Study Terms 11-20

Question 1

Authority

Answer 1

Biblical authority is the view that final authority in all matters of faith and practice rests in scripture alone, not in the popes pronouncements (Papal authority) or in councils’ declarations (conciliar authority). Protestants acknowledge the contributions of church fathers, councils, and creeds in the interpretation of Scripture but believe God’s Spirit spoke infallibly only through the Bible.

Question 2

Biblical Theology

Answer 2

Arrangement of teachings and themes in biblical language, history, and genres, whether focused on particular books (e.g., Theology of Genesis), authors (Pauline theology), testaments (old testament theology), or the entire canon (biblical theology close).

Question 3

Bibliography

Answer 3

Study of the Bible, including its status as divine revelation, its relationship to natural (general) and specific (special) revelation, and it’s authority, inspiration, and canonicity.

Question 4

Christology

Answer 4

Study of the person of Christ, especially his pre-incarnate existence, deity, incarnation, humanity, two natures, and the relationship of his person and work.

Question 5

Covenantal Theology

Answer 5

Covenant theology is an approach to biblical interpretation that appreciates the importance of the covenants for understanding the divine-human relationship and the unfolding of redemptive history in Scripture.

Covenant theology is a framework for biblical interpretation, informed by exegetical, biblical, and systematic theology, that recognizes that the redemptive history revealed in Scripture is explicitly articulated through a succession of covenants (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and New), thus providing an organizing principle for biblical theology.

Question 6

Canonicity (and Canonical Development)

Answer 6

The churches acknowledgment and acceptance of an inspired, authoritative writing as a member of the old or new testament canon. In explaining and defending that status for a particular book, early believers appealed to the apostolicity, inspiration, antiquity, orthodoxy, catholicity, and traditional use in the churches that the apostles founded.

Question 7

Catholicity

Answer 7

(Criterion of canonicity) argument for a biblical book’s canonical status that appeals to its acceptance as inspired and authoritative throughout the church as a whole.

Question 8

Church Fathers

Answer 8

Leaders (pastors, teachers, elders, bishops) during the patristic age (generation after the apostles to about AD 500). Some traditions regard their testimony as having a greater authority for their proximity to the apostles and/ or their presence during the most formative period of orthodoxy, including finalization of the scriptural canon and development of Trinitarian and Christological language and creeds.

Question 9

Counsel Of Trent

Answer 9

gathering of more than 200 Roman Catholic bishops in the Italian city of Trento (also for a time in Bologna), on and off for 18 years (1545 to 1563) during the reign of three different popes the council shaped what many called the counter reformation, Rome’s response to challenges raised by the protestants. Trent famously declared many old testament apocryphal writings as inspired and canonical, though these had been doubted by many in the early and medieval church and excluded from the canon of Scripture by Jews and protestants. Trent also regarded the teachings of the church’s Holy Tradition to be equal in authority (or at least complementary) to the teachings of scripture.

Question 10

Definition of Chalcedon

Answer 10

The fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon (451), generally excepted by the east and the west, affirmed that Christ’s full divine and fully human natures are united in one person (hypostasis), hence in hypostatic union. Its Chalcedonian definition is the definitive statement of Christology against both exaggerated separateness (Nestorianism) and exaggerated mixture (Eutychianiasm) of his natures.