Lion of Princeton

Kim Riddlebarger

Description

Take a fresh look at the work of B.B. Warfield. 'The Lion of Princeton,' as he was known, was in many ways the most significant American apologist, polemicist, and theologian of his age. However, despite the resurging interest in Warfield's life and work, his views are often misunderstood.In The Lion of Princeton, Kim Riddlebarger investigates Warfield's theological, apologetical, and polemical writings, bringing clarity to the confusion surrounding this key figure of the Princeton tradition. He provides a biographical overview of Warfield's life, traces the growing appreciation for Warfield's thought, evaluates the fundamental structures in Warfield's overall theology, and examines Warfield's work in the field of systematic theology.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• History of religions
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Lexham Press
• Date de parution: 21 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781577995890
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

The Lion of Princeton
B. B. Warfield as Apologist and Theologian
Kim Riddlebarger
STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
The Lion of Princeton: B. B. Warfield as Apologist and Theologian
Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology
Copyright 2015 Kim Riddlebarger
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
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All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [e-mail] .
Print ISBN 978-1-57-799588-3
Digital ISBN 978-1-57-799589-0
Lexham Editorial Team: Lynnea Fraser, Katie Terrell
Cover Design: Jim LePage
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Heir to the Princeton Tradition
“The Pugilist”
A Very Productive Life (1851–1921)
Warfield’s Theological Legacy
2. The Wisdom of the Vulgar
Scottish Common Sense Realism and Princeton Theological Seminary
Thomas Reid and Scottish Common Sense Realism
Reid’s Scottish Successors—Stewart, Beattie, Brown, and Hamilton
James McCosh, John Witherspoon, and Princeton College
James McCosh and Intuitional Realism
3. New Testament Studies
Early Foundations
German Critical Methodology
Warfield’s Early Career
The New Science of Textual Criticism
Evaluating Warfield’s Critical Methodology
4. Apologetics
Warfield’s Continuing Influence
The Nature and Scope of Apologetics
The “Classical” Proofs for God’s Existence
The Resurrection as the Essential “Fact” of Christianity
The Doctrine of Inspiration
Epistemological Concerns
Assessment of Warfield’s Apologetics
5. Systematic Theology
Predecessors and Mentors
Two Major Essays on Systematic Theology
“The Idea of Systematic Theology”
“The Right of Systematic Theology”—The Problem with “Indifferent Latitudinarians”
The Task of the Theologian: Adding Ties and Rail to the Track
6. Didactics and Polemics
Stinging Rebukes
Qualms about the Emerging Fundamentalism
A Calvinistically Warped Mind—Warfield on John Miley’s Arminianism
Naysaying the “Coterie of Bible Teachers”
Evelyn Underhill’s Muddled Mysticism
Critique of Rationalism
A Formidable Polemicist
7. Contemporary Critics
Theological Range Wars
Cornelius Van Til’s Assessment
Other Important Assessments
Critiques by Mark Noll and George Marsden
Scottish Common Sense Philosophy and the Reformed Tradition
Natural Theology and Christian Evidences
Apologetic Forerunners
Faith, Reason, and the Holy Spirit
Closer to the Center of Reformed Tradition?
Bibliography
Subject and Author Index
Scripture Index
Acknowledgments
One writer states, “It is a deep privilege to salute mentors and friends who made the academic pilgrimage so meaningful.” My own pilgrimage began inauspiciously one night many years ago in a burger joint, when I engaged in my first-ever theological discussion with a real live theologian. The challenge given that night—that someone undertake a look at the relationship between the Princeton apologetic and Scottish Common Sense philosophy—ultimately culminated in this effort. And so it is Dr. Rod “Dad” Rosenbladt, esteemed professor and now beloved friend and colleague, to whom this effort is sincerely dedicated.
I have enjoyed sitting at the feet of several masters, most notably Dr. John Warwick Montgomery and Dr. W. Robert Godfrey. I certainly owe a word of thanks to Dr. D. G. Hart, Dr. William Harris, Dr. Brad Gundlach, Dr. James Bradley, Dr. Donald Hagner, Professor John M. Frame, and Dr. Mark Noll for all their suggestions, corrections, and help with sources. My dear friend Michael Horton also contributed much in the way of encouragement and intellectual stimulation, as did Westminster Seminary California professors R. Scott Clark and Steve Baugh. I also want to thank the consistory of Christ Reformed Church (URCNA) in Anaheim, CA, for all their gracious support and encouragement. Thanks to all of you! But a special note of gratitude must go to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Richard A. Muller, whose knowledge, wisdom, and counsel proved invaluable.
Thanks also go to Deborah Barackman for her editorial work in turning a Ph.D. dissertation into a more readable format, and to Brannon Ellis of Lexham Press for encouraging me to finally update and publish that which had been sitting in my computer’s hard drive in the form of electronic “1’s” and “0’s” for too many years.
