Ever used the phrase “Already / Not Yet” to describe the timing of God’s kingdom? If so, you’re indebted to George Eldon Ladd, longtime professor at Fuller Seminary and one of the most influential evangelical scholars of the 1900′s.

Ladd broke through the sterile debates about whether the kingdom of God was a present, spiritual reality or a future, earthly reality. He popularized a view of the kingdom as having two dimensions: “already/not yet.” Ladd was also one of the first solid evangelical scholars to go outside the fundamentalist camp in order to interact with liberal scholars in the academy, men like Rudolph Bultmann.

For a biographical overview of Ladd’s life and work, I suggest A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America. See my review of this book here:

A Place at the Table is much more than a biographical sketch of Ladd’s life. D’Elia cautiously enters into the theological discussion he describes in order to spotlight Ladd’s contributions to evangelical scholarship and his interactions with scholars from outside the evangelical world. Those who read D’Elia’s book will receive an education, not merely regarding the historical aspects of Ladd’s interesting life, but also regarding the theological debates of the time.

I’ve also interviewed Ladd’s biographer, John D’Elia, about his work and his legacy:

Ladd’s legacy within evangelical scholarship is hard to overstate. I argue in the book that he carved out a place for evangelicals in what was then the threatening and bewildering world of critical biblical scholarship. By demystifying the methods of critical scholarship, Ladd made them available to evangelicals who wanted to use them in their study of the Scriptures. Historic premillennialism, then, is really an incidental part of Ladd’s story. The real achievement in Ladd’s career can be found in the wide range of biblical scholars who sat at his feet and then went on to make their own mark. Those scholars are as diverse as John Piper and Robert Mounce on the
one side, and Eldon Epp and Charles Carlston on the other.

If you’re going to start reading Ladd, let me suggest his book, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God. Check out my review here:

The Gospel of the Kingdom is illuminating, clarifying and (thankfully) brief. It is amazing that Ladd manages to fit all of this great theological teaching into 140 pages.

There is a reason this book is still in print. It is unmatched in its clarification of what the kingdom of God is, and how the kingdom of God can be already present but not yet here in its fullness.

I’ll close this post with Ladd himself. Here are two ways Ladd defined “the gospel,” one personal and the other in light of God’s kingdom:

“I can only bear witness at this point to what Heilsgeschichte means to me. My sense of God’s love and acceptance is grounded not only in the resurrected Christ but also in the Jesus of history. He taught something about God that was utterly novel to his Jewish auditors: that God is not only gracious and forgiving to the repentant sinner but is also a seeking God who, in Jesus’ person and mission, has come to seek and to save the lost…

God has shown me that he loves me in that while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me (Rom. 5:8). This is not faith in history; it is not faith in the kerygma; it is not faith in the Bible. It is faith in God who has revealed himself to me in the historical event of the person, works and words of Jesus of Nazareth who continues to speak to me though the prophetic word of the Bible.”

- George Eldon Ladd, “The Search for Perspective,” Interpretation 25 (Jan. 1971), 56 and 57.

“This is the good news about the kingdom of God. How men need this gospel! Everywhere one goes he finds the gaping graves swallowing up the dying. Tears of loss, of separation, of final departure stain every face. Every table sooner or later has an empty chair, every fireside its vacant place. Death is the great leveller. Wealth or poverty, fame or oblivion, power or futility, success or failure, race, creed or culture — all our human distinctions mean nothing before the ultimate irresistible sweep of the scythe of death which cuts us all down. And whether the mausoleum is a fabulous Taj Mahal, a massive pyramid, an unmarked spot of ragged grass or the unplotted depths of the sea one fact stands: death reigns.

“Apart from the gospel of the kingdom, death is the mighty conqueror before whom we are all helpless. We can only beat our fists in utter futility against this unyielding and unresponding tomb. But the good news is this: death has been defeated; our conqueror has been conquered. In the face of the power of the kingdom of God in Christ, death was helpless. It could not hold him, death has been defeated; life and immortality have been brought to life. An empty tomb in Jerusalem is proof of it. This is the gospel of the kingdom.”

- from The Gospel of the Kingdom

Over at Desiring God, I have contributed an article called, “What Do We Do With Our Slavery-Affirming Theological Heroes?”

When I read the works of men like James P. Boyce and Jonathan Edwards, I am amazed at the depth of their biblical knowledge and the keenness of their personal application. At the same time, I am astounded that these theological giants could justify the owning of slaves, support slavery as a system, and conform to the racial prejudice common in their day.

