Symphonic Theology

If you are looking for a profound, provocative meditation on theology, you might want to consider picking up Vern Poythress's Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology (recently reissued by P&R). I was contemplating it as an assigned reading for a theology class I teach, so I quickly reread it this weekend. (It's only 125 pages.) I had forgotten how significant this book was to my own theological understanding.

Poythress writes: "We use what we have gained from one perspective to reinforce, correct, or improve what we understood through another. I call this procedure 'symphonic theology' because it is analogous to a blending of various musical instruments to express the variation of a symphonic theme."

Here are Poythress's 12 Maxims for Symphonic Theology. Without explanation, some will doubtless come across as cryptic. If that's the case, you'll just have to read the book!

1. Language is not transparent to the world.
2. No term in theBible is equal to a technical term of systematic theology.
3. Technical terms in systematic theology can almost always be defined in more than one way. Every technical term is selective in the features it includes.
4. Boundaries are fuzzy.
5. No category or system of categories give us ultimate reality.
6. Different human writers of the Bible bring different perspectives to bear on a given doctrine or event.
7. The differences between biblical writings by different human authors are also divine differences.
8. Any motif of the Bible can be used as the single organizing motif.
9. We use different motifs not to relativize truth but to gain truth.
10. We see what our tools enable us to see.
11. Error is parisitic on the truth.
12. In theological debates, we should preempt the other person's strong points.