A Clarification on How I Approach Protestant Reformed Theology that Developed in the 16th and 17th Centuries and Beyond

Just as a clarification to the last post: I am not saying that I see no value in the Protestant Reformed theology that developed in the 16^th and 17^th centuries; God forbid it! Without this period of development, theologically, we really wouldn’t have the categories and theological grammar that we deploy today. Even so, given the development of theology in this past period, I still believe, and this is the point of my last post, that it needs to be reified in the types of ways that Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance have done. One way I can remain appreciative of past iterations of theological development, and not hold my nose up at it, is to remember that they were simply products of their own time; i.e. they only had a certain finite array of theological categories and grammar to work with. Given that reality, what some of these theologians produced, in regard to the Christocentric altitude they achieved, is highly admirable. John Calvin, an early Protestant reformer, is to be commended most, in my view, for what he achieved; even more than most who followed him as the Post Reformed orthodox theologians in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, respectively.

I just wanted to add this note, because I wouldn’t want folks to think that I’m a chronological snob, elevating the modern period over and against the pre-modern period, or vice versa, as the crème de la crème of theological development. Each period, in the history of the church, has its pros and cons in regard to what it produced for the church catholic in its theological musings. I just think we do best to remember this, and in our endeavors as theologians, we ought to do the best we can at appropriating and receiving theological development that maximally bears witness to the God of the Gospel in Jesus Christ. This must be the final regula fidei for how the theologian proceeds, in my view; the canon used must, or should be a radically compressed Christological lens through which any and all theological articulation is sifted and concentrated for the edification of the church of God in Jesus Christ.