Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 91:362 (Apr 1934)
Article: Some Much Needed Books in Biblical and Theological Literature Part 2
Author: Wilbur M. Smith

BSac 91:362 (Apr 34) p. 191

Some Much Needed Books in Biblical and Theological Literature
Part 2

Wilbur M. Smith

(Continued from the January number)

{Editor’s note: Footnotes in the original printed edition were numbered 35–49, but in this electronic edition are numbered 1–15 respectively.}

VII. Theology

Adolf Harnack himself, in his preface to the first edition of his epochal History of Dogma, said that: “We still want a history of Christian theological ideas in their relation to contemporary philosophy. Above all, we have not got an exact knowledge of the Hellenistic philosophical terminology in its development up to the fourth century.” Professor E. F. Scott remarked, in 1907, that: “The problem of the origin of gnosticism is an exceedingly complicated one, and the deeper investigations which may eventually solve it are still in their initial stages.”1 Dean Inge, in giving his Drew lecture at Memorial Hall, London, in October, 1921, made the statement that one of the greatest needs of the time is a standard book on the Christian doctrine of immortality, a life task for someone who is both a philosopher and an historian.2 In his very interesting and suggestive volume, Can We Dispense with Christianity? Mr. F. W. Butler, sometime ago stated what many other theological writers have expressed from time to time in different ways. “The chief reason for the existing lack of contact between the modern mind and the Christian religion is the failure to state, vindicate, and

BSac 91:362 (Apr 34) p. 192

commend the great heritage of spiritual thought in the Christian view of God and the world. We need to do again for our own generation what in past ages was done by the great Christian thinkers for the generations in which they lived. We need a presentation of the philosophy of Christianity in terms of contemporary knowledge and with reference to the real thought of the age. We need that in great and detailed outline calculated to meet the requirements of systematic thinkers. And we need that in more simple but not less exact terminology for the masses and for the public with just average education.”3

Whether we agree with him or not, Dean Inge has expressed what many others have thought when he states that: “We need a great constructive labor of Christian theology which shall make the faith intelligible and satisfying to those whose education has been of the modern type (i.e. scientific). And may we not look for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to steer us through what must necessarily be a difficult and dangerous strait? It is a work wh...