Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics

John Tweeddale, a PhD student at Edinburgh working on John Owen's commentary on Hebrews, is doing the church a great service in helping us to understand Richard Muller's magisterial work, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. (Tweeddale blogs at The Conventicle blog (dedicated to Puritan studies) and also has a blog that contains notes on PRRD. Here's an overview of his article:
In what follows, I want to give you a causal tour through PRRD. As we meander along, I have three basic goals. I want to (1) give an overview of Muller’s work, (2) provide several reasons why I think PRRD is a valuable resource for pastors, elders, seminarians, and bible college students, and (3) suggest a reading plan for tackling this work. To state my intentions another way, I want to answer three questions: (1) what is the basic argument of PRRD; (2) why is reading PRRD important for your theological development and ministry; and (3) how can you as a busy minister, elder, or student best utilize your study time so as to gain maximal benefit when reading PRRD? My primary aim is not analytical but practical.
For those interested in reading more, Tweeddale references, but doesn't link to, a review by Roger Nicole and a review by Martin Klauber.

I do have to take issue with Tweeddale on just one point, though. He write that he thinks he's "the only man in history to receive Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics as a wedding present!" Not true, John! I won't say who (it wasn't me), but I have a friend who received the same!