CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION
BY ALISTAIR MCGRATH
2001 Oxford:Blackwell, 3rd Edition, 616 pages
NY CENTRAL LIBRARY 230 MACG
A Book Review by Joseph Ng
September 2003
Praised as being free of all denomination and theological bias, this book is widely received by seminaries as a textbook for theology classes. In terms of surveying the historical and theological landscape of Christian theology, length and breadth of it all, this work is breathtaking. To the responsible Bible-believing teacher, however, this book holds a serious deficiency that would limit its use and usefulness.
DESCRIPTION
Christian Theology is organized according to 18 chapters in three parts:
Part I Landmarks: Periods, Themes, and Personalities of Christian Theology
1 The Patristic Period, c.100-451
2 The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, c.1050-c.1500
3 The Reformation and Post-Reformation Periods, c.1500-c.1750
4 The Modern Period, c.1750 - the Present
Part II Sources and Methods
5 Getting Started: Preliminaries
6 The Sources of Theology
7 Knowledge of God: Natural and Revealed
8 Philosophy and Theology: Introducing a Dialogue
Part III Christian Theology
9 The Doctrine of God
10 The Doctrine of the Trinity
11 The Doctrine of the Person of Christ
12 Faith and History: A New Christological Agenda
13 The Doctrine of Salvation in Christ
14 The Doctrines of Human Nature, Sin, and Grace
15 The Doctrine of the Church
16 The Doctrine of the Sacraments
17 Christianity and the World Religions
18 Last Things: The Christian Hope
Is anything not covered by the scope of this introduction? A quick scan reveals that the liberal-fundamentalist divide is covered from Schleiermacher to Warfield, historical theology from Justin Martyr to today’s Hindu-Christian dialogue, salvation from Calvin to Arminius, and eschatology from Augustine to Dispensationalism. There is a studied avoidance of any evaluation whatsoever of each position, and references to the Scripture appear to be few and far between for a tome of above 600 pages. The effect is a mysterious neutrality, a dogmatic indifference as it were, that makes for difficult reading by anyone in search of truth and guidance.
CRITIQUE
The overriding problem with McGrath’s deliberate refusal to make judgments on even the most rank heresies is that the approach in itself lends itself to the dogma of pluralism that dominates much of our society. In other words, it is an attitude that what is truth to one faith community is a mere curiosity to another community, and as in the days of the Judges we have a case of “everyone did what he saw fit.” The only approach acceptable, accordingly, would be an uncritical descriptive survey of each “truth.” Examples of such rigid pluralism are rife in the book’s survey of modern theological phenomena, covering Marxism, Liberal Protestantism, Modernism, Neo-Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Feminism, Postmodernism, Liberation theology, Black theology, Postliberalism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostal and charismatic movements, and Theologies of the developing world. The following conclusions show how it is possible to be “unbiased,” descriptive, and “objective” to a fault:
Liberalism has been criticized on a number of points, of which the following are representative [3 points listed: 1. emphasis on universal religious experience, 2. overemphasis on transient cultural events, 3. “It has been suggested that liberalism is too ready to surrender distinctive Christian doctrines in an effort to become acceptable to contemporary culture]. (p. 104)
Scripture is read [by liberation theologians] as a narrative of liberation. ... Scripture is read, not from the standpoint of wishing to understand the gospel, but out of a concern to apply its liberating insights to the Latin American situation. Western academic theology has tended to regard this approach with some impatience, believing that it has no place for the considered insights of biblical scholarship concerning the interpretation of such passages. (p. 116) ... To its critics, liberation theology has reduced salvation to a purely worldly affair, and neglected its transcendent and eternal dimensions. (p. 117)
The more recent “signs and wonders” movement, which places considerable emphasis on the importance of spiritual healing, has caused controversy. Some critics have argued that it presents the gospel in terms which make no reference to repentance and forgiveness, charges which were pressed particularly forcefully after the 1990 Spiritual Warfare Conference at Sydney, Australia. Further controversy centers on the theology of healing itself. However, it is clear that a major movement is in the process of emerging, with the potential for articulating a distinctive theology of its own. The new awareness and experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the modern church has raised a series of debates over the nature of baptism of the Spirit, and which of the various “spiritual gifts” (charismata) are of greatest importance in relation both to personal faith and spirituality, and to the upbuilding of the church as a whole. (p. 123)
Where it matters most, not a word is breathed about the dangers or fallacy of liberalism, liberation theology, charismatism, and the rest of the theological soup. Even evangelicalism is considered as only one of many possibly valid forms of Christian theological expressions.
