The orderly study of the truths of the Christian faith has been described by many different terms. The designator “dogmatics” has the advantage of anchoring such study in the normative teachings or dogmas of the church. Dogmas are only those truths properly set forth in Scripture as things to be believed. A truth confessed by the church is not a dogma because the church recognizes it but solely because it rests on God’s authority. Still, religious dogma is always a combination of divine authority and churchly confession. Dogmas are truths acknowledged by a particular group. Though the church’s dogmas have authority only if they are truly God’s truths, church teaching is never identical with divine truth itself. At the same time, it is a mistake to devalue most dogma as impermanent aberrations from the pure essence of a nondogmatic gospel, as some modern theologians do. Opposition to dogma is not a general objection to dogma as such but a rejection of specific dogmas judged unacceptable by some. Thus, theology after Kant denies dogmas rooted in a science of God because of the modern dogma that God is unknowable. Dogmas rooted in morality or religious experience are then substituted in their place. However, from the viewpoint of Christian orthodoxy, dogmatics is the knowledge that God has revealed in his Word to his church concerning himself and all creatures as they stand in relation to him. Though objections to this definition in the name of faith often miss the mark, it must never be forgotten that the knowledge of God, which is the true object of dogmatic theology, is only obtained by faith. God cannot be known by us apart from revelation received in faith. Dogmatics seeks nothing other than to be true to the faith-knowledge given in this revelation. Dogmatics is thus not the science of faith or of religion but the science about God. The task of the dogmatician is to think God’s thoughts after him and to trace their unity. This is a task that must be done in the confidence that God has spoken, in humble submission to the church’s teaching tradition, and for communicating the gospel’s message to the world.^[1]

^[1] Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 25.