Augustine’s "On Free Choice of the Will" (Review)
"On Free Choice of the Will" (Google Preview) was one of Augustine's earlier writings, and long before the Pelagian Heresy reared its ugly head. I picked this 120 page treatise up after reading Luther's Bondage of the Will to go to his sources: ad fontes! Aurelius Augustine of Hippo (354-430) wrote De Libero Arbitrio (it's Latin title) in three parts, the first in circa 387 A.D., and the last two in 395 A.D. The book is formated like the Greek Dialogues of Plato where "Augustine" instructs "Evodius." The first question begins, as well as ends my translation of the book (by Thomas Williams): "Evodius: Please tell me: isn't God the cause of evil?"The Thomas Williams translation contains a lengthy introduction, and ends with selections from Augustine's Retractions that contains Augustine's reconsiderations of De Libero Arbitrio. And reflecting back on the book, without reading the notes from Retractions, it would be possible for many people to misconstrue Augustine as to be even advocating a Pelagian view. Augustine says that Pelagius used this book and similar writings against him later. In the Retractions, several selections that Augustine wrote quickly and briefly in De Libero Arbitrio were repeated and reaffirmed, and Augustine even praised himself for anticipating the Pelagian Heresy's arguments.
The most important clarification in the appendix, is that Augustine said that he wrote De Libero Arbitrio against the Manichaeism, who held opposite beliefs than the Pelagians. Mani, a Persian philosopher, and someone Augustine "confesses" to have been a hear of for 9years before he was a Christian. Mani taught a form of Dualism that attributed evil to the god of the Old Testament and attributed good to Jesus (or rather the god of the New Testament), and in that sense, Mani wished to attribute evil to God. Throughout De Libero Arbitrio, Augustine affirms the "free choice of the will", meaning that individuals have a free choice in their actions and do not only (as Evodius argues) "do things out of necessity". As the retractions affirm, there are times that when evil and sin is done out of necessity, man is still guilty for it, but Augustine's primary argument is to show that God is not evil and does not do evil. There's a very good argument at the beginning that consists of reasoning that teaching only occurs when knowledge of Good is transfered, so knowledge of evil is not truly teaching.
Augustine is an amazing orator and writer, and his other works are so beautifully written that even simple folk may understand and benefit from them, however, Augustine is no fool. And, this work is very difficult to read and follow, and is a flex of Augustine's muscles. Some wrongly argue that his Retractions prove that it is only the later Augustine that matters, and however true that may be, the book as the editor WIlliams said is not really a "retractions" but rather a "reconsiderations" where Augustine doesn't "retract" as so much as rather he "clarifies" what he originally said.
One additional feature to note, is that it is no accident that this book is written as a Greek Dialogue because there are long passages where Augustine explains the Will by appealing to Platonic Forms and a Platonic understanding of Mathematics. He explains forms by using mathematical concepts of the "number one" and tackles some of his interesting answers about how forms are somehow part of God.
It's hard to understand this work without also reading Augustine's "Anti-Pelagian Writings" and maybe his "Anti-Manichaean Writings" as well.
By: Wyatt Houtz 
Martin Luther’s "Bondage of the Will"
Martin Luther considered "The Bondage of the Will" (In latin: "De Servo Arbitrio" 1525 AD) his best work. You may read it online for free at CCEL. I read the new translation by J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnson, that's about 320pages and has a lengthy introduction about the book, Luther and Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536). Martin Luther was an Augustinian Monk, and this work is a honor to his master Augustine. Bondage of the Will is Luther's response to Erasmus's short book "Diatribe", where Erasmus attack's Luther's doctrine of Double Predestination. So Luther's book is in response to Erasmus' book, and Erasmus's book is in response to Luther's writings. In general, books in this format are not very fun to read and require too much of a back story. However, this particular work is on every Luther reading list I've seen for the great arguments it contains.