Notwithstanding the author’s extreme efforts to be neutral, a whiff of ecumenism does come forth. McGrath begins well in describing the reformers’ emphasis on sola scriptura (although he never quite endorses it personally):
Arguing that Christian theology was ultimately grounded in Scripture, reformers such as Luther and Calvin argued for the need to return to Scripture as the primary and critical source of Christian theology. The slogan “by Scripture alone” (sola scriptura) became characteristic of the reformers, expressing their basic belief that Scripture was the sole necessary and sufficient source of theology. ... Beliefs which could not be demonstrated to be grounded in Scripture were either to be rejected, or to be declared binding on on one. For example, the reformers had little time for the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary. (p. 69)
He also gives airtime to evangelicalism, which assumes the sufficiency of Scripture:
Evangelicalism now centers upon a cluster of four assumptions:
1. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
2. The uniqueness of redemption through the death of Christ upon the cross.
3. The need for personal conversion.
4. The necessity, propriety, and urgency of evangelism. (p. 121)
Yet when it comes to the sociological aspects of evangelicalism, he expresses approval for an evangelicalism that embraces those who reject sola scriptura and the sufficiency of the Scripture, namely those who hold to Roman Catholic dogma:
Evangelicalism is transdenominational. ... There is no inconsistency involved in speaking of “Anglican evangelicals,” “Presbyterian evangelicals,” “Methodist evangelicals,” or even, to judge by some very recent trends, “Roman Catholic evangelicals.” (p. 121)
Evangelicalism is a worldwide transdenominational movement, which is able to coexist within every major denomination of the western church, including the Roman Catholic church. ... Similar developments [to an ecumenical initiative in Italy in the 1520s and 1530s] are now known to be taking place within the Roman Catholic church in the United States, as an increasing number of members find evangelicalism conducive to their spiritual needs, yet do not feel (and are not made to feel) that their espousal of an evangelical spirituality entails abandoning their loyalty to Catholic church structures. (p. 498)
In his description of the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965), he does not point out that it affirms the Council of Trent despite its overtures to Protestants and evangelicals. Instead, he lauds it for introducing “a new vitality into the discussion of the church, partly through its reappropriation of biblical imagery relating to the church” (p. 491). What was omitted from his survey of Vatican II is the following commitment:
This Sacred Council accepts with great devotion this venerable faith of our ancestors regarding this vital fellowship with our brethren who are in heavenly glory or who having died are still being purified; and it proposes again the decrees of the Second Council of Nicea, the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent. (http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html)
The Council of Trent (1545 – 1563), of course, infamously pronounced the following “decrees” now reproposed by Vatican II[1]:
"If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 12)
"If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 24)
"Since the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, following the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, taught in sacred councils and very recently in this ecumenical council that there is a purgatory, and that the souls there detained are aided by the suffrages of the faithful and chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar, the holy council commands the bishops that they strive diligently to the end that the sound doctrine of purgatory, transmitted by the Fathers and sacred councils, be believed and maintained by the faithful of Christ, and be everywhere taught and preached." (Twenty Fifth Session, Degree on Purgatory)
"If anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God; or that to be offered is nothing else than that Christ is given to us to eat, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Canon 1)
"If anyone denies that sacramental confession was instituted by divine law or is necessary to salvation; or says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Catholic Church has always observed from the beginning and still observes, is at variance with the institution and command of Christ and is a human contrivance, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of Penance, Canon 7)
McGrath knows what Trent sets forth and how it is in direct conflict with the reformers’ Bible-based faith (his description cited below), but he does not seem aware that Vatican II upholds it or that this in any way presents an obstacle to ecumenism.
The Council of Trent regarded the reformers’ doctrine of assurance with considerable skepticism. ... While no one should doubt God’s goodness and generosity, the reformers erred seriously when they taught that “nobody is absolved from sins and justified, unless they believe with certainty that they are absolved and justified, and that absolution and justification are effected by this faith alone.” Trent insisted that “nobody can know with a certainty of faith which is not subject to error, whether they have obtained the grace of God.” (p. 463)
Evangelicals should stop being naive but be aware that what Vatican II regards as ecumenism has nothing to do with the cooperation of equals. It has everything to do with the reintegration of us “separated brethren” into the Roman Catholic system:
Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life-that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is “the all-embracing means of salvation,” that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God. (http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html)
The absurdity of the ecumenism takes a further step in its politically correct description of Christian-Hindu dialogue in India:
The continuing exploration of the relationship between Christianity and Hinduism is likely to remain a significant feature of Indian Christian theology for some time. For example, the relationship between the Christian doctrine of incarnation and the Hindu notion of avatar has emerged as a significant debate within Indian theology. At least five ways of approaching this question may be discerned within contemporary Christian thought [a list follows]. (p. 126)
Because of its inability to deal with the plethora of positions presented, the book is not only unhelpful to students of the Bible and the Christian faith; it is downright dangerous in promoting a “neutral,” ecumenical, and even pluralistic mindset. The Bible’s position is far from neutral (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21): “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” A far more useful volume for general theological pursuit, therefore, would be Millard J. Erickson’s Christian Theology.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
Carson, D.A. The Gagging of God. (reviewed on this site)
Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. Baker Book House; 2nd edition (July 1998) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801021820/kjb1611biblevsmo
MacArthur, John. Evangelicals and Catholics Together, The Masters Seminary Journal 6/1 (Spring 1995) http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj6a.pdf
Propadeutic, a discerning study of modern “Christian” icons: http://faith.propadeutic.com/authors/nonevangcont.html