing both academically and just as a minister on campus

[00:53:23] the college students we're going to put a link to your uh blog to mere fidelity so people can

[00:53:28] check out your work but uh Derek thanks thanks for the conversation and appreciate all your

[00:53:33] contributions thank you Brian it's a pleasure to be here uh and join you if you guys appreciate

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