Kevin Vanhoozer

Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Ph.D. Cambridge), considered one of the leading younger evangelical scholars, is a Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, U.S.A., where he has been since 1998. Prior to his arrival at Trinity, Dr. Vanhoozer taught at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland for several years.

Dr. Vanhoozer has also written several works, most recently The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, which won the Christianity Today 2006 Book Award for best book in theology, and has edited several others, including the "Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible" and "The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology".
- Wikipedia

Just looking up online Vanhoozer stuff, came across this exchange at Reformation 21 and thought any fans of his might be interested. I've just posted the beginnings of each article ...

1) Helm's Deeo by Paul Helm ...

In recent times Charles Hodge has come in for a drubbing in connection with his remarks on the nature of what he calls theological science, as these are set out in the first seventeen pages of his Systematic Theology. (See, for example, Nancey Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy set the Theological Agenda, (Valley Forge,Pa. Trinity Press International, 1996) p.42-3); Stanley J. Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era , (Grand Rapids, Baker, 2000 pp.71-3) ; John R. Franke, The Character of Theology: A Postconservative Evangelical Approach. (Baker, 2005, pp. 88-9).


- Charles Hodge

Hodge's advocacy of an 'inductive' method in theology is said to embody all the wrong things. He is accused of being a 'foundationalist', 'positivistic', ‘empiricist’ and ‘individualistic’. These traits are said to reveal him as expressing the mentality of the Enlightenment, 'the assumption of modernity', in his pursuit of objectivity, a mentality perhaps fostered by the influence upon him of one of the most notable figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Thomas Reid, and perhaps by the dreaded ‘Reformed Scholasticism’. By implication, in our postmodern era Hodge's theological method is to be avoided like the plague. Another nail in the coffin of Princeton theology.

The latest of such accusations is in a piece by Professor Kevin J. Vanhoozer, 'On the Very Idea of a Theological System: An Essay in Aid of Triangulating Scripture, Church and World' (in Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology ed. A.T.B. McGowan (Leicester, England: Apollos, 2006). This is part of a book in which various contemporary theologians of broadly Reformed sympathies sketch out their agendas for reformingtheology (by Scripture, one presumes). When the usual charges are leveled against Hodge, but this time from a highly-regarded theologian in the Reformed family then it's high time to set the record straight ...

2) Vanhoozer Responds to Helm by Vanhoozer ...

I’ve been reading just about everything Paul Helm writes with great enthusiasm since I first encountered his The Varieties of Belief (1973) during my days as an undergraduate. Moreover, I almost always find myself agreeing with him, even when he champions positions that are no longer popular (e.g., divine eternity, divine impassibility). So my first inclination after reading his deconstruction of my “distorted and partial account” of Charles Hodge’s theological method was to fall upon my pen and never write another unjust word.

Authors are entitled to have their views fairly presented - no argument there (along these lines, I have some thoughts about the recent review of my Drama of Doctrine in Reformation21, but that’s another story). I have spent no little part of my professional life arguing just this point in the lion’s den of postmodern hermeneutics. I further believe that it is part of our Christian witness as scholars to display the intellectual virtues - not only justice, but humility and charity as well - in all our scholarly work. I work hard - though apparently not hard enough! - to do justice to each person’s position, Christian or non-Christian, out of a conviction that we need to go the second academic mile to get it right, especially when we ultimately disagree with “it.” ...

3) Helm Responds to Vanhoozer by Paul Helm ...

I thank Kevin for his kind personal references, and for his lengthy response to my piece. But it doesn’t get to the point, does it?

Of course Kevin is not to be tarred with the brushes of Franke, Grenz and Murphy. Each has his or her own theological picture to paint. Nevertheless they and Kevin , and also David Clark and John Frame, perhaps - I haven’t read them - are all members of the class of ‘Hodge-distorters’, and on the matter of Hodge’s theological method they paint very similar pictures. What may motivate someone to read Hodge in such a distorted way doesn’t come into it. What is relevant is that the industry of Hodge-distortion has the tendency to encourage Christian pastors, preachers and theologians to add their copies of Hodge’s Systematic Theology to the pile of items ready for the yard sale. A bad thing, in my view ...