John Piper is right: “One of the central cadences of the gospel walk is the breaking down of ethnic hostilities and suspicions, and the impulse of unity and harmony” (Bloodlines, 175). So how is it possible to believe the gospel and articulate so clearly the doctrine of justification by faith alone, yet miss how this doctrine severs the root of racism and ethnocentrism forever? Even more, how can one’s life be so out of step with one’s theology? Here are some things to keep in mind as we seek to learn from the good and the bad we see in our fathers in the faith.

Continue reading…

Today I have the privilege of interviewing Gerald McDermott, professor of religion and philosophy at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. His new book is The Great Theologians: A Brief Guide (see my review here). He is also the author of Seeing God: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Discernment and God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? Insights from the Bible and the Early Church.

Trevin Wax: Your new book profiles eleven theologians throughout Christian history. Why are these theologians (many who lived more than a thousand years ago) relevant to the Christian today?

Gerald McDermott: Let me try to answer that question with an illustration.

Suppose you know there is a great woman of God in your church who has read the Bible and theology for forty years. She not only has deep knowledge of Scripture and how to interpret it for life and culture, but she also walks a holy life. People often remark on her humility and love.

What if you were to take the attitude, “I’m going to construct my own theology (which, remember, is your view of God) on my own, simply reading the Bible and theology books by myself.”

Wouldn’t that be odd, when you have a godly theologian in your midst? In fact, doesn’t this seem to illustrate sinful pride? It calls to mind the warning of Proverbs: “Fools despise wisdom and instruction” (1:7b).

To ignore the great and godly minds of the church who have been ruminating on God for thousands of years—when now we have them at our fingertips through books and even the Internet—seems to be a kind of arrogance and presumption. It ignores the biblical reminder that there is wisdom in “the multitude of counselors” (Prov 11:14).

It also forgets another biblical observation that learning from other godly minds and comparing our thoughts with theirs is like “iron sharpening iron” (Prov 27:17), making our thinking about God sharper and clearer. The result will be deeper knowledge of God, which Jesus said is “eternal life” (John 17:3).

Trevin Wax: Why did you choose these particular theologians?

Gerald McDermott: Generally, these are the eleven whom I consider to have had the most influence on the history of Christian thought.

• Origen’s way of reading shaped Bible interpretation for the next 1500 years.
• Athanasius saved the church from degenerating into a little sect of Greek philosophy.
• Augustine was perhaps the most influential of all theologians—East or West—teaching us all, for instance, the meaning of grace.
• Thomas Aquinas was declared by the Catholic Church to be its foremost Doctor (teacher), and showed us all how faith relates to reason and the meaning of “sacrament.”
• Luther’s efforts to reform the Catholic Church were the principal stimulus to the rise of Protestantism.
• Calvin was the first and greatest teacher of that second great Protestant tradition, the Reformed movement.
• Edwards was the greatest religious thinker to grace the American continent and also the premier Christian thinker about how God relates to beauty.
• Friedrich Schleiermacher was the father of liberal theology.
• John Henry Newman was the great reformer of the Church of England who famously became a Catholic and showed us how doctrine develops through time.
• Barth was the most influential of all 20th-century theologians.
• Von Balthasar, a contemporary of Barth, is fast becoming the most important Catholic theologian for this new century.

Trevin Wax: I’m curious as to the reasoning behind some of your picks, particularly John Henry Newman and Hans Urs von Balthasar, when I would probably have put the Basil the Great or Irenaeus first.

Gerald McDermott: Basil and Irenaeus are both great minds and had enormous influence on our thinking. But, as I say in the Introduction to the book, I wanted to keep the list to ten or so, and I wanted to limit myself to those with the greatest influence.

Balthasar is a rising star in Catholic theology, and is becoming the most influential among Catholic 20th-century thinkers. Newman is a personal favorite, not only because he was Anglican (as I am) but also because of his journey from evangelicalism to high church. I also find that I never cease to learn from him, unlike so many others who seem to repeat what has already been said.

Trevin Wax: How do we learn from the strengths of each of these theologians while avoiding their weaknesses?

Gerald McDermott: By reading more than just one or two. This is the glory of the Great Tradition. By reading it over the centuries, and not limiting ourselves to one or two thinkers, or one or two periods (such as today and the Reformation), our knowledge and wisdom become more balanced. We see the weaknesses of one period by comparing with other periods.

Trevin Wax: Of the eleven you picked, which one is your personal favorite?

