Abstract
The first chapter of Oliver Crisp’s new collection of essays should be essential reading for any student of theology wanting to understand the current state of the discipline. Crisp begins God, Creation, and Salvation by presenting what he sees as current challenges for systematic theology: the proliferation of theological writing, the ineffability of God, the ‘Balkanization’ of the subject, and its integrity as a discipline. Crisp notes that ‘the state in which contemporary systematic theology finds itself is, as the Americans say, complicated’ (p. 11).
Crisp offers ways through each of these challenges, rightly stressing that ‘tolerance for and charity toward “the other” are surely important intellectual virtues that are relevant at this juncture’ (p. 15). He rejects ersatz approaches to theology that aim ‘at a particular kind of effect rather than truth’ (p. 16). While he is right to caution against approaches that no longer aim at truth, theology which does not also intend to affect the world and the life of the believer will almost certainly not have reached its target.
The remainder of the volume moves beyond systematic theology in general to consider themes and theologians more characteristically Reformed. The second chapter continues Crisp’s exposition of the task of (Reformed) theology by tracing the reception of Calvin. Warning against the conflation of ‘Reformed’ with ‘Calvin’, Crisp sees Calvin’s significance within Reformed theology as ‘a kind of primus inter pares’ (p. 21). He deals sensitively with four key themes in Calvin’s thought: knowledge of God, union with Christ, election, and his eucharistic thought. In each, varieties of interpretation are set out and Crisp charts his own particular course. Such sensitive handling of the spectrum of interpretation is a feature of the work as a whole.
Further chapters trace important debates arising within Reformed theology that are also of relevance to those seeking to undergo the task of theology beyond that tradition: divine sovereignty, freedom and determinism, the nature of original sin, the humanity of Christ, atonement and what all this means to the living of the Christian life. These themes arise as Crisp engages critically with key Reformed figures: Edwards, Zwingli, and the less well-known Girardeau. As such, this book offers the student an important model for engaging in systematic study through close reading of an author’s presentation of ideas, even if, as Crisp admits, ‘readers who are historians may well cringe’ (p. 51) at his attempt to prioritize synthesis over exposition.
This book offers a reminder of how theology is inevitably done from within a particular tradition, requiring deep critical reflection on that tradition as a necessary stage. Crisp observes that ‘theology is always traditioned in some manner: it is always the case that theologians are in conversation with those who have gone before us, whose ideas have helped fashion the edifice of the church in different ways across time’ (p. 39). Crisp’s conversation with his Reformed forebears is fruitful reading for those of any tradition wishing to begin this conversation which is the theological task.