Customer Reviews

History of Christian Doctrine

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is difficult to write a history of the entire 2000 years of Christian doctrine in one volume, but the authors of this tome have attempted to do this. A great deal of information is packed into just one volume. The cited authors believe that predestination in the early centuries of the church was not fully developed nor appreciated owing to fears that it would give credence to pagan fatalism and to Manicheism. The Roman Catholic belief that the Eucharist is an actual sacrificial representation of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, and that the Communion elements are transformed into the actual Body and Blood of Christ, is portrayed as something that developed gradually in the first few centuries of the church. The "realism" of the church fathers concerning Communion is not taken as something that implies Transubstantiation; something which Roman Catholic scholars would disagree with. Finally, and in this reviewer's opinion, this book gives undue credence to the rationalists and liberal theologians.

Provides an excellent overview of the subject matter: very useful