By: Wyatt Houtz
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s "Der Christliche Glaube (The Christian Faith)"
Oh, Schleiermacher! The most influential theologian of the last three hundred years, but who knows him by name? How do I begin to talk about Schleiermacher and what may I say? The place to begin is Friedrich Schleiermacher's magnum opus, "Der Christliche Glaube (The Christian Faith)" first published in 1821-22. I read (and recommend) the T&T Clark Int'l 1999 edition that I struggled through last december, however there is a new cheaper reprint available from Apocryphile Press 2011 edition. The was the most difficult theology book that I've ever read: harder than barth, calvin or augustine, and maybe only matched by Edward's Ethical Writings (Vol 8 of Yale WJE Online). How do I talk positively about Schleiermacher without being hated by the conservative Reformed and having them accuse me of harboring Liberal Protestantism in my heart? My first answer is that B.B. Warfield called Schleiermacher a genius in his Studies In Theology, of which I read right before the The Christian Faith. Warfield's comments were what caused me to actually read Schleiermacher (and thanks to KCLS's interlibrary loan who saved me the $85 list price). I read ultimately read The Christian Faith because of the infamy of Karl Barth's criticism of Schleiermacher. (But, was Barth actually a critic of Schleiermacher or really a disciple?) I'd also defend myself by saying that Schleiermacher thought his work was an asset to the Church, and an improvement on Calvin. His work was not written in hatred like the works of Ludwig Feuerbach and David Strauss. There are many times in the Christian Faith when Schleiermacher veers at the last moment away from a strong heterodox position. Overall, this review will be a positive evaluation, granted that Schleiermacher is read critically and understood that his system is a failure due to his inherited system from Kant and Hegel. First, some background--
He was a German Theologian and a Pastor. It's a mystery, what kind of sermons did he preach? Especially since Schleiermacher has been wrongly accused of being an atheist. My friend Josh Hurd explained it best to me that Schleiermacher believed that his The Christian Faith was a service to the church, and he was working out an improved Systematic Theology based on his belief in the veracity of Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel criticisms of Christianity. I also suppose The Christian Faith may be seen as an attempt to reconcile the Reformed and Lutheran Churches as well (as Barth made the same attempts.)
(Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1768 – 1834)
Here's a sample sentence from The Christian Faith to demonstrate how hard it is to read:
"If we include in this mechanism all inferior life, animal and vegetable (since there can, in this conception, be no question of a universal life of the heavenly bodies), then free causes, by which we mean mean, are the sole finite causality, and it only needs one step to leave the divine causality as the only one, i.e. to hold what we have already shown to be destructive of the feeling of absolute dependence, and with it all piety--that men should regard themselves too as simply part of this mechanism, and should treat consciousness of self-activity as only an unavoidable illusions.", Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith I.49.1, pg. 190-191
The Christian Faith begins with an important polemic of Knowing, Feeling, and Doing, where Schleiermacher explains that Feeling is Piety, and therefore Feeling is the realm of revelation of God because Feeling is the place where Experience encounters Knowledge, and therefore (here it comes...) where we really find and know and meet god is in our feeling of absolute dependence. I don't know if I am able to express this more profoundly other than by saying that Schleiermacher's God is actually defined as the feeling of absolute dependence. This short statement is the foundation of Schleiermacher's system and cannot be understated. And so, unless you read The Christian Faith in this understand of God as a feeling of absolute dependence, it will be one long frustrating, misunderstanding and useless venture through the almost 800 pages.
Back to the prolegomena, The Christian Faith is an apologetic book and an answer to pantheism or possibly deism of the Enlightenment. However, the books does not deny deism or pantheism, but rather it finds understanding by moving forward with Christianity as if God is inaccessible to us and as if we only have this vague feeling of absolute dependence to know God. If we are unable to say anything meaningful about God, we can turn our theology into anthropology and say something meaningful about God -- not by analyzing or scrutinizing God -- but rather by recognizing the inadequacies and failures of man, especially where all we have is our absolute feeling of dependence even if we do not know what we are dependent upon.
So, considering this prolegomena, the Trinity only appears an appendix with only a few pages dedicated to it at the end of the book. Jesus is not the God-man, but rather the man who exhibits a perfection of the feeling of absolute dependence. The Church becomes that which is entrusted with the feeling of absolute dependence from Jesus, that could not be fully received unless Jesus leaves us.
I know all of this sounds like thick and deep heresy, and it is so, but the book is still a genius work (as B.B. Warfield called him) in understanding what Piety means. I suppose this is an indefensible position of praise, and maybe a contradiction in my theology. Maybe if I move on to Barth, it will help.
Several of my friends has said that Barth said that the answer to Schleiermacher was to go through Schleiermacher. So in some regard this explains Barth tremendously, and shows why Barth is a great improvement over Schleiermacher, however there are some failures in Barth that are not in Schleiermacher, especially in regards to Schleiermacher's superior handling of Pelagianism and Manichaeism, and Schleiermacher's doctrine of Predestination.
So with Barth, if theology is actually anthropology, then that means that to do true theology means to understand theology as actually the theological anthropology of the man Jesus Christ alone: hence Barthian Christocentrism means we can only know God through man, that is, the man Jesus Christ. Voila! I've just explained Barth and Schleiermacher simply? (Hence Barth's rejection of Natural Revelation, etc.) God is only knowable through the man of Jesus Christ alone. So, I believe that Barth is not the end of this story, in terms of there's more to be said here, because what has been said is not enough but still very exciting. Hopefully there will be a link between Barthianism and Reformed Theology that unifies the church in the future.
