The Deep Things of God

by Jon Paulien

Although Adventists try to bring all beliefs to the test of Scripture, we should not think of the 27 fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as biblical theology. We can more accurately understand them as systematic theology. They express what the church as a whole thinks God wants people to believe and practice in today’s world. The kinds of issues addressed in the fundamentals go far beyond those touched upon in the Bible. Perhaps 30 per cent of the Adventist fundamentals need support from science, history, experience, the writings of Ellen White, and other sources outside the Bible. Other fundamentals are based on texts as understood in terms of a wider contemporary meaning, not just the exegetical -71- significance of that text. And there is nothing wrong with that. We don’t want to limit ourselves just to exegetical understandings. Scripture needs to be applied in creative ways to the issues of today’s world.