The Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms: A Doxological Understanding

The Westminster Standards (The Westminster Confession and accompanying Shorter and Larger Catechisms) are the high-water mark of the Historic Christian Faith since they build upon the preceding councils and creeds of the Church while responding to the challenges of the Reformation. A thoughtful study of the Standards requires penetrating the material at the level of challenges and responses to the Faith. It is the Lord's intention that the Church respond to challenges as the process by which it grows in its understanding of the Faith and that by which fullness of the truth is to be attained. In understanding the Historic Christian Faith, the saints are prepared for works of service until believers come to maturity, fruitfulness, unity of the faith, and attain to the fullness that there is in Christ.

In The Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms: A Doxological Understanding, Dr. Gangadean provides a critical exposition of the most significant doctrines needed to respond to the challenges of Modernity (1650-1950) and Postmodernity (1950-present). Since the Westminster Assembly (1643-1648), these challenges include: faith vs. reason, otherworldliness vs. this worldliness, the problem of evil, religion in public life, and exclusivism. The doxological understanding of the Catechisms incorporates the following in providing an awaited response: the doctrine of the clarity of general revelation and the inexcusability of unbelief, the use of reason (the light of nature and good and necessary consequences) to understand general and special revelation, the doxological focus on the knowledge of the glory of God, divine sovereignty in creation-fall-redemption, and the law of God for all of life. In understanding the Westminster Standards at the doxological level, the Church can overcome the challenges to the faith in our time and lay a deeper foundation to guard against future challenges.