In The Hermeneutics of Tradition: Explorations and Examinations.
Ed. Craig Hovey and Cyrus P. Olsen, 3–24. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014.
Up the Mountain with the Fathers: Evangelical Ressourcement of Early Christian Doctrine
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The last several decades have witnessed a fascinating development among evangelicals. More and more, evangelical theologians are developing an interest in the theology of the Church Fathers. Suspicious of the ways in which previous generations of evangelicals approached Christian doctrine—too often, so it is thought, as an abstract and lifeless cataloguing of propositional statements of truth derived from syllogistic argumenta- tion—contemporary evangelicals are turning to premodern modes of doing theology; and they look to the Church Fathers, in particular. This retrieval or ressourcement of the Fathers is, for all sorts of reasons, a wonderful thing, and this essay is intended as a small contribution to this burgeoning enterprise.
In what follows, I will explore five aspects of Christian doctrine in the early Church: (1) the purpose of doctrine; (2) the basis of doctrine; (3) the context of doctrine; (4) the development of doctrine; and (5) the limits of doctrine—all of this with reference to the early Church.
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