Gregg R. Allison > Quotes

“One of the most recent developments in comprehensive evangelical biblical interpretation was the “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” offered by William Webb.128 He called for evangelicals to move beyond what Scripture teaches and develop an ultimate ethic for the contemporary culture. Wayne Grudem argued that “Webb’s trajectory hermeneutic nullifies in principle the moral authority of the entire New Testament … creates an overly complex system of interpretation … [and] creates a system that is overly liable to subjective influence and therefore is indeterminate and will lead to significant misuse.”129 Indeed, Grudem concluded that Webb’s hermeneutical process was “entirely foreign to the way in which God intended the Bible to be read, understood, believed, and obeyed.”130”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“our only perfect source of doctrine is the Bible itself,”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“if divine revelation is a free act of the gracious God, how can the Church position itself in any way other than being a grateful beneficiary of that divine, inscripturated grace?”
― Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment

“Protestants acknowledge not only a call to salvation that is extended to everyone who hears the gospel, but also an effective call that summons those who will become Christians to salvation. Some believe that regeneration precedes (logically, not temporally) conversion, while others reverse the order. Evangelicals follow Protestant theology in these areas but demonstrate a remarkable diversity of opinions on the relationship between the gospel, the effective call, regeneration, conversion, faith, repentance, and baptism.3”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Luther’s concept of an alien righteousness was a particularly important contribution he made to the doctrine of justification. When combined with the forgiveness of sins— which was synonymous with justification86—the result was what Luther (like Clement of Rome), called “the sweet exchange” between Jesus Christ and a sinner. He explained this in the form of a prayer: “You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness and I am your sin. You have taken on yourself what you were not, and you have given me what I am not.”87 Thus, in exchange for his sins, which are transferred to Christ and borne by him, the sinner receives the righteousness of Christ—an alien righteousness.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Ringing in the ears of evangelical theology is Martin Luther’s call to distinguish between law and gospel.74 His distinction was not between the Old Testament (law) and the New Testament (gospel). Rather, law is anything in Scripture that expresses God’s demands while emphasizing the inability of sinful human beings to live up to those standards (e.g., Jesus’s command to be perfect as God himself is perfect; Matt. 5:48). Oppositely, gospel is anything in Scripture that expresses God’s promises by emphasizing that Jesus has met all of his demands. Gospel, then, brings grace to rescue sinners awakened to their need by law. Evangelical theology, following Luther’s trajectory, would profoundly disagree with Catholic theology’s view of the New Law”
― Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment

“Alister McGrath urged this solution: “Rediscovering the corporate and historic nature of the Christian faith reduces the danger of entire communities of faith being misled by charismatic individuals and affirms the ongoing importance of the Christian past as a stabilizing influence in potentially turbulent times.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“historical theology has both a normative and a descriptive role to play.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Thus a Christian man who lives in this confidence toward God knows all things, can do all things, ventures everything that needs to be done, and does everything gladly and willingly, not that he may gather merits and good works, but because it is a pleasure for him to please God in doing these things. He simply serves God with no thought of reward, content that his service pleases God.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Thus, Augustine affirmed that “whatever is done in the world is done partly by divine agency and partly by our will.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“For Lactantius, moral virtues like patience and faithfulness develop if and only if evil exists and persists.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“According to Packer, “The word [orthodoxy] expresses the idea that certain statements accurately embody the revealed truth content of Christianity and are therefore in their own nature normative for the universal church.” J. I. Packer, “Orthodoxy,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 875.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“The second mistake is to idolize church history,”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Another corollary of Luther’s doctrine of justification was his paradoxical statements “simultaneously righteous and a sinner” and “always righteous and a sinner.” Again, he distanced himself from the Catholic notion that a person is partly righteous (to the degree that infused grace has transformed his character into holiness) and partly sinful (to the degree that this sanctifying grace needs to accomplish more renewal). Rather, for Luther, a person is both completely justified by God, and thus righteous, and completely sinful at the same time. Luther explained this paradoxical idea: “For inasmuch as the saints are always aware of their sin and implore God for the merciful gift of his righteousness, they are for this very reason also always reckoned righteous by God. Therefore, they are before themselves and in truth unrighteous, but before God they are righteous because he reckons them so on account of this confession of their sin; they are sinners in fact, but by virtue of the reckoning of the merciful God they are righteous.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“The church’s position with respect to divine revelation must be that of recipient, not giver or determiner of it.”
― Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment

“Justin Martyr resolutely affirmed, “For I choose to follow not men or men’s doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by him.”
― Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Pope Pius IX promulgated the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary in his bull Ineffabilis Deus (December 8, 1854), and Pope Pius XII promulgated the dogma of the bodily assumption of Mary in his bull Munifi-centissimus Deus (November 1, 1950). The result of this view of divine revelation is “that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“Disaster for us Deliverance for others Suffering for us Salvation for others Humiliation for us Hope for others Persecution for us Promise for others”
― Gregg R. Allison, Embodied: Living as Whole People in a Fractured World

“As seen in the Catholic Church, tradition takes preference over Scripture; thus, tradition becomes the church’s “final authority.”94 So consistent has this position been that it may be said that a hallmark of evangelicalism, following its Protestant heritage, has been the rejection of Roman Catholic tradition as a source of authoritative divine revelation.”
― Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

“With this framework of an evangelical theology of justification, grace, faith, and good works, key points of disagreement with Catholic theology’s developments of these topics can be outlined. Most importantly, its definition of justification is incorrect. Justification is a forensic or legal act, the declaration of the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of righteousness. Catholic theology errs when it mixes justification with two other mighty acts of God, sanctification and regeneration: “Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.”109 This critique does not mean that evangelical theology minimizes or denies these other two divine acts. On the contrary, while affirming that justification is linked with regeneration and sanctification, evangelical theology distinguishes these three, as does Scripture (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:11). Tragically, conflating justification, regeneration, and sanctification results in Catholic theology’s false idea of justification.”
― Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment