confessions of a seminary student

I know that at some point a reformed counterpart will read this e-mail and comment something like, “see you just confessed what we accuse you of. We are completely Biblical in our conclusion.” In the past I’ve asked such people not to comment, but I give up.

Having said that I’m going to tell you how all seminary students (including my Calvinist, dispensational, and fundamental counterparts), come to have a systematic theology. It goes something like this…

Today in my Paul class we talked about Ernst Kasemann’s article on the “righteousness of God” in Romans. Now this particular article and another topic “pistou christou” have been of much interest to me as of late. They both deal with the subjective vs. objective understandings of genitive Greek constructions. This is the first material to really interest me for quite some time in seminary. It’s not that the debate is new only my discovering it.

This is usually what happens in order for me to get excited about any idea in seminary. I have an existing idea of how something should work. Eventually I find that I’m not the first to think such a thing and then the journey begins. For the next couple of weeks you find all of the historical characters in the history of theology that have said the same thing and then eventually you come to the conclusion that you can hold the theological tenet and not be a heretic, or at least if you are going to be accused of heresy you can be such in good company. After this process is completed the idea is chewed and applied to other theological doctrines and then the position is solidified.

In short all thinkers and theologians have presuppositions and most theological journeys are simply about finding data to corroborate those initial presuppositions that one is comfortable with.

My point is this. I wonder how many of us really come to seminary to learn? How many of us really come with a blank slate in search of truth? I don’t think it is as many as we might like to think.