HDR Candidate: Harrison, Wayne


Title of Project Conditional Cessationism: A revised doctrine of cessationism for the Reformed Tradition
Course of Study Doctor of Philosophy
Language of Instruction English
Abstract

Reformed theology is a Confessional tradition. These play a significant role in shaping how the tradition deals with how it interprets the Scripture.  However, the confessions do not speak clearly to all doctrines and events, particularly those of a pneumatological nature. This leaves biblical narratives like Pentecost and the occurrence of glossolalia open to broader interpretation. Historically, Reformed (Cessationist) theologians have viewed the Pentecost event and its sign gift of glossolalia described in Acts 2 as the gift of speaking foreign languages now being ceased as it was solely to authenticate the Apostolic witness of the Spirits outpouring. Growing pressure on the Reformed Tradition to revise its interpretation of this event has caused those holding this position to take on a more hardline, defensive and polemical disposition towards the topic. This research paper posits that the existing hermeneutical rules promoted in the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith can and do promote a continuist reading of Acts 2? The thesis will take the current cessationist interpretations of the Acts 2 phenomena and validates these interpretations using principles of interpretation from the traditions own respected framework. It will endeavour to show how the Reformed Tradition has been inconsistent with its confession and needs hermeneutical reform in its understanding of Pentecost as an ongoing activity (Continuist) and not a once-off historical event.