How do you thank your wife and family for all of the countless sacrifices they have made during the years that this project was underway? To my wife, Micki, I can only offer a heartfelt thank you for all of the support and love that you have given me. To my sons, David and Mark, I tell you once again how proud I am of you both, and I am sorry that B. B. Warfield deprived you of your father’s full attention on far too many occasions in your youth. Perhaps the publication of The Lion of Princeton will make the sacrifice seem a bit more worthwhile.
Introduction
During his 34-year reign as the ranking theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield ( 1851–1921 ) exerted tremendous influence upon much of American Presbyterianism. His lucid pen and passion to defend the Westminster Standards left little doubt as to where Warfield stood on most every subject. Even this many years after his death, mere mention of his name in certain circles sparks a strong reaction—either positive or negative. Many view Warfield either as a brilliant, but nevertheless obscurantist, fundamentalist 1 or as a thorough-going rationalist, 2 who supposedly invented the notion of biblical inerrancy. Seen from this perspective, Warfield’s detractors claim that his legacy skews the nature of biblical authority. His work fuels the heated controversy over this issue that has dominated American Presbyterian circles in the latter part of the 19th century . Others view Warfield as an apologist and polemicist par excellence , a valiant fighter standing in the breach between the fading memory of Protestant orthodoxy and the rise of Protestant liberalism. All agree that B. B. Warfield is a man with whom one must reckon.
In John Updike’s novel In the Beauty of the Lilies , a central character, the agnostic Presbyterian minister Clarence Wilmot, encounters Dr. Warfield during his student days at Princeton Theological Seminary. Updike describes Warfield as “erect as a Prussian general, with snowy burnsides—whose Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament … should have fortified [the struggling Clarence Wilmot] against [Robert] Ingersoll’s easy sneers.” 3 Photographs of Warfield taken during his later years at Princeton and recollections of his former students show that Updike has indeed quite accurately captured the essence of the man.
Not everyone sees this portrait of Warfield as flattering, however. In The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible , Jack Rogers and Donald McKim argue that B. B. Warfield reduces theology to a mere technology. They assert that Warfield’s uncritical dependence upon Scottish Common Sense philosophy moved him outside the mainstream of Reformed orthodoxy. 4 Although they argue Warfield defended the faith with “great passion and technical expertise,” Rogers and McKim conclude that Warfield’s efforts in “reinterpreting Calvin in light of Aristotelian assumptions … would have been alien to the Reformer.” 5 Others are even more outspoken. For example, University of Durham New Testament scholar James D. G. Dunn has gone so far as to label Warfield’s position on biblical inspiration and authority “exegetically improbable, hermeneutically defective, theologically dangerous, and educationally disastrous.” 6 One diatribe against the supposed evils of scholastic Protestant theology rails that “ever since the days of the Princetonians (Warfield, Hodge, Machen, et al.), American non-charismatic evangelicalism has been dominated by Scottish common sense, by post-Enlightenment, left-brain, obsessive compulsive, white males.” 7 Astonishingly, these words come not from a liberal scholar but from Daniel B. Wallace, a professor of New Testament at a “fundamentalist” institution: Dallas Theological Seminary.
The most surprising criticism of Warfield issues from the apologetics department of Westminster Theological Seminary—the very institution founded by Warfield’s most prominent protégé , “old-school” Presbyterian J. Gresham Machen. Since many of the founders of that institution learned to defend the faith directly at the feet of Warfield himself, it is surprising that there is such an outspoken rejection of his apologetics. This stems from the seminary’s embrace of the apologetical methodology of Cornelius Van Til , who attended Princeton several years after Warfield’s death in 1921 . Van Til, who was a student at Princeton during the Machen years, decisively spurned Warfield’s method, choosing instead a modified version of the apologetics of Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper. 8 Van Til saw Warfield’s apologetic as an unfortunate capitulation to incipient Thomist and Arminian principles, which attempt to defend the faith by exalting nature over grace and reason over revelation. Such a defense actually left the faith defenseless, in Van Til’s opinion.
B. B. Warfield’s legacy is not always regarded with disdain. Leon Morris , himself a man of great exegetical skill, calls Warfield a “great exegete” deserving of serious study. 9 The late Hugh T. Kerr, who served as Warfield Professor at Princeton, and was no champion of Warfield’s doctrine of biblical inerrancy, nevertheless stated that “Dr. Warfield had the finest mind ever to teach at Princeton Theological Seminary.” 10 Many of Warfield’s own contemporaries and colleagues generally held him in highest regard. He was seen as a fearless defender of Reformed orthodoxy, pious and devout, and a formidable presence in his classroom. 11
The contemporary inter