Packer and Bloesch compared

gdemetrion@msn.com to confessing-chr.
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No doubt Packer relied heavily on Scriptures and holds to a very high view. No doubt, too, in Packer's interpretation a static orthodoxy that is not attuned the promptings of the Spirit is worse than useless. What he does say is that encapsulated in ther Bible is the most profound repository of God's revelation to humankind in which the red thread of the Holy Spirit is what connects the original writers and readers of any era. Packer's pre-eminent challenge is to aspire toward the revelatory truths embeddecd in the Scripture as experienced from writer to reader notwithstanding the flawed instrumentality of human reason and experienced flawed even more by the indubitable reality of sin. This leaves room even in Packer for much new light to break forth and his pietism ultimately overrides his rationalism when push comes to shove, though he would be very dubious about any new light that in some substantial way congtradicted Scripture in its canonical fulness revealed in the fullest sense in Christ crucified and resurrected. Donald Bloesch is similarly skeptical even as he is much more attuned to the neo-orthodox impetus especially of barth and R. Niebuhr.

The following comparison may be of some value.

Best,

George Demetrion
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Bloesch and Packer in Quest of Common Ground

Our shift in focus from what might be viewed, and with considerable qualification, as the rational evangelicalism of J.I. Packer to the “fideistic revelationism” (Grenz, 1999) of Donald Bloesch represents a theological sea change in the American evangelical imagination even as Packer and Bloesch are much closer on core essentials that a careful reading of their work and an examination of their historical influence might disclose. As Bloesch (1994) notes, Packer, too, “seeks to distance himself from an evangelical ‘self-reliant rationalism’ that minimizes or downplays the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation.” A difference is that Bloesch “would probably be more open to historical-critical study as an aid in biblical exegesis” (p. 335), although, as indicated in the pervious chapter, Packer is not averse, but is more wary than Bloesh of the intrusion of liberal and neo-orthodox scholarship invariably diluting the disclosive word of God revealed both in and through the Scriptures. Bloesch is also cautious in his qualified, yet highly empathetic appropriation of Barth, particularly in wanting to avoid any sense of “actualism,” that the Bible is a primary source of revelation that comes to life only when internalized within the existential experience of the believer. This is a criticism that Bloesch’s heavy emphasis on the mediating role of the Holy Spirit does not totally escape. By way of contrast, Packer seeks to respond to the obscurantist charge through a fuller development of evangelical scholarship on its own terms with a deep reach into the Puritan theological vision. Bloesch is more attuned to the apologetic challenges of drawing in with some equivocation the many fruits of neo-orthodoxy and is also more inclined to discuss outright liberal biblical exegesis and theology for the evangelical purposes that he has identified, though in his critique of this latter strand Bloesch is as stinging as Packer.

Given this far from unimportant difference, both theologians construct a theology of Scripture based on a dynamic interaction between the Word and the Spirit even as Packer gravitates more freely toward the inscripturated Word. Still, for Packer as well as Bloesch, the centrality of the Holy Spirit as a primary source of illumination without which the text itself can only exist as a dead letter remains a core thesis. In response, moreover, to the trajectory of 20th century Protestant theology, both privilege the Word in the Bible-culture relationship. Bloesch, however, builds, at least in part, on the neo-orthodox vision of Karl Barth while Packer draws on the Princeton theology of Charles Hodge, Benjamin Warfield, and J. Greshem Machem in support of his nuanced concept of biblical inerrancy which both Packer and Bloesch, describe as trustworthiness. As Bloesch (1994) puts it, “we must never say that the Bible teaches theological or historical error, but we need to recognize that not everything in the Bible may be in exact correspondence with historical and scientific fact as we know it today” (pp. 36-37). These differences, Bloesch’s partial Barthian move and Packer’s qualified support of a rationalistic interpretation of the Bible, represent an important shift in theological consciousness even as both theologians have sought to confront modernity with what they take as the unequivocal biblical truth, in which they both acknowledge that we can only know in part.

Given the fundamentalist-modernist divide in contemporary U.S. Protestantism there is much more reception for Bloesch than Packer in mainline circles even as Packer has sought to exorcize the fundamentalist demon through a highly articulate evangelical theology. This makes their similarities even more striking, particularly in the consideration of their overarching themes and mediating roles in bringing into greater concord substantial sectors of evangelical discourse. In the very process of seeking broad ecumenical influence within their respective evangelical spheres both invariably engender criticism from the theological left and right. In bringing out something of his distinctive contribution there will be aspects in this chapter discussing Bloesch’s work, highlighting, even if only implicitly so, more of the differences between these two important theologians, particularly Bloesch’s more extensive encounter with neo-orthodoxy and Protestant liberalism. It is, nonetheless, worthwhile to keep in mind the profound similarities within the differences underlying their divergent but complementary efforts of working out the relationship between the Word and the Spirit within the broad stream of issues facing 20th century Protestant theology.

At the core, is their mutually mediating efforts in constructing a Reformed-centered catholic evangelical theology, a vision by definition that, while beckoning, is one in which the reach perpetually extends beyond the grasp. It is toward such an effort that this project aspires through an irenic reading of the five theologians and biblical scholars discussed in this book. In the process I attempt to probe into critical divergences as part of the effort itself of teasing out areas for potential breakthroughs toward a mediating ecumenical evangelical theology of Scripture, while staying attuned to persisting tensions and conflict. The quest for broad evangelical ecumenism in which “scripture reorients the world” rather than “absorbs the world” (Husinger, 2003, p. ix) can obtain at best as a regulative ideal. Nonetheless, it is an enduring hope that fresh light on seemingly intractable problems can be shed, in and through the very process of exploring some of the underlying issues confronting 20th century American Protestant theology and biblical exegesis and exposition. source