Abstract

Ellen G White, one of the founding members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (hereafter SDA Church) has deeply influenced this church in her lifetime and continues to do so through her writings. Her writings span hundreds of thousands of pages, filling books, articles, letters, and compilations, focusing on pastoral and practical Christian-ity, being filled with theological statements. This thesis considers two methods of eval-uating White’s theology: The first is to use specific authors who are quoting White, while the second is to compare her to a theologian. The lack of structure in White’s theological quotes allows for authors to impose their views or the view of another the-ologian on White’s work. This situation is further complicated by authors mostly relying on a deductive method of argumentation. White’s quotes or her comparison to a the-ologian becomes the premises that support a specific conclusion. My theory consists of observable phenomena, which I term What?, interrelations which I term Why?, and a method. The lack of structure to White’s theological statements and the mainly de-ductive approach applied to her work result in indicating the observable phenomena or What?, but not the interrelations or Why? This thesis considers White’s Christology and begins by deductively comparing White to Karl Barth. This comparison first allows for the identification of White’s What? Second, following an inductive methodology, an attempt will be made to find the most likely interrelations or Why? that combine the What? At the conclusion, we will have a partial reconstruction of White’s Christological framework as well as a new method that can produce the What?, the Why?, and a How? White’s partial Christological framework can serve as foundation for a further extrapolation of her theological ideas as well as further evaluations.