In theology we are aiming at the true knowledge of the true God. How can human beings do theology?
1 Corinthians 8:4, 6:
“… we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one …, yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.”
Our theology, along with all things, must come from God. Thus, theology comes from God’s knowledge of Himself, as all things come from God. Theology has its origin in God, who is the fount of all knowledge.
But we have to learn to distinguish that there is a difference between what God knows because of who He is, and what man may know because of who God is and how he reveals himself.
Theologians have historically explained this distinction in terms of archetypal and ectypal theology.
Archetypal theology
Archetypal theology is unknowable by man, because it is the divine wisdom of divine matters. William Ames wrote, “God, as he is in himself, cannot be understood by any save himself.”3 It is here that the theologian speaks about what he does not know himself but knows to be true.
Archetypal theology is perfect or typical as a specimen of something; it is the prototype for an original model. God is archetypal theology. It is how he knows himself and all things in relation to himself. God knows himself perfectly.
Zophar’s [one of Job’s comforters] true statement implies that archetypal theology impossible for man:
“Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea” (Job 11:7).
Man, according to Job, cannot know God as God knows God. This is what makes archetypal theology important. For a man to know God, he must know God as creature rather than as Creator.
Paul again wrote, “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him” (1 Cor 2:16). Fundamentally, man cannot know divine wisdom divinely; if he did, then he would have grounds to instruct the grand architect of creation, as his equal, which cannot be. The question then arises, how can human beings do theology?
Ectypal theology
God and man do not know theology in exactly the same way. Both are concerned with divine matters, and both aim at wisdom through the true knowledge of the true God.
Ectypal means copied, something reproduced, in contradistinction from the original model.
Ectypal theology is man’s knowledge of God, and as such, it describes a complete dissimilarity in man’s and God’s knowledge of theology. In this understanding, there is God’s theology and man’s theology, and there is no commonality between them.
For instance, human beings have an ambiguous and inexact understanding of holiness. The holiness we experience in Christ has no likeness to the Holiness of God Himself. Yet we understand the idea of holiness through analogy, or by similarity.
Analogical language refers to understanding true derivative knowledge through divine revelation, but with some adjectival (qualitative) differences between God’s self-knowledge and our knowledge of God.
This means that all thoughts, words, propositions, and metaphors about God fall short of his glory. Our knowledge of God is an “echo and reflection of the original,”
and no creature [can] reflect back to God with radiance to match his glory. When compared to God, any knowledge we obtain is qualitatively dim. We do not merely have less knowledge than God does, nor do we have no knowledge of God at all, but we have true knowledge of God using terms that bear some analogy to what he is in himself. Using analogical language, the theologian can describe how we know God truly and from a creaturely perspective.
Analogy in theology satisfies true knowledge and maintains a distinction between God and man and is preferred in describing how we practice knowing divine wisdom.
Francis Turretin summed up the … limitations of ectypal theology when he wrote: “For theology treats of God and his infinite perfections, not as knowing them in an infinite but in a finite manner; nor absolutely as much as they can be known in themselves, but as much as he has been pleased to reveal them.”
Ectypal theology is finite knowledge of the infinite God limited in number and quality. [Man] can increase in knowledge of divine things, but, in drinking from that well, he will never empty it.
Archetypal theology is the necessary foundation for true theology; Ectypal theology is necessary if man is to know true theology.
B. B. Warfield wrote, “to even the natural mind contemplating this series of supernatural acts which culminate in the coming of Christ, a higher knowledge of God should be conveyed than what is attainable from mere nature, though it would be limited to the capacity of the natural mind to apprehend divine things,” which shows that man’s knowledge is creaturely yet still able to apprehend divine things by analogical knowledge.
Analogical language, communicated by the Word and Spirit of God, is necessary for maintaining a proper Creator-creature distinction and relationship. God is incomprehensible yet knowable and though we can never know him exhaustively we can know him truly.
This understanding of theology properly harmonizes God and man, the giver of knowledge and the receiver of knowledge, and it comports both with historic reformed theology and Scripture. Therefore, true theology must incorporate archetypal and ectypal distinctions, analogical knowledge made known to man by Scripture, and maintain both the Creator creature relation and distinction.
This means that there is a necessary chasm between God and the creature … and that God must accommodate Himself to His creatures.
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It was argued by the authors of the Free Offer of the Gospel that this accommodated revelation is ectypal theology. The Free Offer position is the accommodated revelation based on God’s self-understanding, but not identical with it. It is a reflection of the archetypal theology. They suggested that the notion of the Free Offer is true, but it is accommodated to human creatures.
