Theopedia

A. A. Hodge

Overview

Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823-1886) was an American Presbyterian theologian who succeeded his father, Charles Hodge, as professor of systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1878 until his own death. He is best known for Outlines of Theology, a catechetical (question-and-answer) systematic theology that set out the Princeton school’s Reformed federal theology for students and pastors.1

Life and Ministry

Hodge was named after Archibald Alexander, Princeton Seminary’s first professor and the teacher of his own father.2 After training at the College of New Jersey and Princeton Theological Seminary, he spent three years as a missionary in India before holding a succession of Presbyterian pastorates in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.1 In 1864 he took the chair of systematic theology at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, and in 1877 he returned to Princeton as his father’s colleague, succeeding him in the chair of systematic theology on Charles Hodge’s death the following year.1 He held that post until his death in 1886.

Theological Contribution

Hodge defined theology, in its most general sense, as “the science of religion,” and Christian theology specifically as the scientific interpretation and defense of the Scriptures together with the history of how Christians in every age have understood and lived out their teaching.3 He organized the theological disciplines into six departments (auxiliary sciences, apologetics, exegetical theology, systematic theology, practical theology, and historical theology), built on four foundational principles: Scripture alone as the infallible standard of religious knowledge, Christ and his work as the center around which all theology is ordered, salvation as supernatural and of free grace, and all religious knowledge directed to a practical end.3

Against Rome’s rule of Scripture and church tradition together, Hodge held that the Scriptures, “having been given by Inspiration of God, are the all-sufficient and only Rule of Faith and Practice, and Judge of Controversies.”4 He also defended the immediate imputation of Adam’s sin to the whole human race: each descendant of Adam is condemned “antecedently to his existence as a judicial cause of his commencing that existence in a depraved condition,” rather than only for sins committed later in life.5

Historical Significance

Hodge was part of a Princeton line running from Archibald Alexander through Charles Hodge to himself and, afterward, to J. Gresham Machen, each affirming the Reformed doctrine of the active obedience of Christ against those who limited Christ’s saving work to bearing the penalty of sin alone.2 Later Reformed writers still draw on his work: Michael Kruger cites Hodge’s companion Commentary on the Confession of Faith in his own case for the New Testament canon.6

Related Doctrines

References

  1. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, s.v. “Hodge, Archibald Alexander” (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1908-1914). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Micah John McCormick, “Historical Survey,” in “The Active Obedience of Jesus Christ” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010), 72-73. ↩ ↩2

  3. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 15-17. ↩ ↩2

  4. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 82. ↩

  5. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 359. ↩

  6. Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), chap. 2, citing Archibald Alexander Hodge, A Commentary on the Confession of Faith (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1869). ↩