465 - Christian Thought Revisited: Three Types of Theology

Christian Thought Revisited: Three Types of Theology
By Justo L. Gonzalez
Nashville, Abingdon, 1989. 185 pp. $15.95.

This new book by Justo Gonzalez is both a supplement to his three-volume History of Christian Thought and an independent essay in historical theology. The essay's major thesis is that Christian thought has been shaped by three types of theology, classically represented by the Carthaginian Tertullian, the Alexandrian Origen, and Irenaeus, originally from Smyrna in Asia Minor. The author describes these types according to their doctrines of God, creation, sin, salvation, and Scripture, claiming that the first

type's stress on law has made it the favorite of the orthodox while the second type's fondness for metaphysics has made it popular amongst academics. The third type represented by Irenaeus he believes is more pastoral and biblical, and is experiencing a revival in twentieth-century developments like Barth's Church Dogmatics and liberation theologies.

The book is well written and documented. To scholars it will seem schematic; this same quality will make it helpful to students. The treatment of medieval theology, and especially Thomas Aquinas, is its weakest historical section; broodings about "The failure of the promises of the North" are the weakest part of the author's case for today's versions of his third type of theology.

Peter H. Van Ness
Union Theological Seminary
New York, N.Y.