Creative Theology by RC Sproul

"If the reconstruction of theology is going to be meaningful and relevant to the modern age, there must be an element of creativity in it. If when the old structures have collapsed, we reconstruct them according to the same old blueprints, then we are asking for a repetition of the first collapse...It is not enough merely to mix the old and the new. This might only produce a false and grotesque freak. If the combination is to be sound, it must incorporate what is sound from the old with what is sound from the new... If there is a formula for creativity it is this: Challenge the assumptions...It is not good enough to challenge the assumptions arbitrarily or to dismiss the previous working assumptions out of hand. Such dismissals may result in the devolution of the art or science. It is the faulty assumption that must be found and discarded if a breakthrough is to be achieved. The task of isolating faulty assumptions is made difficult by the tendency of scholarship to accept certain assumptions uncritically and to enshrine them in the temple of the status quo. These uncritically accepted assumptions, elevated to the level of dogma, control the activity of a given dicipline. To challenge them is to invite the wrath of those who are comfortable with the traditions." RC Sproul & John Gerstner "Classical Apologetics." pp.64-66