Anecdotes from the Christian Faith
Pelagianism or Manichaeism
Schleiermacher said that there are two great dangers of falling into either Pelagianism or Manichaeism. Pelagianism occurs when we deny that man has an evil nature and say that there is no evil. Manichaeism is when we elevate Satan to the level of God. In Manichaeism, there are two ultimate deities, one is a good God and the other is a bad God where all the good comes from the good God and all the bad comes from the bad God. Ying and Yang. The only solution is to understand that God is sovereign over all even evil intermediaries. This is where Schleiermacher triumphs over Barth, for his doctrine of Predestination is far superior to Barth's.
"For if we are too readily disposed to exclude sin from the range of our absolute dependence on God, we inevitably verge upon Manichaeism; while if we seek to reconcile it with the original perfection of man, we shall hardly avoid Pelagianism. It may, in fact, be said that in the development of the Church's doctrine there has been an almost constant wavering between these antagonistic positions." ~ Christian Faith 2.65.2
Calvin's Proof of Satan's Existence
Schleiermacher dismisses Satan as a non-entity, however in his discussion he reminded me of Calvin's proof of Satan's necessity in his Christian Faith 1.45.2 (henceforth CF). Schleiermacher points to Calvin's Institutes 1.14.17, yet calls this the best argument for the existence of Satan. The gist of Calvin's argument is that since God is absolutely sovereign and good, therefore he by necessity must have an agent or beings that are intermediaries to reconcile the fact that God is good yet evil exists. That being must desire to do evil for evil ends, but must be ordained by god for a chief and final good ends. The only alternate is to fall into Pelagianism or Manichaeism.
Inverting Scripture
A common exegetical tactic of Schleiermacher is to declare a clear passage to have an opposite meaning of the most plain reading. However, I wasn't able to quickly find a convincing proof. A quick search was his proof that angel's aren't real entities in CF I.43.1 by appealing to Zechariah 1:12 (which is a very trinitarian passage). Remember that Schleiermacher isn antitrinitarian.
"Then sthe angel of the Lord said, ‘O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?’" ~ Zechariah 1:12 (ESV)
Engaging with Calvin
It appears that Schleiermacher had a particularly high regard for Calvin and his Institutes, however he did view Calvin has deficient and hoped to improve upon Calvin. Here's a quote from the passage I quoted earlier that summarizes Schleiermacher's view of the Reformed Tradition:
"It was obviously from these two elements that the acute mind of Calvin composed his formulas, though they will not harmonize in one consistent view." ~ Schleiermacher, CF 1.45.2
In the preface was also this antagonistic comparison of The Christian Faith to The Institutes of the Christian Religion:
"The editors of this translation, first published in 1928, agreed with the opinion of those best qualified to judge that as a comprehensive exposition of Protestant theology Schleiermacher's Christian Faith was second only to Calvin's Institutes. They were right--unless perhaps we prefer to reverse the order of first and second place or, better, are content to set these two theological masterpieces side by side without presuming to rank them." - B.A. Gerrish, 'John Nuveen Professor Emeritus, The University of Chicago' (CF, page v.)
God as Redeemer
Since I'm unable to reproduce the Christian Faith in this blog, I won't quote one of the many passages discussing God as Redeemer. If Redeemer is an attribute of God, its by necessity that God would create a world that needed his redemption, and this one of Schleiermacher's better arguments for predestination.
Other Works
On Religion:speeches to its cultured despisers and his Life of Jesus have received tremendous discussion. His Life of Jesus appears often in the books regarding the Quest for the Historical Jesus.
Final Anecdote
"For our mutual consolation I offer a historical reminiscence. Schleiermacher was struggling to finish the first draft of his Christian Faith, on September 7, 1822 he wrote to his friend Twesten: "Every time I see this book, I sigh at its bulk." I know that my own Dogmatics is already a good deal bulkier than Schleiermacher's Christian Faith. Yet Twesten's reply on March 9, 1823 might equally well be applied to my own book: "You complain about the size of your book, but do not worry; for most of us the size is indispensable to understanding, and the few who would perhaps have understood you from a lesser work will certainly accept with gratitude all the eluciations you want to give" (cf. G. Heinrici, D. August Twesten nach Tagebuchern und Briefen, 1899, p. 377, 379f.) Yes, for a right understanding and exposition there is need of a thorough elucidation. May it not be that I have been too short and not too long at some important points?" - Karl Barth, Preface to CD II/2, pg ix
By: Wyatt Houtz
Martin Buber’s I and Thou
Martin Buber was a Jewish philosopher that wrote a very famous poetic psychology book titled: Ich und Du (I and Thou). It's a short book, around 150 pages that was published in 1923. It's a difficult read, especially since its German poetry translated into English, and is a difficult philosophical theology treatise that is comparable to Jonathan Edwards' Nature of True Virtue. I first learned about Martin Buber in Paul Tillich's book Theology of Culture, where Tillich devotes a chapter to Buber's I and Thou. I'd actually recommend reading Tillich's chapter on Buber before reading Buber's I and Thou, or some sort of summary (like this one at stanford.)
