A Primer on Ectypal Theology

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RamistThomist

Puritanboard Clerk
I first discovered ectypal theology from Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. Rather than being an academic topic, ectypal theology unites theological method with Christology. I’ve done pieces on ectypal theology in the past, but the following from Willem Van Asselt’s Introducing Reformed Scholasticism does it better than anyone else.

(1) Archetypal theology: the uncreated knowledge God has of himself. It is the matrix of all forms of theology (Junius).
(2) Ectypal theology: The knowledge of God revealed to humans.

2.1) It is primarily the knowledge that Christ as mediator has of the Father. This is the ectypal theology of union and is the common principle of all other theology (Junius). Muller explains it best: “The Christological problem follows the [epistemological issue]: if the human nature of Jesus, as finite, is incapable in itself of comprehending the infinite knowledge of the theologia archetypal, then any equation of the theologia unionis with archetypal theology must involve some alteration of the human nature of Jesus” (PRRD I:250).

The following are forms of ectypal theology.
2.2) ectypal theology is communicated to men in a twofold way: Nature and grace
2.2.1) Nature: internal principle of communication
2.2.2) Grace: external principle of communication
2.3) The union of the two two natures is ectypal. This is one of the reasons why the Reformed reject the Lutheran view of the Supper.
2.4) theologia beatorum (theology of the blessed in glory; still ectypal and finite).
2.5) theologia angelorum (theology of angels)

3) This construction, if not the idea, has its origins with Duns Scotus. Scotus distinguished between theoleogia in se (theology in itself) and theologia nostra (our theology).
3.1) This might be an improvement on Aquinas’s principle of analogy. For Scotus God is the only true theologian because only he has knowledge of himself.
 
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