Read quality dogmatics
December 8, 2008
Frankly, it’s depressing when faux-dogmatics like Grudem’s Systematic Theology receive an incessant amount of praise and recommendations. Dogmatics should make you think intelligently and devoutly about God, exhibiting the logic of salvation as revealed. You should see the connecting necessities of Covenant, Incarnation, and Redemption. Why, not merely What, is the purpose, so that we can approach scripture with a more coherent image of it all. Grudem and company read like a list of What to believe, and the average Christian, ever-frightful of the imminent doom of the Church, is happy to give a five-star review of such works because they are on “our side” of the controversies (and surely a 1000 page book is substantive and genius!). So, I here humbly present a guide to those who want to study Christian doctrine that succors the mind and inflames the heart.
Stage 1
The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love by St. Augustine
Essentials of Evangelical Theology by Donald Bloesch
Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger
Psalms and Hymns by Isaac Watts
Stage 2
The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
Dogmatics (vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3) by Emil Brunner
Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas
Reformed Dogmatics by Herman Bavinck
Stage 3
A System of Christian Doctrine by Isaak Dorner
The Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic by Hans Urs von Balthasar
Church Dogmatics by Karl Barth
Whoa. Just, whoa.
Thanks for the post, Kevin. If I get a chance, I’ll tackle your theology-reading list (with a little help from Amazon!).
By the way, if anyone actually did read everything above, it may very well take them until their natural death — that is, if studying and not merely reading.
The first few times someone quoted Wayne Grudem in an essay for me, I wrote, please do not quote someone called Wayne in an essay.
This is shorter than anything on your list, and free
http://www.thirdorder.org/dec08/evetlove.html
Very funny.
Thanks for the Tushnet link. I’ll be sure to read it.
Great post, Kevin! Given that my life expectancy is only 30 or 40 more years, I was hoping that you could make a subsequent post on how to begin reading von Balthasar in the most productive (I hesitate to say efficient) fashion.
30 years is enough time. Just start reading his corpus chronologically.
Just kidding.
I’m mostly only familiar with his trilogy (linked above in the post), and even then I just read selections (albeit large) from throughout the three parts and the epilogue. It is definitely not for the beginner in theology or even the intermediate student. His essays in the four-volume Explorations in Theology are, however, more accessible but still retaining all the brilliance and many of the same ideas fundamental throughout his work (at least from what I’ve read in the first and third volumes). So, I would start there and then move to the trilogy. Also, Love Alone is Credible is a fine, shorter treatise, but the first 1/3 can be a bit difficult if you are not familiar with the history of philosophy.
Thanks for the suggestions, and keep up the great blogging!
[...] After Existentialism, Light offers an appeal to read ‘quality’ dogmatics, and offers some prescribed reading alone those lines. I was particularly amused by the comment “The first few times someone quoted Wayne Grudem in an essay for me, I wrote, please do not quote someone called Wayne in an essay.”. Interestingly enough it was by ‘Francesca’ which lead to wondering whether or not it might be Aberdeen’s Francesca Murphy who made the equally blunt comment on my essay once: ‘Please re-write in English’. That being said She was right, and was good enough to let me re-write and submit it. [...]
hard heads and soft hearts – better than soft heads and hard hearts. I think CS Lewis said that, maybe.