Customer Reviews

Great Christian Thinkers: Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, Barth

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This book is a shortened, more accessible version of Kung's mammoth work "Christianity: Essence, History, and Future." Kung highlights the careers of 7 Christian theologians: Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth. I agree with Feltz's comment that the book gives a skewed portrayal of Barth's theology, and does not go into any real depth on any of them. However, one must remember that it is not his aim to give an exhaustive overview of their theologies. He is attempting to present these 7 thinkers as the initiators of new paradigms in church history. Therefore, Kung only emphasizes those aspects of their life and thought that represents this. Kung's analysis of the theological ideas that have moved Church History is first rate. As always, he is intellectually honest and responsible...never dogmatic or reactionary. In the end, he admits that all theologians (including himself) must be judged by their adherence to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and for this positive Christian witness, I salute him!

Few theologians have the great, magisterial grasp of history or theology that Kung evidences here. He summarizes fairly the theology - shortcomings and strong points - of 7 major figures in Christian theology. At all times, his mastery of their works and his critical mind are strongly on display. Given what is communicated, it is an economically written book as well. These essays are like listening to the riveting lectures of a first-class teacher, and I think that is the mode Kung is in here, teaching. He does not expect to be the final word - it is clearly a short but comprehensive introduction - one can find more in depth treatments of each of his subjects. But for the space and time invested, the payoff for the small effort to read this book is great, and any reader will come away better educated, more insightful, and perhaps even inspired.

In this work by Mr. Kung attempts to give an overview of the history of Christian thought. As is the case with any overview, it tends to lack depth due to the immense scope of the project, so it seems one cannot really fault him on that account. But near the end of the book, Kung seems to get too attached to that last figure, Barth. In his discussion of Barth, Kung takes too much liberty with his own personal convictions about Barth, and seems to skew the portrayal. This is not the case in the earlier discussions of Origen through Luther. One can see the onset of this personalization in the discussion of Schleiermacher. Overall I would rate this an adequate overview, especially the discussions of the earlier figures in which Kung does make some interesting comments.

I haven't read Kung before and after reading from his discourse on Paul that "[Paul] did not commend a hierarchal structure to his communites or build them up...."and how that conflicted with his later statements that Paul was not afraid to use HIS authority to "threaten and curse and [for] exclusion, and how that ignores Paul's directives (1 Tim 3:1 8,5:17 and Titus 5:1), I became leery of his approach. Further contradiction in Augustine, where Kung writes that for Augustine the "one true Church...[was] ever expanding and absorbing the world, endowed with sacraments and led by orthodox bishops..." This seems to again contradict his statement about Paul. It was then that I decided to read a biography on Kung and realized that his liberal, un-orthodox, theology would probably permeate the rest of the book and it did. This was exemplified in his inclusion and discussion on Barth who Kung himself shows was somewhere between the Scholasticism of the Catholic Church and the Neo-protentatism of Schleirmacher. Hardly worth including in book with Paul, Augustine and Aquinas. On a psoitive note, I did enjoy the discussion on Schleiermacher, of whom I was unfamiliar.