(Martin Buber and Rabbi Binyamin)
Summary of I And Thou
Buber defines two primitive words: I-Thou and I-It. (And before I say more than I know, I recommend reading this work before repeating anything I say about Buber, as the preface of my edition warns, "it must be read more than once."). I-Thou is the primitive where knowledge of existence dwells, but there is constant danger of falling into the I-It primitive. It may be helpful to think of these primitives as single words rather than relationships.
I-Thou verse I-It
The I-Thou is awareness of other beings, not by any universal Platonic form, or summation of attributes, but by dialectical relation with that very Thou entity. In knowing Thou is more than the summation of all It's attributes, but it is the very Thou. In knowing Thou, then we arrive at knowledge of ourselves defined in the I-Thou reciprocal relationship with Thou, because I only understand my own existence in direct relationship with that Thou as a I-Thou primitive correlation. Once the Thou is reduced to a universal, I am also dissolved into those same universals, and likewise, when Thou is reduced to It's attributes, then I am also reduce to non-existence in the I-It. So the true knowledge of being lies in only the I-Thou.
The Eternal Thou
The Eternal Thou is similar to Jonathan Edwards' Being In General (see his treatise: The Nature of True Virtue). The Eternal Thou is a monotheistic being from which all Thous are derived, but no one Thou is the Eternal Thou.
The plurality of I and Thou
Paul Tillich's discussion of I-Thou draws out the plurality of the Thou, because to know a Thou means to know all other Thou's in relation to that Thou, yet without falling into the bland universal It. So at the same time, I not only know myself by knowing the Thou of my I-Thou relationship. I know all others of my own I (think community), in relationship to all other Thous. So I believe this is where the Trinity must be inserted, here to make sense of the Eternal Thou, and this is where an individual Christian does not have a meaningful relationship with the Trinity apart from the collective church body of Christians.
Conclusion
Paul Tillich's Theology of Culture has a very useful analogy for explaining the two primary ways that philosophy engages God: meeting a stranger (i.e. Deism or Atheism) and overcoming estrangement (i.e. Pantheism or Materialism), which I learned about through Michael Horton's A Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. Buber's I and Thou provides a system of knowledge that doesn't collapse into either extreme of Deism or Pantheism.
By: Wyatt Houtz
Christ And Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr
It's almost impossible to engage in a conversation about culture without someone mentioning H. Richard Niehbur's Christ & Culture. I learned about Niehbur through D.A. Carson's magisterial Christ & Culture: Revisited, which I unfortunately read before I had actually read Niebuhr's book, which was a great detriment to myself. Al Mohler recently invoked the infamous quote, summarizing Liberal Protestantism after Rob Bell's stinky Love Wins controversy: H. Richard Niebuhr famously once distilled liberal theology into this sentence: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." ~ Al Mohler
And again, Al Mohler lament's in a discussion on Original Sin about where have all the great theological commentators gone, such as Paul Tillich, and H. Richard Niebuhr (and I would add Francis Schaeffer.)
It's amazing how often H. Richard Niebuhr's book, "Christ & Culture", is still discussed today. It was published in 1955, I recently found and read a reprint of Niebuhr's classic that celebrates the book's half-century milestone that includes a foreword by Martin E. Marty, and a preface by James M. Gustafson and a very helpful summary introductory essay by H. Richard Niebuhr. Niebuhr's essay gave a great context to the book by listing examples of famous theologians that fit each of his five categories of Christ & Culture. Gustafson's short history book was more nostalgic than clarifying, although it added the minimum details to read the book. Unfortunately, the was not much biographical information on H. Richard Niebuhr in this book, which was disappointing since this is my first engagement with Niebuhr. All I took away from the prefaces was that Reinhold Niebuhr was Richard's older brother, and that Richard had a son who also published theology books, but I don't know of any of Richard's son's writings, and that Reinhold has produced a large amount of books. However, one anecdote from the introduction was a list of George Marsden quotes that gave a negative evaluation of Niebuhr's classic, which the editor was more offended by than addressed in anyway. (I love Marsden, especially his biography Jonathan Edwards: A Life, and know that he wrote many other church history books, especially on fundamentalism, so I think Marsden's critiques are worth considering.)
