I hope that we can move ahead with sounder method than has been demonstrated on the historical issue. Toward those future studies, as we move ahead, I want to offer Three Unconvincing Methodological Premises Pertinent to the Present Study that have arisen from conversations growing out of the earlier presentation. There are likely more that should be addressed, but at least three methodological presuppositions were quickly provoked in response to my study. I have already heard a number of responses that were probably not the product of mature reflection on this subject. To try to collectively avoid those, therefore, I share the following three premises that appear to be less than valid presuppositions for the remainder of the dialogue.
Contemporary theologians are decidedly superior to previous ones.
That presupposition that modernity is superior is a definite possibility. A church or individual, after studying certain issues, may indeed discover that they have disagreed all along with what our forefathers said. Dating back at least to the Reformation, Protestant churches have acknowledged the legitimacy of differing with tradition. And where tradition is wrong, it becomes the responsibility of those who seek to be true to the Scriptures to reform their tradition by correcting it. That is an honest method.