As a subject within contemporary Protestant theology, dogmatic theology stands in a historical context. As such, it can only be done critically and in an argumentative manner. The mere repristination of authorities or traditional language patterns would not do. From the perspective of a church historian, this raises the expectation that dogmatics treats the question which issues and arguments (from the past) should be considered relevant for a present reformulation of faith and should be continued. Dogmatic theology describes texts as regards the evaluation of the arguments and suppositions contained within, but it should refrain from extracting corresponding "systems" from all texts or from compiling statements according to its own order. Rather carefully selected text passages should be treated in their argumentative style, historical context and related interests with philological precision. The respective status of historical research in the exegetical disciplines and church history should be taken into consideration, even if this means that dogmatics has to adjust its arguments again and again to the actual state of the art. Any careful perception of historical texts and research helps to avoid reformulations of faith without a sufficient knowledge of existing solutions.

Enthalten in:
Evangelische Theologie; 2017/5 Zweimonatsschrift (2017)

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Serie / Reihe: Evangelische Theologie

Personen: Drecoll, Volker Henning

Schlagwörter: Kirchengeschichte Dogmatik