Abstract
If there is a universal human experience, it is brokenness. Long before the Christian tradition codified this brokenness into doctrine—before Paul, Augustine, or Calvin—the Preacher mused: ‘Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.’ The Preacher knew that sin is a deep mystery. We each have felt it, known its effects intimately, but what is sin? These diverse essays comprise an illuminating investigation into that question, searching the biblical roots of the vocabulary of sin, the doctrine’s historical development, and its dogmatic implications.
The book is organised into three parts: Biblical Background (Part I), Historical Figures (Part II), and Dogmatic Issues (Part III). Part I exposits of the manifold metaphors with which the biblical writers sought to capture the destructive diversity of sin. In treating the literature of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, along with an interesting detour into classical rabbinical views, this section acquaints the reader with scriptural framework within which later theologians developed explicit hamartiologies (Part II). The second section begins with important thinkers of the patristic age (Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Augustine), makes a brief stop in the Middle Ages (Aquinas), before moving through the Reformers into the modern period. With the (mainly Protestant) history of the doctrine in view, Part III considers its role in contemporary dogmatics, showing that Christian theology is only viable when it attends seriously to the reality of sin.
The volume’s only real sins, so to speak, are sins of omission. While the collection addresses many key modern figures—Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, and Barth—there are gaps. With the exception of Aquinas, for instance, there is a conspicuous absence of Catholic writers. It is also surprising that there was not a chapter devoted to Reinhold Niebuhr, who explicitly put sin at the centre of his ethical programme in an age when the doctrine was unpopular. Nevertheless, these peccadillos do not diminish the accomplishments of this valuable book, which is a lucid venture into a difficult topic. This volume will serve as an excellent reference work not only for scholars, but for clergy as well.