Gerald McDermott: Edwards.

Trevin Wax: Why?

Gerald McDermott: I have spent the better part of my scholarly life reading and writing about him (I am writing my 5th book devoted to his corpus). Better than anyone in America and perhaps ever, he combined keenness of intellect with passion for God.

Trevin Wax: One of the messages that comes through very clearly in your book is that theology has consequences, both positive and negative. Each of these great theologians had their weaknesses. What are some of the unfortunate consequences from their weaknesses?

Gerald McDermott: Well, I’ll start with Edwards, who opposed the slave trade yet had slaves himself. He reminds us that no theologian gets it all right. While his own son and top disciple (Samuel Hopkins) were leaders in the abolitionist movement, he himself couldn’t quite see it.

Then there were major negative influencers such as Schleiermacher. I include him, the father of liberal theology, because orthodox Christians need to learn what to watch out for. He is a lesson in how not to do theology.

Trevin Wax: How can we be good theologians?

Gerald McDermott: By being steeped in the Great Tradition. We need to be humble, and learn from the great minds and hearts that have spent thousands of years (collectively) meditating on God’s Word, listening to God’s voice, and learning from one another. If we proudly think we can do it on our own, or simply with the latest books by contemporary writers, we will inevitably go astray.

This week, I devoted one post each day to the Top 5 Most Important Theologians in Christian history. Here are the five I considered to have been most influential:

Athanasius of Alexandria

Augustine of Hippo

Thomas Aquinas

John Calvin

Karl Barth

What follows is a list of honorable mentions: theologians who impacted Christian theology in important ways, but who (usually for a few good reasons) do not make the Top 5 List.

Irenaeus – for his apologetic defense of historic Christianity in the face of Gnosticism. He also popularized the recapitulation theory of the atonement

Anselm of Canterbury – founder of scholasticism. Formulated the ontological argument for God’s existence.

Martin Luther - for his instrumental role in the Reformation. He was definitely a theologian in his own right, although I see him more as a revolutionary than a theologian. Calvin is the one who took the Reformation insights and systematized them and therefore becomes more influential as a theologian.

Friedrich Schleiermacher & Adolf von Harnack - Schleiermacher made the subjective experience of the believer (specifically the feeling of total dependency) the center of theology and thus became the “Father of Liberalism.” Together with the later work of Adolph von Harnack, these two packed quite a punch. The reverberations continue to echo throughout Christian theology.

John Wesley - an important leader of a renewal movement within Anglicanism which eventually became Methodism and the Holiness churches. While probably deserving a place in the Top Ten or Fifteen, I don’t believe Wesley’s theological contributions earn him a Top 5 ranking.

Jonathan Edwards – If I were making a list of the Top 5 Most Important American Theologians, then Edwards would probably be #1. A fine preacher and interpreter of Puritan theology, Edwards’ legacy cast a long shadow over American evangelicalism.

C.S. Lewis – I don’t consider him to be primarily a theologian. He was a terrific apologist, and he ably articulated the essentials of the Christian faith. But one can hardly speak of a “Lewisian” school of theology that has grown up because of his contributions.

Who else do you think of? Did I get these right or wrong?

KARL BARTH

Dates Lived: 1886-1968

Most important works:

• The Epistle to the Romans (1922)
• Church Dogmatics (1968)

Biggest Contributions:

• Sought to recover the doctrine of the Trinity, which had been practically abandoned by radical liberalism
• Believed the Bible was a witness to the Word of God (Jesus)
• Viewed doctrine of election and predestination as centered upon Christ
• Stressed the paradoxical nature of divine truth

Favorite Quotes

“God is not an abstract category by which even the Christian understanding of the word can be measured, but he who is called God is the one God, the single God, the sole God.”

“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”

“Belief cannot argue with unbelief, it can only preach to it.”

“The best theology would need no advocates: it would prove itself.”

“No one can be saved – in virtue of what he can do. Everyone can be saved – in virtue of what God can do.”

“Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is Himself the way.

Once a young student asked Barth if he could sum up what was most important about his life’s work and theology in just a few words. Barth just thought for a moment and then smiled,

“Yes, in the words of a song my mother used to sing me, ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’”

“If I have done anything in this life of mine, I have done it as a relative of hte donkey that went its way carrying an important burden. The disciples had said to its owner: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ And so it seems to have pleased God to have used me at this time… I was permitted to be the donkey that carried this better theology for part of the way, or tried to carry it as best I could.”

