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A Rose by Any Other Name? From ‘Christian Doctrine’ to ‘Systematic Theology’
Author(s) -
Gunton Colin
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
international journal of systematic theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.149
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1468-2400
pISSN - 1463-1652
DOI - 10.1111/1463-1652.00002
Subject(s) - philosophy , doctrine , argument (complex analysis) , hegelianism , modernity , theology , systematic theology , expression (computer science) , epistemology , biology , biochemistry , computer science , programming language
Christian thought is uniquely resistant to systematization, yet over the centuries has produced remarkable systematic accounts of Christian truth, including those of the patristic and medieval eras before Christian theology became systematically self‐conscious in modernity. The more recent fate of the notion of system is traced in Schleiermacher, Hegel and Kierkegaard, and an argument advanced that systematic theology is the expression of personal skill learned in community, and its unity and integrity are aesthetic and moral as much as rationalistic.