I turned to The Google for a Niebuhr biography, and was disappointed by the information on the famous MMORPG commonly known as Wikipedia where I only learned that his first name is Helmut and some history about the United Church of Christ. However, I was able to find H.R. Niebuhr's obituary from the New York Times hosted at his alma-matter, Elmhurst College (Read It Here).
The first thing to know about Christ & Culture, is this book is foremost considered a book on ethics. "Christian Ethics" was not my first thought when I categorized this book, but "ethics" is the first word everyone says when they see me holding this Niebuhr volume. Maybe its because its a seminary class that young minds are first dragged into the mess of Christian Ethics. When I think of Ethics, I think of Jonathan Edward's magisterial Ethical Writings (Yale Volume 8) containing The Nature of True Virtue and The Ends For Which God Created The World, etc. And when I think of Christ & Culture I typically think of Luther's Two Kingdoms or the recent fad topic of Federal Vision and the perennial topic of Church and State.
At last, the content review! As you may know already, Christ & Culture consists of five categories of the ways that Christians have historically understood culture in relation to Christianity: Christ Against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ Above Culture, Christ And Culture In Paradox, Christ Transforming Culture. In short, each of theses views have things to embrace and elements to avoid.
Christ Against Culture
Christ Against Culture basically is the view that culture is all bad and needs to be annihilated. The pinnacle example via Niebuhr was Tertullian, and his rejection of culture. Although Tertullian is analyzed in depth, to be frank, this Chapter read like one big rant against Leo Tolstoy. Yes, Tolstoy was an Anabaptist, and Yes, everyone hates Anabaptists. That's what the reformation was actually about -- hating Anabaptists. But, Tolstoy wrote two amazing novels: War and Peace and Anna Karenina. And, not everyone can be a "Dostoevsky" and write a "Brothers Karamazov." Even if Niebuhr is right about Tolstoy, it's still good to separate Tolstoy out from the disaster of the Radical Reformation. Niebuhr makes great analysis of this perspective, and the contradiction of being a literary master and someone who rejects culture.
Christ Of Culture
This is the great chapter about John Locke's "The Reasonableness of Christianity, Friedrich Schleiermacher's "The Christian Faith" and the works of Albrecht Ritschl. The irony of this chapter is that it's basically the same as Christ Against Culture but it's arch-enemy. This is where the modern-scientist, like Marcion, comes and rips out the supernatural and unfashionable parts of the New Testament, in the same way as Thomas Jefferson did to his bible.
Christ Above Culture
Above, as in Idealism. When I say "idealism", don't think Locke, but rather think Doctor Angelicus Thomas of Aquinas. If Christianity were to perfect culture, no one could do it better than Aquinas.
Christ And Culture In Paradox
Here lies Martin Luther's doctrine of the "Two Kingdoms". R.I.P.
Christ Transforming Culture
Augustine of Hippo, and John Calvin too are lumped into this category, and as most of Church History.
Conclusion
This book is a recorded lecture, so it doesn't have the depth as a theology book normally has that was intended primarily for print. However, its still ecellent, in the same way as Abraham Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism were, despite being first lectures and second a theology book. People will talk about this book for another fifty years, and I hope they talk about it much more than the Two Kingdoms.
I recommend reading my review of D.A. Carson's Christ & Culture: Revisited..
By: Wyatt Houtz
The Church by Hans Küng
Hans Küng is a Catholic Priest and a prolific theologian, and a very controversial man. I'm drawn to his writings because he serves as aurea mediocritas between Protestantism and Catholicism. I first learned about Küng after his criticism of the Roman Church's handling of the child abuse cases throughout Europe. If I remember correctly, he believed that the Church's prohibition of marriages for the priests was a cause of the sex scandals, and Küng called for not only the abolition of celibacy but he also desired a very liberal change in the churches views of women and other modern questions. Küng was recently in the news over Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Germany, and was interviewed by many news sources such as this article in the New York Times. Küng is a middle man because of the influence of Karl Barth. Justification was Hans Küng's doctoral thesis, and consisted of a very uncatholic view of Justification based almost identically with Karl Barth's volume on Reconciliation in Barth's Church Dogmatics. Küng's Justification even includes a A Letter To The Author by Karl Barth that asks Küng whether he arrived on his theory of Justification before or after reading his Church Dogmatics. As a committed Reformed Christian, I would firmly answer Kevin DeYoung's quoted question "Barth or Calvin" with a firm "Calvin!", however, I do believe that unity in the church, among an age of a protestant church that has split into a myriad of shards, that we should reconsider how we answer Machen's affirmation of "truth before friendship" with much less insurgency. So, what I'm saying is that I like that Küng is a middle ground, however, its a ground from no-where for me, because I am not Barthian, but still sympathetic.
