Book Review
Great Here's a splendid outline of the thinking of the 'greats' who shaped Christian theology. It's The Lion Book of Christian Thought by Tony Lane (Lion, 1992, ISBN 0-7324-0575-0). The summaries are well sprinkled with quotations.
The coverage is vast: from the Apostolic Fathers to the Lausanne Congress of 1974. I picked up many snippets of useful information from the book, including the following.
- Tertullian was a tough arguer, 'an apologist who never apologised'.
- The Reformation was 'the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.' [quoting Warfield]
- The opposite of iconoclast is iconodule. [Life-changing truth, that!]
- In the 17th century Cyril Lucaris tried to marry Eastern Orthodoxy with Reformation Calvinism.
- Peter Abelard was the 'enfant terrible of the 12th century in his erotic behaviour and erratic theology'.
- Catherine of Siena claimed to have received the stigmata—but they were visible only to herself. [Ha!]
- Arminius was agnostic about whether or not it is possible to lose one's salvation.
- Calvin did not teach covenant theology or limited atonement.
- 19th century liberalism reduced Christianity to 'bomfog': the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.
- Later in his life, Karl Barth rejected infant baptism.
- RC excesses in doctrines about Mary arose because an over-emphasis on Jesus' deity at the expense of his humanity had left a need for someone who could better identify with our human frailty.
- RC Hans Kung, in teaching that Barth's views on justification by faith were compatible with the conclusions of the Council of Trent, was (so to speak) writing Newman's Tract 90 in reverse.
