1) Wayne Grudem's 'Systematic Theology' has become the most widely used ST textbook by Evangelicals since its pub. in 1994. It is not a stretch to say that it has shaped an entire generation of pastors/professors. It has definite appeal to modern Evangelicals for several reasons.

2) For one thing, it is full of proof texts & thus appears to be biblical. But appearing to be biblical & being biblical are not quite the same thing. In fact, the level of engagement with the Bible is often shallow, treating individual verses in isolation from their context.

3) For another, it is clearly written & well-organized. So it appeals to students & makes teaching easier. But serious theological errors are introduced glibly without much argument or discussion, such as a clear denial of Divine impassibility.

4) On pp. 165-6 he claims that the WCF, Ch. 2 does not mean what it seems to mean, namely, that God does not have passions. Rather, it only means that God does not have sinful passions. He assumes that passages that affirm that God rejoices, pities, etc should be taken literally.

5) There are 3 problems here. First, he offers no hermeneutical rationale for taking passages describing God as having body parts metaphorically, while taking ones saying God has emotions (which presuppose bodily organs) literally. He just slides over that problem w/o comment.

6) Second, he does not distinguish between God in himself (theologia) & God's actions in history in the missions of the Son & Spirit (economia). He just accepts the 20th C tendency to bring God into time w. us by making no dist. bet the immanent & economic Trinity whatsoever.

7) Third, he fails to engage historical theology even while appearing to do so by mentioning the WCF. His discussion of the WCF focuses on the proof text it offers for its teaching that God has no passions (Acts 14:15) as if that were the only source the authors had in mind.

8) This completely obscures a key fact the student needs to know: namely, that the entire Xian trad. going back to the early cen. strongly affirmed Divine impassibility. As is usual, there is no engagement with 4th Cen pro-Nicene theol, even tho this was a central concern then.

9) I note that he then gives a pg. to refuting Process Theology, which shows that his main concern is not to root his doctrine of God in historic orthodoxy, but rather, to state it in such a way that it can be accepted by moderns in the wake of Hegel. How ironic for a biblicist!

10) If the Nicene fathers were biblical in their doc. of God, which can be described as Trinitarian classical theism, then the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 AD is a good summary of the biblical faith, as Eastern Orth, the RC Ch & confessional Protestantism all affirm.

11) But all the pro-Nicene theology of the framers of that Creed strongly affirmed Divine impassibility & the authors of the WCF knew that very well, which is why the WCF says what it does. The issue is over which view really is biblical & Grudem's text fails to teach Bible doc.