John Webster

So as a pastor, I was confused and perplexed because in pastoral and counseling literature, I did not find much on conscience, while in scripture and in our Christian past, conscience had a very important place.

And therefore, what happened, secondly, and that was probably the next most important thing was that I read sometime at the beginning of the 20th century, the essay by the late John Webster, God and Conscience, published in 1998 in Calvin Theological Journal.

And I was really, really impressed, not just by that essay in itself, but at that time I was beginning to read Webster and I was impressed by his robust idea of a theological theology, as he calls it.

And of course, I was fascinated by his theological theology of conscience, and that was what fascinated and triggered my pastoral imagination.

We'll get into that in a second, but...

My point here is that conscience nearly disappeared from 20th century Protestant theology.

And I appreciate that you were struck by John Webster's writing, but I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts about why more contemporary theologians stopped talking about conscience? Was it philosophical reasons? Were we not...

so concerned with faculty psychology? I mean, what are some of the factors that maybe made conscience fall out of the conversation?

That's lovely.

Justin, a major influence on your life has naturally been the work of the late Professor John Webster, your doctor father, and I corresponded with him on a number of occasions and held him in very high regard, and it was an untimely death, I felt.

Mm.

Um, I think it would be helpful to our listeners to look at three themes of his that resonate with your own work because they deal with the centrality of the Bible in theology, and that is something that is very dear to my heart and dear to the heart of the Canadian Bible Society.

This is true, in fact, of all of scripture.

Jack Wilsey sent me an article earlier this week that quoted the theologian John B. Webster, who put it this way, and I love this.

This is good for you to think about whenever you're opening up your Bible.

Holy scripture disturbs repentance.