Küng's hope of reform of the Catholic Church has not be well received (if received at all). Not too long ago, Küng wrote a letter addressing all 5,000(?) bishops in the Catholic Church calling for a reform, but Küng lamented that none of them were willing to make a stand against the Papacy. (It's a high price to pay after all.) This was a direct answer to the question raised by Barth in the preface to Justification, because Barth said that even if you do believe this, which I agree with, you're church does not follow you (my paraphrase). And so they haven't, and to the extreme of censoring Küng, with a papal order that he is no longer able to teach theology within the church at all, yet as an act of grace, Küng is still in otherwise good standing in the church. And most recently, Pope Benedict XVI has requested an audience from Küng, so talk is not silenced.
What actually caused me to pick up one of Küng's book was not the news but rather Edmund P. Clowney's book on "The Church"; which I will say is a most excellent book and at the top of my list for books on ecclesiology. Clowney is a man I read humbly, at his feet, and not critically like Küng's book which he engages throughout.
Küng's book The Church, is a large volume -- well over 600 pages. And it reads very much as if it were written by a Protestant, but a Protestant who recognizes a need for a papal office for the sake of unifying the church, not as an infallible christ-like substitute. Küng is not only influenced by Barth, but also approves of all the critical and marginalizing ideas of liberal protestant theology. For instance, Bultmann is quoted often, for the point of demythologizing the view of the Church, and modern science easily is given authority over scripture, and form criticism is a major method of Küng.
However, Küng's use of modern ideas is rather productive, rather than in hatred (as in the case of Hermann Samuel Reimarus or David Strauss). The best example is his polemic for the three-tiered Catholic Ecclessiology; Küng believes that the Pastorals are written late and not by Paul, however they may be derived from Paul's teachings, and Küng constantly contrasts "Paul" verse "Acts and the Pastorals". I believe in Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, but its true that the vocabulary and style of those Pastorals are significantly different than the rest of Paul, in a way that a more developed later thought may be recorded. (viz. It's an irresistible temptation in an age of form and higher criticism for theologians jump to mythos or deny authorship at the first suggestion of variety between letters.) So Küng's argument advances from a primitive disorganized church in the Byzantine East, to a more established church of the pastorals in the Latin West, then into the three-tiered bishop-elder-deacon model of the Early Church Fathers especially Ignatius. Most conservative Reformed Christians see a two-tiered elder-deacon leadership model in the New Testament, and yet there is a clear three-tiered bishop-elder-deacon role in Ignatius, which Kung identies with the Clergy-Laity-People's model of the current Catholic Church. It is a very good and clever argument, that appears convincing.
Küng's argument for the Papal office is excellent too, for he was censored for criticizing Papal Infallibility as a late added fiction, yet still sees the need of a unifying office. He even hopes to see the Orthodox and the Anglicans reunited someday under the Papal office, and only seeing the Papal office as a final appeals court rather than the pastor of the Church. It's a very hopeful ideal, and I wish to someday see a unified Church again, and not one like Küng's description of the Inquisition where the "blackest pages of the Church's History were written" (paraphrase). Again, it is Küng's modernistic sympathy that causes him to reject Papal Infallibility, and I would group in conservative dogmas such as historical Adam.
A last anecdote from the book is Küng' insistence on the Church as a "priesthood of all believers" and in one instance he discusses whether a lay man may teach theology, and in the most extreme and isolated happenstance, where there is no church or structure in a remote land, is any lay Christian able to gather together other Christians and practice the Baptism and Lord's Supper. Would this be a valid Church, especially if the Church were to later return to the region and insist that the laymen cease. It's a wonderful section that validates and simultaneously casts doubts on the question "Whether just anyone may throw up a Church sign and open a church at anytime?"
Overall, it was another compelling and captivating book, and an excellent read for any Protestant who would like to seek middle ground with Catholics and Orthodox. It's a long book, that I loved, and one I cannot fairly review without making this into a book of its own.
By: Wyatt Houtz
The Crucified God by Jürgen Moltmann
Jürgen Moltmann is a German Reformed Theologian, and also according to wikipedia, he was a soldier in the Nazi Germany Army. However, when Moltmann learned about the Nazi concentration camps, especially Auschwitz, he then surrendered to the first British soldier he encountered. While a prisoner of war, an army chaplain for the British army gave him a slimmed down bible, similar to a Gideon's bible. As Moltmann said it, "I didn't find Christ, he found me." He went on to receive his Ph.D. and wrote many influential, yet controversial books due to being influenced by Karl Barth, Hegel, Tillich and others. There's also an anecdote in his biography, that he had read a book by one of the Niebuhr brothers, and it was his only access to Christianity that caused him to head towards a future in theological academia. I don't know how accurate that biological sketch is, because not much of it was covered in the only book I've read by Moltmann: "The Crucified God." Moltmann primarily engages Luther and the Calvin quotes were kept to a minimum, and since he was a professor at the German Tübingen School, I don't know how reformed he actually may be, since he engages Lutheran ideas and theologians more often than the Reformed crowd. He's still alive, so I could probably use google translator to email him!
