Wednesday 17 March 2010

'Tis Done!

I've just finished reading the second volume of Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation. Hence 'Tis Done!

Say something nice about Herr Bavinck's book.
Very comprehensive. If you want to know what the position of Reformed Theology is on the doctrine of God and/or Creation this is the one volume that will do it for you.

Now tell us what you really think!
There are just too many pages describing positions in theology and philosophy that Reformed Theology will disagree with. I know that Deism and Pantheism are wrong, I don't need to read about why they are wrong under every heading.

If you want to read a really good book on the doctrine of God, you should try Gerald Bray's volume of that title in the IVP Contours of Christian Theology series (pub 1993). At 251 pages of text, plus some notes and suggested further reading, this is a far more accessible and useful volume than Bavinck. Bray covers the doctrine of God, which to be fair is only the first three parts (432 pages) of Bavinck. But he does it so much better.

So, 'tis done! That's another book ticked off my reading targets list for 2010, and the first of my major volumes. I'm really looking forward to starting Larry Hurtado's 'Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity'. This theology is all very well but just not as much fun as biblical studies.

I'm going to replace Bavinck on the reading targets list with Gordon Fee's 'God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul' (pub 1994). Just in case Hurtado doesn't turn out to do enough detailed exegesis of the text Fee won't let me down. But I'm not aiming to get to Fee until the summer, unless Hurtado ends up being a better page turner than Dan Brown.

3 comments:

eddie said...

Time to turn to Church Dogmatics by Barth?

Unknown said...

Thanks for this review.

I bought Fee's God's Empowering Presence several years back but hadn't really got round to consulting it until recently. What I've read so far has been excellent.

Gordon Kennedy said...

Thanks for the comments.
I've only got two volumes of Barth, but they might be enough to get started. I've been dipping into 'Engaging with Barth' ed. by Gibson and Strange, pub Apollos 2008. What I've read is good and helps me see how an evangelical can read Barth with profit.
I'm looking forward to Fee, his 1 Cor commentary is excellent - a model of how to write a commentary.