The purpose of Scripture as God’s Word is to invite and orient us to be in right relationship to God. From this vantage point, Mary’s response should be the template for the disciple’s response: when addressed by God through an angelic messenger, Mary answered, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

“Holy Scripture” by Kevin J. Vanhoozer in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 34.

Lydia Schumacher has offered a wonderful account of the doctrine of divine illumination as it was classically construed by Augustine as well as its fate throughout the middle ages and into the post-Reformation era. Schumacher argues that divine illumination shapes our “intrinsic intellectual capacity” and thus cannot be construed as a divine action that “undermines the integrity of the intellect.” She argues this point convincingly by considering a wider range of Augustine’s writings before turning to his specifically epistemological discussions where he considers divine illumination explicitly. “With all this in mind, one can conclude that the illumination of Christ does not bear on cognition in any way that undermines the autonomy or integrity of the intellect but in a way that reinstates it, at least for the intellect that stokes rather than extinguishes his light through a decision to work with faith in him.” In Schumacher’s account Thomas Aquinas becomes the faithful disciple of Augustine, contrary to many standard readings that pit Thomas’s use of Aristotle against Augustine’s reliance on Plato. Thomas does not continue to use the same philosophical apparatus to describe how humans think, but he continues to hold to the fundamental theological framework (regarding God, creation, anthropology, sin, and redemption) present in Augustine’s work. Thomas does introduce Aristotelian psychology into his reflections on illumination, but he allows his reflection on theology and the nature of the divine economy to chasten their function. At the end of the day, because he shares Augustine’s commitment to a participatory epistemology wherein humans really can come to share in God’s own knowledge by the missions of his Son and Spirit, Thomas is compelled to articulate a robust account of how human reason can be operative in theology. Hence he introduces Aristotle (with all his concern for detail regarding creaturely processing) precisely because he is so committed to Augustine’s vision of participation (drawn from both the canon of Scripture and his retooling of Platonic methexis). One must be committed to the proper functioning of the mind (and, as best we can, to understanding it in terms of faculties and functions) if one believes that it really participates in God’s own wisdom by grace.

“Knowledge of God” by Michael Allen in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 25.

The incarnate Son is the true image of God and the faithful last Adam. No one knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son reveals him. It is the Son’s knowledge — genuine human knowledge — upon which the whole doctrine of revelation pivots.

“Knowledge of God” by Michael Allen in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 21.

The language of theological principles signals the dependence human reason maintains on the gifts of the Triune God for any knowledge of God. The seventeenth-century divine Johannes Wollebius prods us toward a distinction: “The principle of the being of theology is God; the principle by which it is known is the Word of God.” That is, the ontological principle of all such knowledge is God himself, the only one who possesses this knowledge. God’s overflowing wisdom comes to humans in two forms. “The Church is creatura verbi divini: the creature of the divine Word. The Church is constituted by God’s action and not by any human action. . . . And the way in which the Church is constituted by divine action determines the character and scope of human action in the Church.” The church’s life and knowledge are enjoyed in a creaturely manner determined — in both character and scope — by their dependence on the divine Word. The Word’s activity takes two forms: external and internal.

The external principle is a person, the incarnate Son of God. . . . The internal principle is the pledged Spirit, who illumines the Word and not only enables but also actualizes reception of that Word in the minds of God’s people.

“Knowledge of God” by Michael Allen in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 20-21.

Reformational thinking about divine illumination would do well to return to its catholic posture wherein the operation of Word and Spirit renders human mental work operative rather than optional . . .

Here our approach to the order of Christian theology cuts across some common claims regarding the supposed distinction between biblical theology and systematic theology. When done according to the discipline of the gospel, systematic theology follows the canon’s own order. It does so with greater resolve than most biblical theology, inasmuch as it realizes that the Bible begins with theology proper (“In the beginning God . . .”). Redemptive history must be rooted in God’s own character; its salvific missions flow from the inner divine processions of Son and Spirit. Biblical theology can easily sound like nothing more than ancient history precisely because it lacks a doctrine of God to provide a metaphysical framework for its narrative.

“Knowledge of God” by Michael Allen in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 26.

This collection — and the wider practice of dogmatic theology of which it is but a piece — is not meant to replace the reading of Holy Scripture but to illuminate it. Just as pastors and evangelists serve to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12), so these essays seek to equip saints for a more faithful hearing of and testimony to the words of the prophets and apostles. Zacharius Ursinus reflected that the “highest” purpose for studying church doctrine is to prepare us “for the reading, understanding, and exposition of the holy Scriptures. For as the doctrine of the catechism and common places (loci communes) are taken out of the Scriptures, and are directed by them as their rule, so they again lead us, as it were, by the hand to the Scriptures.” Dogmatic reasoning is meant to flow from and send one back to the task of exegesis. Like good art criticism, it is drawn from careful viewing of a specimen, but it is beneficial only if it aids further interaction with the specimen itself.

From “Introduction” in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic, edited by Michael Allen, and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016).

The critics hold that Exodus 6:3, which the RV renders, “And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai); but by my name Jehovah I was not known unto them,” belongs to P and that P means to say that El Shaddai and not Jehovah was the name of God known to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore they assign four passages, Genesis 17:1, 29:3, 35:11, and 48:3 to P., since El Shaddai is found in them . . .

In conclusion, the evidence clearly shows that the Hebrews who translated the Old Testament, or part of it, into Samaritan, Syriac, Greek, and Arabic, knew nothing of a god called Shaddai or of Shaddai as a name for God. Only in the Greek of Ezekiel 1:24 and in the Syriac of Genesis 17:1; 35:11; and Exodus 6:3 is there any indication that either El Shaddai or Shaddai was ever considered to be a proper name like Jehovah . . .

Questions in Hebrew and other Semitic languages may be asked either with or without an interrogative particle. The following evidence goes to show that the last clause of Exodus 6:3 might be read “was I not made known to them?” This interpretation would remove at once blow the whole foundation of the critical position, so far as it is based on this verse . . .

On the basis of the investigation of the verse given above the writer would suggest the following renderings: And God spake unto Moses and said unto him; I am Jehovah and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob in the character of the God of Might (or, mighty God) and in the character of my name Jehovah I did not make myself known unto them. Or, if the last part of the verse is to be regarded as a question, the rendering should be: And in the character of my name Jehovah did I not make myself known unto them? Either of these suggested translations will bring the verse into entire harmony with the rest of the Pentateuch. Consequently, it is unfair and illogical to use a forced translation of Exodus 6:3 in support of a theory that would destroy the unity of authorship and the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch.

“Yahweh (Jehovah) and Exodus 6:3” by Robert Dick Wilson in Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation.

If evangelicals continue to work in isolation or ignorance of this heritage [i.e., evangelical OT biblical scholarship], they shall waste much of their time solving problems already completed by another generation and a situation will obtain which will be similar to that of the days of the last war when scholars working on opposite sides of the battle lines often reduplicated each other’s efforts in total ignorance of what other men were doing because of the conditions of those days.

From “Introduction” by W. C. Kaiser, Jr. in Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972).

Wrote about theological prolegomena and three forms of Word of God over at Ad Fontes Journal.

Theological Prolegomena and the Three Forms of the Word of God – Ad Fontes (adfontesjournal.com)