Summary of Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine

Summary of Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine

Systematic Theology

Organizing knowledge of God in a systematic way is termed as systematic theology. It is a discipline which concentrates one theological topic one at a time (for instance, God, Angels, Sin, and Humanity) and strives to recapitulate all the biblical teaching about that particular topic. Simply, just what it says is Systematic Theology. The objective of systematic theology is to present the main themes, that is doctrines of the Christian faith in an ordered and organized outline that remains authentic to the biblical view. It is also known as constructive theology or even dogmatic theology.

Wayne Grudem is mainly a systematic theologian, and in Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, he gives a compendium of his teaching. This book offers a very comprehensible and systematic review of biblical teaching. Questions for personal application are included at the end of each chapter. From a wide range of hymns, scripture memory passages and quotations are also included that summarize basic Christian doctrines.

Book is divided in to fifty seven chapters, dissevered in seven parts. The first part deals with the doctrine of the God, second part with the Doctrine of God, third with the doctrine of man, fourth with the doctrine of Christ and the Holy Spirit, fifth is about the doctrine of the application of redemption, sixth is regarding the doctrine of the church and seventh encompasses the doctrine of the future.

The Doctrine of the Word of God

The topics that are discussed in this part of the book include the word of God, the canon and inerrancy of scripture, the four characteristics of scripture; authority, clarity, necessity and sufficiency. This part emphasizes that why should we concentrate so strongly on the Bible- the written form of God's word?

Grudem differentiates among “The Word of God” as Person i.e. Jesus Christ and Speech by God. Bible claims that all the Words are God's Words in Scripture. Though there are other evidences too but not more reliable than the Bible itself. Bible is more convincing in its claim. The words of Scripture are self- manifesting. Disbelieving or discrediting the words of scripture implies to the disobedience or skepticism towards God. Every believer believes on the Scripture's truthfulness as God can not prevaricate or speak untruly. That's why, in Scripture, all the words are absolutely accurate and devoid of error in any part. The words of God are definitive criterion of certainty. It is argued by Wayne Grudem that the Bible can be inerrable and still articulate in the common language of daily talking and admit informal or free quotations. Having extraordinary or exceptional grammatical constructions in the Bible is consistent with its inerrancy. However, the challenges faced by inerrancy in the today's world include: consideration of inerrancy as a poor term and since there is no manuscript available that is inerrant therefore, conversing about an inerrant Bible could be confusing and ...