Brief Thoughts on Method 

J. Neil Daniels

When it comes to historical theology, the way we go about the work often makes or breaks the outcome. You can have all the zeal in the world for truth, but if the method is crooked, the conclusions will be bent as well. This is why the first tools that ought to be picked up are inductive and abductive reasoning. They’re not glamorous, but they are steady. Induction gathers the raw material before rushing to judgment, and abduction hunts for the most fitting explanation when the data feels messy or incomplete. Put plainly: they keep us honest.

And honesty in this field begins by listening—really listening—to the voices of the past. That means slogging through Augustine’s winding sentences, Calvin’s relentless logic, or Edwards’s peculiar blend of philosophy and piety. It can be tiring, yes, but there’s no substitute for hearing an author in his own cadence. The temptation is always there to take a shortcut, to let someone else do the hard reading and simply repeat their conclusions. But the cost of such convenience is steep: you end up with someone else’s Augustine, not Augustine himself.

Primary sources demand more of us, but they also reward us with clarity. Take Luther, for instance. If you only read him through tidy summaries, you might miss his rough edges—the flashes of humor, the biting sarcasm, the occasional inconsistency that make him real. But those details matter; they shape the way his theology breathes. They keep us from flattening him into a mere caricature. The work is harder, but it’s the kind of difficulty that sharpens.

The danger, of course, is leaning too heavily on secondary literature. Don’t misunderstand me—they have their place. A good commentary or scholarly essay can open doors you might have missed, point out patterns, or even correct a blind spot. But if that becomes the main diet, you start living off borrowed insights. Worse, you may find yourself perpetuating another scholar’s misreading without realizing it. What began as “research” turns into theological hearsay.

So the task of historical theology is a bit like tuning your ear to old, sometimes crackling recordings. You can get the gist from someone else’s notes, but it’s not the same as hearing the voice directly. To do the work rightly takes patience and humility, a willingness to let the dead speak for themselves. The wrong way silences them under layers of commentary; the right way strains to hear their words, even when they come slowly and with effort. And in that effort, something vital is preserved—the integrity of truth itself.