po-lem-ic (pelem'ik) n-1 an argument, dispute, etc., especially a written one, that supports one opinion or body of ideas in opposition to another (The New Scholastic Dictionary of American English).
"Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
Fondly remembered as "The Lion of Princeton," B. B. Warfield held the chair of Didactic and Polemic Theology at the Seminary from 1887 until his death in 1921. Many felt the blow of his pen, not a few expressed gratitude for his erudite candor, but nearly everyone recognized Warfield as perhaps the most formidable defender of the faith in the Presbyterian Church at the turn of the century. Having sharpened his wits in the forge of German universities, and consecrating his eminent gifts to God, here was a scholar who refused to surrender to the war between the intellect and the heart (or doctrine and life). Not in spite of, but because of, his constant devotion to Reformation theology, Warfield was an early proponent of civil rights for blacks as well as a defender of orthodox Calvinism who warned against reducing one's studies to dry, merely objective, academic data that might well turn a heart into stone. Keep reading
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