Sometimes setting up one's own perspective as the mediating or "holistic" one can be a rather cheap way to win an argument. Two examples. (1) If the options are framed as hardcore fatalism, Calvinism, and the utter loss of divine sovereignty, Calvinism might prematurely appear best (this is not to say that it couldn't appear that way after further thought!). However, Calvinism and Arminianism both are probably somewhere in the middle with hardcore fatalism and open theism on the edges. Let the curious scrupulously explore Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition to weigh Calvinism and Arminianism. (2) If the options are framed as chauvinism, complementarianism, and over-the-top feminism, complementarianism might prematurely appear best (as with Calvinism, this isn't meant to imply that it couldn't appear that way after further thought). However, complementarianism and egalitarianism both are probably somewhere in the middle with chauvinism and over-the-top feminism on the edges.
Having said all of this, as I'm reading through Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, I pick up that he regularly situates his work between two extremes in such a way that it pushes him to take extra care in his theological formulations. In other words, in his case, a between-extremes approach proves beneficial. On the matter of the authority of Scripture and the relationship between word and Spirit, Bavinck masterfully avoids Rome's desire to ground the authority of Scripture in the authentication of the church and also Radical Reformers' desire to bypass the constraints of the word and view the Spirit's speaking apart from Scripture as the supreme authority for Christian belief and praxis. On the doctrine of God, Bavinck continually presses on between the blunders of deism and pantheism, maintaining God's immanence and independence and transcendence. On the matter of ecclesial power, he again walks the line between Rome and the Radicals and ends up arguing that both in their own way ascribe the state's power to the church!
Thoughts on doing "between-extremes theology" for refinement rather than caricature?
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