I figure that you may aswell share essays online which may be of use to other students, researchers or of general interest. The following paper was produced about 5 years ago whilst at Sheffield University. It seeks to anaylse the methodology and hermeneutics of N.T Wright and Karl Barth in the light of their views of the doctrine of justification. Why study these guys? Well it was an excuse to get my teeth into their books.  I have become more sympathetic of the ‘New Perspective’ since writing Chapter 3. However the cristicisms still stand to some degree.

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Bibliography

 The essay begins as follows,

 

 

Chapter 1

Christian communities have always been faced with the problem of

interpreting the Scriptures theologically. Since it is the very nature of the

Christian church to reflect upon God’s self-disclosure as witnessed by the

biblical texts, these texts have always held a prominent and normative status in

the Christian Community.

 

1

Doctrine has served and continues to serve as a vital function in Church life. It forms

the basis for liturgical and sacramental life as well as being instructive for the life of

individual believers and the ethical praxis of the community. Doctrine, or simply

what the Church believes and confesses to be true, stems from an engagement over

time with culture, experience, tradition and reason, but primarily with its normative

foundational document, the Bible.

As post-modern thinking has rightly pointed out, the Bible, as a collection of texts,

can be interpreted in different ways by different communities. Thus, doctrine is not

simply something that falls from the skies but is formed in the ‘hands-on experience’

of interpretation. The Christian Church enjoys some unity in doctrinal matters, such

as the almost universal acceptance of the Nicene and Apostles creed, but it is deeply

divided on some of the central features of doctrine. This is illustrated in the diversity

displayed in the doctrine of justification by faith with different views being put

forward as to what this means by traditional Catholics and Protestants, existential

theologies, and from those that construct their doctrinal affirmations in accord with

the ‘new perspective.’

This plurality in interpretation raises a number of important questions: Are some

doctrines and interpretations more valid than other? Why are the same texts

interpreted differently by different communities? Is there any Archimedean point

from which the true ‘meaning’ of a text can be revealed? Does postmodernism lead to

the death of doctrine and dogma?

The purpose of this paper is not to seek to answer these important questions. Its

limited task, functioning within the backdrop of these larger questions, is to look at

the relationship between text and the formulation of doctrine in the writings of Karl

Barth and N.T. Wright, working in particular with their differing views on the

doctrine of ‘justification by faith’. Although both scholars have found their spiritual

home within the evangelical-reformed community, they both offer an alternative to

the traditional evangelical view of justification. Wright and Barth, as we shall see,

differ considerably in the methods which they use to formulate their doctrines. Barth

uses a theological approach, whereas Wright uses a more historical and exegetical

approach.

The format of this paper will be as follows: in this chapter I will set out Barth’s and

Wright’s theologies of ‘justification by faith’ against the backdrop of mainstream

evangelical theology. In chapter two I will analyse and critique the theological

methodology of Karl Barth, followed in chapter three by an examination and critique

of N.T Wright’s methodology.