Auschwitz and Hiroshima are certainly at the center of Moltmann's thought, especially considering one of his books is titled "A Theology of Hope." Considering the crisis of the two great world wars, many today equate "hope" with universalism, but I overlooked any conclusions in this topic in The Crucified God.
Martin Luther is at the center of the Crucified God, for Luther took up the phrase "The Crucified God" first used by early church fathers and popularized it. It is a controversial and shocking title, and Moltmann explains that the way we know Jesus is through the Cross, but also the way that Jesus knows the Father is through the cross as well. Moltmann even accused Barth of not being trinitarian and having a trinitarian view of the cross at the center of our understanding of God. In a fully trinitarian view, we may identify Jesus as God on the Cross crucified, without the difficulties of patripassianism. (However, Moltmann doesn't appear to have a problem with saying that the Father suffered in Jesus on the Cross within a trinitarian concept, because how else could the Father love or could God be love, he argues.) I'll have to read Moltmann's book on the Trinity to find that answer.
The dominant theme of the book however is Luther's "Theology of the Cross", and in direct contrast to the ever popular, "Theology of Glory". Moltmann returns to this topic a myriad of times, giving me a greater appreciation for the revolutionary thought of Martin Luther's Heidelberg Disputation (1518). Moltmann goes so far as the critique the Cosmological Argument as a Theology of Glory and says it is not in the greatest first cause (paraphrase), but the humility and suffering in the cross that we find the true revelation of God.
Moltmann returns many times to the "Brother Karamazov" by Dostoevsky. In the book, at a concentration camp, a group of men are hanged including a youth, and one of the crowd says "Where is God?" in reaction to the length it takes for the youth to die. Moltmann says that in light of Hiroshima and Auschwitz, we may respond "Christ is there dying with that youth on the gallows" (paraphrase).
Another theme is Moltmann's constant question, "Have we replaced our Christology with Jesusology", in other words, have we given up the eschatological king Jesus, and changed Jesus into a timeless teacher of moral truths, or reduced him to only a good example, but rather have we seen him truly as the immanent eschatological king. Moltmann equates the gospel with having correct Christology. A wonderful challenge. If Jesus was truly man, made of spirit and body, then his death on the cross mean spiritual and physical death.
Another topic, was Moltmann's insistence in the historicity of Christ, because when we contextualize Christ, we have changed him from what he was into something new and relevant, and thereby leaving the historical faith in the dust (paraphrase). The problem is that Christianity is a historical faith, based on the historical event of the Cross, so every time we change what was said from the beginning to say something new, in many ways we have abandoned what it originally was.
What an amazing book! It's one of the few books this year that I've read that I cannot stop thinking about, and I've already read 75 thick theology books, so that's saying a lot. Do I recommend this as a confession of faith? No way! You must read this book critically, but many wonderful ideas are in this volume that I'd encourage you to pick it up and really think about the Cross for today.
By: Wyatt Houtz
Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (by Peter Brown)
Peter Brown's "Augustine of Hippo: A Biography" was recommended to me by my brilliant friend Josh. Josh also recommended to me the Penguin Classics translation of Augustine's "City of God" translated by Henry Bettenson that was an amazing five star read. I have now finished reading Brown's biography and here's some thoughts on it.My edition comes with an epilogue, which discusses newly discovered letters by Augustine. It's really amazing how much Augustine wrote. I really don't know how it was scientifically feasible for him to write as much as he did. So that wasn't as interesting to me, just because I haven't engaged with Augustine's letters as of yet. I've read many of his treatises, but mostly the longer ones like On The Trinity, Enchiridion, etc. And also his Confessions, and most recently, The City of God - my personal favorite of what I've read. So it didn't bother me that the biography had very little theology (compared to biographies of other theologians), which Brown admits in the epilogue. The epilogue was helpful because it addressed some of the things I didn't like about this wonderful book. For instance, its a critical biography written by a modern scholar, so he is not bothered by Pelagianism like Augustine was (or how I am), for modern reasons. However, Brown admits that he was influenced by some other works he had read at the time that he no longer agrees with. Augsutine is protrayed negatively as an influential ancient, trenched in politics of his era with moments far beyond his time, and possibly the greatest genius of his era but still of his era. So my criticism of the work is based in a difference of worldview between Brown and I.
