Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, The [Hardcover]

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1978 | ISBN-10: 0801096456 | ISBN-13: 978-0801096457

The most complete set available of the writings of the Princeton theology professor known for his precise Calvinistic scholarship, keen logic, and spiritual insight.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 5120 pages
• Publisher: Baker Book House (February 1, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801096456
• ISBN-13: 978-0801096457
• Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 13.9 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 16.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,257,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential to Some, Useful to Many, September 2, 2006

By 

David E. Blair (Columbia, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, The (Hardcover)

Disregard the title of this review at your own peril. You should have an advance reason to purchase and read these books. These are not in any sense a casual read. If your tastes run to Calvinist theologians at the turn of the 20th Century, this set of books is indispensible. If your Phd. dissertation was on the response of mainstream Protestantism to early Pentecostalism, you have read Warfield. Fortunately, there is also much here that may be useful to a more general audience. Thanks to Baker House Books this set is back in print again. The Amazon offering is from the 1978 edition of the set. I would not hold my breath for the next reissue. A star is deducted for the sometimes arcahic word and language usage which can be stilted in the extreme. It is obvious that this material was written for Warfield's peers in academia. Keep your dictionary handy.

Assuming a retail price of $60.00 plus shipping how does one justify the purchase? Volume six is devoted to Tertullian and Augustine. This is a magisterial presentation of material on the Trinity from both Church Fathers. The Pelagian controvery and Augustine's responses to it are also presented persuasively and in extended form. The footnotes provide a wealth of prior source material written by past giants in the field whose names and works are now mostly forgotten and difficult to find. For a reader interested in Early Church history and doctrine, this volume alone justifies the purchase. As I am deeply interested in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the Early Chuch, the volume on revelation and inspiration was of interest to me. Warfield is rightly known as the father of "cessationism." That his interests here were more contemporary than historical goes without saying, but it is instructive to watch the past interact with problems in the author's time. The volume on biblical doctrines is forthright and unapologetic in nature.

These writings represents a Christianity triumphant as would be expected considering when they were written. The critical forms of analysis that are the hallmark of current scholarship in the area are here missing. If one is well enough read in the current materials, authors from this era of the past provide an interesting and instructive counterpoint. Along with Schaff, von Harnak, Wellhausen and a myriad of others these writings transport us back in time to a period when Christianity was unquestioned. In many instances, they still provide us with a treasure trove of useful information and scholarship. I would only reccommend these books to serious students of the Early Church, Calvinism, or those with need to understand the historic evolution of Presbytarianism as it responded to the end of the Victorian era. I am sure there are other ways in which these works may be valuable as well. If you find reason to read from these volumes, I am sure that you will be edified.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super, March 21, 2002

By 

B. Hardecker (Red Lion, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, The (Hardcover)

BB Warfield is a classic in the field of Theology, Christology and Criticism. This volume is great but don't be fooled this is not the "complete" works of Warfield at best it is only half. However it is a spectacular set.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ONE OF THE GREAT "PRINCETON THEOLOGIANS", January 14, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, The (Hardcover)

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851-1921) was professor of theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. His collected works (nearly all of which are essays that first appeared in journals such as the Princeton Theological Review, the Harvard Theological Review, the Presbyterian and Reformed Review, as well as encyclopedia articles, etc.) have been gathered here, and arranged thematically by volume. This edition is a recent reprint of the original 1932 edition, but the quality of the print, etc., is excellent. The contents of the ten volumes are as follows:

Vol. I - Revelation and Inspiration (Revelation, Inspiration, Criticism, Canon, the Millennium, etc.)

Vol. II - Biblical Doctrines (Predestination, the Trinity, the Person of Christ, Faith, etc.)

Vol. III - Christology and Criticism (Blasphemy of the Son of Man, Jesus' Alleged Confession of Sin, "Christless Christianity," etc.)

Vol. IV - Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (Tertullian & Trinity; Augustine's Confessions, Pelagian controversy, etc.)

Vol. V - Calvin and Calvinism ("The Man and His Work"; "Calvin's Doctrine of the Creation," etc.)

Vol. VI - The Westminster Assembly and Its Work ("The Making of the Westminster Confession," "The Westminster Doctrine of Holy Scripture," etc.)

Vol. VII - Perfectionism, Part One (Albrecht Ritschl, "Miserable-Sinner Christianity," "Higher Life Movement")

Vol. VIII - Perfectionism, Part Two (Noyes, Thomas Upham, the "Higher Life Movement," etc.)

Vol IX - Studies in Theology ("Christian Supernaturalism," Annihilationism, "Charles Darwin's Religious Life," etc.)

Vol. X - Critical Reviews (more than 50 books, including "Hastings Dictionary of the Bible"; McTaggart's "Some Dogmas of Religion"; Evelyn Underhill's "Mysticism," etc.)

Here are some samples of what you will find therein:

"(T)he Scriptures are a Divine product, without any indication of how God has operated in producing them." (Vol. I)

"With both together before us we perceive (Jesus) alternately speaking out of a Divine and out of a human consciousness; manifesting Himself as all that God is and as all that man is; yet with the most marked unity of consciousness." (Vol. II)

"Christianity was from its beginnings a literary religion, and documentary records of it have come down from the very start." (Vol. III)

"Augustine came into being at the 'turn of the ages'; just as the old world was dying, and the new one was being born." (Vol. IV)

"In Calvinism ... objectively speaking, theism comes to its rights; subjectively speaking, the religious relation attains its purity; soteriologically speaking, evangelical religion finds at length its full expression and its secure stability." (Vol. V)

"There is certainly in the whole mass of confessional literature no more nobly conceived or ably wrought-out statement of doctrine than the chapter 'Of the Holy Scripture,' which the Westminster Divines placed at the head of their Confession." (Vol. VI)

"It has not always been easy through the Protestant ages to maintain in its purity the high attitude of combined shame of self and confidence in the mercy of God in Christ." (Vol. VII)

"It is a mere superstition to imagine that only good books sell well. Are Pastor Russell's books good books? It is in literature as in music where ragtime makes a more popular appeal than Beethoven." (Vol. VIII)

"Christian men are men first and Christians afterwards: and therefore their Christian thinking is superinduced on a basis of world-thinking." (Vol. X)

Warfield wrote at around the turn of the 20th century, of course. So many of the people Warfield strongly criticizes (e.g., Thomas Cogswell Upham) have almost completely disappeared from the current discussion. But on more "timeless" themes (e.g., biblical inspiration, Jesus Christ, Calvinism, etc.) his highly intelligent presentations are still worth our serious study.