Theopedia

Historical Theology

Definition

Historical theology is the theological discipline that traces the development of biblical doctrine “from the time of the apostles to the present day,” giving an account of how the church has progressively unfolded and apprehended the truth contained in Scripture, and of the resulting changes in the church’s own life and thought.1 It is one of several theological disciplines, alongside exegetical, systematic, and practical theology.2

Areas of Study

A. A. Hodge divided historical theology first into Biblical History, drawn from Scripture itself and running to the close of the New Testament canon, and Ecclesiastical History, beginning where the biblical record ends and continuing to the present.3 Following the principle that church history should distinguish the church’s life from its thought, Hodge further divided Ecclesiastical History into two parts.3

The History of the Life of the Church deals with persons, communities, and events, and is treated by the ordinary methods of historical composition, combining chronological and topical arrangement.3

The History of the Thought of the Church, or Doctrine-History, comprises several further divisions.4 Patristics and Patrology cover the literature of the early church Fathers, grouped as Apostolic, Ante-Nicene, and Post-Nicene, and a scientific exhibition of their doctrine. Christian Archaeology treats the worship, discipline, art, architecture, and music of the early church. Doctrine-History proper is “the critical history of the genesis and development of each element of the doctrinal system of the Church… with an account of all the heretical forms of doctrine from which the truth has been separated, and the history of all the controversies by means of which the elimination has been effected.”4 Symbolics studies the church’s creeds and confessions themselves: the occasion and genesis of each, its subsequent reception and influence, its doctrinal content, and Comparative Symbolics, which sets the confessions of Christendom alongside one another to show where they agree and differ.4

Historical Development

Insofar as it traces the shaping of Christian belief into doctrinal statements, historical theology is called the History of Doctrine; insofar as it describes the accompanying changes in the church’s outward and inward life, it is called Church History.1 By the nineteenth century this had produced a body of standing reference works under both names. William Cunningham’s Historical Theology, Karl Hagenbach’s and William G. T. Shedd’s respective Histories of Doctrine, August Neander’s Church History, and G. P. Fisher’s History of Christian Doctrine were, in Strong’s own day, the works a student would be pointed to for the field.1

Objections and Responses

Doesn’t the historian’s own theological convictions inevitably color the history of doctrine they write, undermining the discipline’s claim to be a neutral record? Strong grants the danger plainly: “There is always a danger that the historian will see his own views too clearly reflected in the history of the church.” He illustrates it by name. Shedd’s History of Christian Doctrine was, in Strong’s words, “called ‘The History of Dr. Shedd’s Christian Doctrine,’” its Augustinian convictions visibly shaping its account, just as Daniel Sheldon’s own Arminianism colored his.1 Strong does not treat this as disqualifying the discipline, only as a standing caution for how its histories should be read: he commends Fisher’s History of Christian Doctrine by contrast as “unusually lucid and impartial,” showing that the danger, though real, is not universal.1

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology: A Compendium and Commonplace-Book Designed for the Use of Theological Students, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: The Griffith & Rowland Press, 1907), 41. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 1, “Christian Theology; Its Several Branches; and Their Relation to Other Departments of Human Knowledge,” 17-18. ↩

  3. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, chap. 1, 27. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, chap. 1, 28. ↩ ↩2 ↩3