Systematic theology: A historicist perspective

by Gordon D. Kaufman

Now nearly 50 years old, this book reflects a challenging grounded theology that is surprisingly relevant to our contemporary world.

543 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Gordon D. Kaufman is Professor of Theology Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School. He is a past president of the American Academy of Religion and of the American Theological Society, as well as a member of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Professor Kaufman is author of numerous articles and reviews as well as 12 books, including In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Harvard University Press, 1993), which won the 1995 American Academy of Religion Award for "Excellence" in the "Constructive-Reflective" category of scholarly books on Religion; and two recent books, In the beginning . . . Creativity (Fortress Press, 2004) and Jesus and Creativity (Fortress Press, 2006). He has lectured widely, and taught at universities across the United States, and also in India, Japan, South Africa, England, and Hong Kong. Professor Kaufman has been an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church for 50 years, and has been the subject of two Festschriften.

Reviews

[Steve Irby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished "Systematic Theology: A Historicist Perspective," by Gordon D. Kaufman.

So far he's reading like a good Anabaptist. His theological starting point is "God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ." From here he dives into "revelation." Or, when speaking of God he anchors himself by analogia Christi rather than analogia entis. Side note: the format of this ST is different than many. Others take a trinitarianor creeds format. Kaufman begins with the Father, Son, and the Spirit but it is more like a prolonged monologue on God, then dealing with, for instance, the Church external of "the Spirit."

"Since it is Jesus Christ, and not the biblical words, that is God's revelation, it is misleading to refer to the text itself as 'inspired'," p 69.

Kaufman is so well written. It is like I'm getting Greman Theologians without the lost-in-translation-ness. His history-and-revelation-heavy prolegomena was good and came in at 80 pp.

His doctrine of God beautifully illustrates how God draws near man even in man's sinfulness. If anyone can't be around the other it is man who moves. His nutshell definition for his Doctrine of God is that "God is defined by Jesus Christ," and "He looks now like He did then." His take on the trinity goes to single mindedness three persons (Latin: masks) in one essence. So the work of one of the persons (sanctification or Justification) is the work of God, not the Spirit or Son.

Kaufman has gone on the record in 1968 saying that some future events are set and some are open and then doubles down by saying that "God does change His mind" p 159.

I'm a bit into the the second section on the Son and he is kicking back against the Chalcedonian conception of the Hypostatic Union. He believes that "God was in Christ" but he takes issue with how the later church nuanced this in light of the Greek influence, i.e. "nature." This leads Kaufman to present an adoption adoptionist Christology.

I found it interesting that His coverage of the atonement was a page at best which proposed a moral influence/subjective atonement.

His coverage of the Spirit was ok. Nothing to write home about.

He finishes his coverage of the God with a chapter on the trinity.

Yeah, this format is different. Father, Son, Spirit, and Trinity, now he is covering Creation, Providence and Eschaton as a theology of history. It's cool I'm just used to reading the creedal writers picking a standard lane.

The next section is a theological anthropology, harmatology and soteriology. I'm starting to appreciate his format more as I go. High point is in soteriology with the atonement. He seems tobhold to a Christus Victor view saying that the atonement broke the sovereignty of the evil powers and released men from bondage from self and sin. But Kaufman substitutes or demythologizes demonic evil with what we've come to call structures saying that Anselms and Abelards model of the atonement does not fix our historical evil. His analysis of CV is that the crucifixion "...is seen as the creative beginning of a redemptive process that is actually going on in history...," p 404. Or a continual fighting the powers.

Per the resurrection Kaufman suggests an objective spiritual resurrection. So one couldn't say "bodily" but it was not psychological or subjective for it was beheld by all the followers, yet beheld in a spiritual form.

Good read though heavily reliant on demythologization/symbolism.

#Anabaptist #Mennonite #SystematicTheology #GordonDKaufman #GordonKaufman

[Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came across Kaufman's book used online for a few bucks and figured I would read it to see what a towering figure in liberal theology - perhaps one of the last great liberal systematic thinkers out there before the post-liberal turn - had to say. I was a bit disappointed.

Kaufman brings conceptual depth to a lot of the problems he thinks about. He resolve to think about faith and revelation in historical terms is commendable. However, I found his approach very uneven. He quotes the Bible often in a straighforward proof-text-like approach at times, but at the beginning does not see the Bible as authoritative or necessarily revelatory. He is deeply Christocentric, but does not think, for instance, the resurrection was real in the sense of it being bodily. He argues for a spiritual resurrection of sorts, but then goes on to assert that believers should just trust God and not hope for a concrete afterlife of any sorts. At many points, while he does offer conceptual depth, he really is not exegetically that deep. Several of the chapters simply hover over biblical texts and just state generalizations.

His doctrine of the Trinity I thought was really weird. He aligned the doctrine of the Father as offering attributes concerning God's transcendence, the Son with God's imminence, and the Spirit with God's communing presence. The result felt either modalistic or just deeply impoverished.

Often the points that I did agree with I did not feel that he did enough to demonstrate. It often felt like proof by assertion.

I think Gordon Kaufman, a liberal Mennonite systematic theologian, is brilliant, but I also just don't think brilliance makes for the sole criterion of whether a systematic presentation of Christian doctrine is successful.

I am curious to see what he wrote in In the Face of Mystery, which is his later redo for a systematic theology. It looks like his thinking evolved quite a bit, such that this book was more or less eclipsed.