JOHN CALVIN

Dates Lived: 1509-1564

Most important work:

• Institutes of the Christian Religion (1560)

Biggest Contributions:

• Emphasized the penal substitutionary view of the atonement
• Overarching commitment to the Augustinian notion of the sovereignty of God in salvation
• Taught that Scripture must interpret Scripture
• Used the concept of the Covenant as the organizing principle for Christian theology

Favorite Quotes

Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

God cannot be comprehended by us, except as far as he accomodates himself to our standard.

It was Christ’s task to swallow up death. Who but Life could do this? It was his task to conquer sin. Who but very Righteousness could do this? It was his task to rout the powers of the world and air. Who but a power higher than the world and air could do this? Therefore, our most merciful God, when he willed that we be redeemed, made himself our Redeemer in the person of his only begotten Son.

Every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, a master craftsman of idols.

It is better that I should leave untouched what I cannot explain.

Keep hold of both of these points: our prayers are anticipated by God in his freedom, yet, what we ask we gain by prayer.

When the gospel is preached in the name of God, it is as if God himself spoke in person.

God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us – as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.

True religion and worship of God arise out of faith, so that no one duly serves God save him who has been educated in his school.

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.

THOMAS AQUINAS

Dates Lived: 1225-1274

Most important works:

• Summa Theologica (1274)
• Summa Contra Gentiles (1264)

Biggest Contributions:

• Believed that a combination of Faith and Reason led to true knowledge of God
• Sought rational proofs for the existence of God
• Greatly influenced the Catholic notions of mortal and venial sins
• Popularized the rising view of the Lord’s Supper known as “transubstantiation”
• Apologist for Christianity in a time in which Islam was increasing rapidly

Favorite Quotes

“All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.”

“The sole way to overcome an adversary of divine truth is from the authority of Scripture.”

“Reason contains certain likenesses of what belongs to faith, and certain preambles to it, as nature is a preamble to grace.”

“In God there is pure truth, with which no falsity or deception can be mingled.”

“If the only way open to us for the knowledge of God were solely that of reason, the human race would remain in the blackest shadows of ignorance.”

“Knowledge must be through faith.”

“All the good that is in a man is due to God.”

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

Dates Lived: 354-430

Most important works:

• Confessions (398)
• On the Trinity (416)
• On Christian Doctrine (426)
• The City of God (426)

Biggest Contributions:

• Articulated the doctrine of original sin and God’s grace through divine predestination over against Pelagius’ emphasis on free will and innate human goodness
• Proposed a distinction between the “church visible” and the “church invisible”
• Popularized the amillennial view of the End Times, which has become the most dominant throughout church history
• Wrote about the relationship between church and state; he was the first to advocate the idea of a “just war”
• Developed a sacramental theology that would form the foundation of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church

Favorite Quotes

“You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” (Confessions I, i, 1)

“Give what You command, and command what You will.” (Confessions X, xxix, 40)

“Man’s maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.” – (Sermons 191.1)

“Excess is the enemy of God.”

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”

“To sing once is to pray twice.”

“Love God, and do whatever you please.” Sermon on 1 John 7, 8

“Works not rooted in God are splendid sins.”

Related Posts:
A Look at Augustine’s Confessions
Augustine: The Early Years
Augustine’s Fruitless Pursuit
Augustine’s Conversion
Augustine: Let Me Know You

ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA

Dates Lived: 298-373

Most important works:

• On the Incarnation (317)
• The Nicene Creed (325)

Biggest Contributions:

• Untiring advocate for Trinitarian theology against Arianism. In fact, much of the way we think about the Trinity goes back to his efforts.
• A biography of Anthony the Great that inspired the monastic movement
• First to identify the 27 books currently in our New Testament
• Main author of the Nicene Creed, unarguably the most important creed in Christian history.

Favorite Quotes

“The Jesus whom I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God.”

“The Son of God became man so that men might become sons of God.”

“You cannot put straight in others what is warped in yourself.”

“[We believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come again to judge the living and the dead…” - from the 325 version of The Nicene Creed

Who are the most important, most influential theologians in Christian history?  If you had to narrow down your list to five, who would you choose?

After having discussed this question with several seminary students, professors and theologians, I have chosen the five theologians who I believe have left the most lasting influence on Christian theology and practice.

Beginning on Monday of next week, we’ll look at one theologian a day. I’ll provide a brief biographical sketch, some major contributions to Christian theology, and then some of my favorite quotes.

But until Monday, let’s open up the lines of discussion. Which five would you pick? And why?