The questions we face

In the words of Lancellotti, Del Noce understood that “we cannot just rely on a mechanical repetition of [religious] formulas, because what we received from our forebears is conditioned by the questions they faced, and we ourselves can only think in terms of the questions we are facing.”  

In his critical review of Augusto Del Noce's The Age of Secularization (translated by Carlo Lancelloti), Francis X. Maier focuses on Del Noce's thought with regard to technological change. The above quote of course has theological implications, and presbyterian implications especially.

On the one hand, I'm reminded of John Frame's frequent admonition that theology must be done by every generation because every generation must apply the Bible to its own time. As I've argued elsewhere, this even extends to a Church's confessional standards; I continue to believe the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's confession needs to speak much more robustly and clearly on the Biblical doctrine of anthropology (especially with regard to sexuality and marriage). In the same vein, I'm reminded of the error of puritanolatry, which often renders its practitioners incapable of dialogue with  citizens of this present age.

On the other hand, the more subtle, and accordingly more profound danger, warned against in the above quote is that of thinking that answers to our forebears' questions are answers to our own. One way in which this error manifests in conservative reformed and presbyterian Churches is the belief that the best defense against theological liberalism is to maintain, unchanged, centuries-old confessional standards. (Looking at you, Westminster and Three Forms of Unity.) On this view, there are no new questions, only ones which have been answered by our forebears. In practice, of course, our generation faces its own questions, and the temptation is to repress or ignore them because our traditions are silent. Here again, the Church runs the risk of irrelevance by denying the valid concerns of our own day (for example, race relations and gender power dynamics). 

We are obligated by the 5th Commandment to receive the traditions of our forebears with respect and honor. The same commandment also obligates us to build on those traditions for the sake of our generation and those who follow. We must identify the questions we face, and seek answers on the basis of the only true source of all religious formulae, which of course is the Bible itself.