“Pilgrim Theology” is a broad category in which theological prolegomena (introduction to theology), the doctrine of God, Christology, and Christian ethics (the Christian life) intersect with eschatology (i.e., how we understand our current and future relationship to heaven and the final state), and biblical theology (i.e., how we understand the history of redemption) among other disciplines and questions.

The language of “pilgrim theology” may be unfamiliar to evangelical Christians from triumphalist traditions, e.g., Pentecostalism/charismatic, postmillennial/theonomic/theocratic, and neo-Kuyperian (transformationalist) but it is an old and integral Reformed way of thinking about the relations between God and man, Christian knowledge, eschatology and the Christian life between the ascension of Christ and his return. The great Reformed theologian Franciscus Junius (1545–1602) was an influential biblical scholar and theologian who taught in the University of Leiden and who published a seminal work on the nature of theology, [A Treatise] On True Theology (1594). It is in print and available through Reformation Heritage Books. In this work, he distinguished between theology as God knows it (archetypal theology) and theology as we know it (ectypal theology). He characterized as “pilgrim theology,” what Christians are able to know in this life. Read more»

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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