I think there’s a sense in which one’s systematic theology must be an organic outgrowth of one’s experience and understanding of their life on the one hand, and the Word of God on the other, specifically as that Word speaks into and about their life. You cannot simply cut and paste a whole system of doctrine that has been formulated by someone else, based upon their own interaction with the Word, into your own personal system of theology and philosophy. It just won’t stick unless it has grown up organically.
That is not to say that one cannot learn from another, or that learning systematic theology is a futile practice altogether. Rather, at this point, my sense is that a teacher (in whatever sense of the word) ought to use the elements of their own system of theology to nudge others in the right direction, suggesting paths to pursue and dangers to be avoided. Otherwise, in my experience, you end up with an empty set of propositions and assertions to which one either assents or dissents, but there is no real linkage to the person’s heart - what truly moves and drives them and what will make a real difference in their lives and in the lives of those around them.

This seems to me to be the most promising approach–divine revelation should be located in both historical events and the interpretive word which mediates these events to us. It also seems to be the approach that is most in keeping with the biblical witness itself. Nevertheless, for some time now the hermeneutic pendulum in biblical studies has continued to swing back and forth between the two poles of event and word…

What is needed, I would argue, is to bring the pendulum to a halt in the middle, where it does not lose touch with either historical event or interpretive word. Again to invoke an analogy from painting, the question can be put this way, “What is of essential importance in a portrait by a great master, the subject itself as a historical person or the masterful interpretation of the subject?” Surely both are important. Even to ask the question in this way is to assume a false dichotomy. Art critics may tend to focus on the artistry of the rendering, while historians may be more interested in what can be learned of the historical personage portrayed, but neither should mistake their particular interest for the full significance of the painting. If historians ignore the painterly aspect (that is, if they lack understanding and appreciation of the artistic medium), they may easily “misread” the portrait or unjustly criticize it as an inadequate representation of the subject. Or worse, if they discount the significance of the portrait simply because it is an artistic interpretation, they thereby cut themselves off from perhaps their only source of historical information about the subject. On the other hand, should art critics, in their appreciation of the artistic genius of the painter, lose sight of the painting’s referential character, they would miss something of the painting’s essential purpose and so prove themselves to be poor critics. A similar dynamic obtains in the study of biblical historiography. What is needed is the ability to do full justice to both the subject and the historian’s (the artist’s) particular interpretation. In other words, both event and interpretive word are important. This, at least, seems to be the Bible’s own view of the matter.

- V. Phillips Long, The Art of Biblical History

The full hearing of the psalms will be greatly enhanced when the familiar tendency to abstract content from form or to empty form of its content is overcome. To know the psalms are poetic is not to forget that they are Scripture. To read and hear them as Scripture requires that one receive them also as poetry.

- Patrick Miller, Interpreting the Psalms

Unlike prose, which focuses upon the unambiguous denotations of words so as to communicate with exact clarity, poetry exploits the full lexical potential of words. The poet makes use of unusual aspects of the semantic range of a word, chooses terms with emotive connotations, and employs sounds that help to convey the message. In addition, poetry makes extensive use of imagery–word pictures that evoke sensory impressions through verbal associations. Because poems are characteristically brief, they are highly condensed and concentrated forms of utterance in which each detail is consciously selected.

- David Estes, Handbook on the Wisdom Books and Psalms

Whereas the language of prose is utilized primarily toward direct communication, poetic language is characterized by a more transcendent quality. There are aspects of human experience, and aspects of the knowledge of God, for which the mundane language of prose cannot provide adequate expression. Poetry is, among other things, an attempt to transcend the limitations of normal (prosaic) human language and to give expression to something not easily expressed in words.

- Peter Craigie, Psalms 1-50

The concept of definition and meaning of words has been of interest to me for a long time. I haven’t had a chance to think or write about it very much lately, but this morning I remembered an online article by Norman Swartz called “Definitions, Dictionaries, and Meaning“, which I read while in undergrad. It helped me organize my thoughts on the issue a great deal, but since then I’ve had a lot of new, hopefully more biblical, bedrock thinking laid down. So I’m hoping to go back over it and reevaluate it, because I think it is still very helpful in getting at some things that I think are important. If you get the chance, I highly recommend reading over it.

Now I must admit that, although I studied philosophy in college, I did not study semantics at any great depth, so there is a good chance that there are other authors who have covered this material much more thoroughly and better, and of whom I am ignorant. Please feel free to point me in their direction if you know of such.

It is because of my interest in defining terms well that I have installed the (heretofore unutilized) Glossary tool in this site. I hope to put that tool to greater use, and I hope that any readers will find it helpful as well.

Many years ago, I began a project that I called my “Comprehensive Philosophy,” in which I attempted to create categories for all my thoughts and beliefs on all important topics. I never got further than a basic structure, but goal was to have a cohesive and extensively linked body of ideas that would serve to help me analyze my own thoughts better, as well as provide a way to share them with other people.

Since then I have come to realize that such a project may be a more difficult undertaking than I thought at the time, and may not even be worth the effort. But I do still think that something akin to that is useful.

Anyway, one of the biggest sections that I built for this comprehensive philosophy was a glossary of definitions with an extensive network of links, linking important words in my writings to their glosses, and even with links from words internal to the definitions to their own definitions. It was a lot of work. My hope is to make use of some of that here on this blog and see if the advances in hypertext technology since my first attempt can help me out.

So stay tuned, and let me know what you think. And read that article!

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

- Isaac Asimov

Humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without a doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.

- Marie Curie

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

- Horace

It is by the grace of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to practice neither.

- Mark Twain

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

- James Russell Lowell

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.

- Logan Pearsall Smith

Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron.

- Horace Mann

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

- Mark Twain

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

- Antonio Porchia

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

- Walter Benjamin

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.

- William Strunk and E.B. White from The Elements of Style