The wonderful part of the biography is that it is truly a study of the era of augustine, a time so far gone that it is just like today, and Brown's genius is evident after reading a few pages. It's an excellently written biography that every sentence provides details about the time of augustine and northern africa in the Roman empira that makes my mind spin with ideas. There are many footnotes that show the vast research he had put into this work, and I recommend it all who love biography and can read books critcally.
By: Wyatt Houtz
Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elentic Theology
Francis Turretin (1623–1687) or François Turretini was a Reformed Theologian who taught in Calvin's academy in Geneva a couple generations after John Calvin had died. He is most famous for his timeless and massive systematic theology titled: "Institutes of Elentic Theology" ("IET" henceforth). ("Elentic" basically synonymous with "apologetics.") I recently finished reading a new translation of Turretin's work by George Musgrave Giger and edited by James T. Dennison. This recent translation weights in at 2,311 pages, divided into three volumes and costs almost $85 for the best price on amazon but I read it for free thanks to the inter-library loan program at the King County Library. Dennison revised an earlier english translation, I forget the translator's name. I began reading this Systematic Theology (ST from now on) after reading Michael Horton's recent and awesome systematic theology that I read earlier this year titled: "The Christian Faith." Horton had engaged with Turretin many times through his ST. The beauty of Turretin's IET is that it is the eminent ST that held the field between Calvin's institutes in the 16th century until Charles Hodge's ST in the 19th century. The book has an anecdote about how Turretin's latin original was in the library for students at Princeton to look up the footenotes in Hodge's ST.
Overall, Turretin's IET is a conservative exposition of the Reformed Faith that is trending towards the Protestant Scholasticism of his time. Most arguments are stated against a specific opponent who represents that belief where Turretin either "affirms", "denies", or clarifies the truth doctrine. In many ways Faustus Socinus was to Turretin as Michael Servetus was to John Calvin. Socinus was a 17th century anti-trinitarian that appears regularly in the IET.
Turretin primarily engages Robert Bellarmine, who is a Doctor of the Catholic Church (1542 – 1621), who's Counter-Reformation works are the primary target of Turretin's ST (in terms of "elentic"). To Turretin, Bellarmine represents Roman Catholic dogma in the 17th century.
Overall, its an amazing ST by Turretin, and the most fascinating aspect of IET is that it's format and program of contents established the framework by which all other ST's to come would organize their material. If you've read any ST, then you've read Turretin.
By: Wyatt Houtz
"Narrative of Communion Controversy" by Jonathan Edwards
The Narrative of Communion Controversy is at the end of Yale's Jonathan Edwards series "Ecclesiastical Writings (WJE Online Vol. 12)." It consists of a series of letters between Jonathan Edwards and a committee of members at Edward's church in Northampton who wish to have Edwards dismissed from his pastoral position over Edward's shift from Solomon Soddard's half-way covenant views on communion to Edward's requirement of a profession of faith before admittance to full communion. The correspondence is interesting because it includes several appeals of Edwards to the committee to allow a council of pastors outside of his church, including some outside of his local county to conduct a trial to determine if the desires of the dismissal committee are acceptable. What is particularly noteworthy is that Edwards continually claims that Solomon Stoddard advocated a form of Presbyterian polity and Edwards laments that the committee was abandoning Presbyterianism entirely in favor of Congregational Polity. So this correspondence indicates that Edwards preferred a Presbyterian Church government. And a point of contention between Edwards and the Committee was that the Committee insisted that Edwards be dismissed because he at one time was in full favor of Stoddard's teachings (who was the previous pastor and Edward's grandfather) but now had departed into a Separatist opinion.
Many of Edward's opinions in the letters are responded to by other pastors who wished to know why Edwards requested pastors outside of his county to make a judgment on his local church. There are several references to the Robert Breck A Letter to the Author of the Pamphlet Called An Answer to the Hampshire Narrative (included in the beginning of Vol 12 of Yale's WJE Online series). The previous Letter had addressed the question of whether other churches may influence or block the appointment of a minister at another congregation. Edward's in the Letter advocated the appointment of Robert Breck, and this is also in favor of Presbyterian government over Congregationalism.
The correspondence answers some concerns about churches that are surrounded by heretical Arian churches, or what happens when half of the church are Episcopalian and half are Dissenters (non-Anglican).
Overall, it was an excellent conclusion to Ecclesiastical Writings (WJE Online Vol. 12) and put all the content in perspective. I highly recommend this book. Five star rating!
By: Wyatt Houtz 
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