“In a time when Christians are increasingly ignorant of our own traditions, McGrath's efforts in his Introduction and this Reader are most welcome. Those who have found his Introduction a significant resource will undoubtedly also want to use his companion set of readings. Its great strength is the breadth of figures and topics treated, and we can hope that students who become acquainted with the riches in these brief selections will want to return to engage the primary sources in their fullness. Such engagements could offer an important sign of hope for Christianity's future.”

L. Gregory Jones, Duke University, North Carolina

“This anthology of extracts from primary sources will prove extremely useful for teaching historical and systematic theology. It is essential that students use primary sources, and a compromise has to be reached between undue expectations and snippets which are too brief to help. In the light of the author's introductions, the quotations are sufficiently substantial to be useful, yet remain within a compass which is realistic for undergraduate or theological college needs. I shall place it high on my book-lists for students.”

Anthony C. Thiselton, University of Nottingham

“The Christian Theology Reader brings the best primary sources to the theological inquirer.”

Gabriel Fackre, Andover Newton Theological School

Also by Alister E. McGrath from Wiley Blackwell

Christian Theology: An Introduction, 6th edition (2016)

Darwinism and the Divine (2011)

Theology: The Basic Readings, 2nd edition (2011)

Theology: The Basics, 3rd edition (2011)

Science and Religion: An Introduction, 2nd edition (2010)

The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology (2008)

Christianity: An Introduction, 2nd edition (2006)

The Order of Things: Explorations in Scientific Theology (2006)

Luther's Theology of the Cross, 2nd edition (2005)

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life (2004)

A Brief History of Heaven (2003)

The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (ed., with Darren C. Marks, 2003)

The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd edition (2003)

The Future of Christianity (2002)

Christian Literature: An Anthology (2000)

Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 3rd edition (2000)

Christian Spirituality: An Introduction (1999)

Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (1998)

The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion (1998)

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought (1995)

A Life of John Calvin (1993)

For a complete list of Alister E. McGrath's publications from Wiley Blackwell, visit our website at http://www1.alistermcgrathwiley.com.

One of the best ways of studying theology is to engage directly with the ideas of leading theologians. This widely used book, now in its fifth edition, aims to give its readers direct access to the key ideas, personalities, and schools of thought within Christian theology by enabling them to read and interact with original theological texts. This new edition includes significant revisions made in consultation with both theological educationalists and student audiences to ensure that the readings included are relevant and relatively easy to grasp. The new collection of readings is theologically engaging, ecumenically comprehensive, and educationally enriching. It is supplemented with a series of video resources, available free of charge through the publisher's website, which will further enhance the learning experience of direct engagement with original theological sources.

This book, now in its third decade of use, had its origins in a course I taught at Drew University, Madison, NJ, in the fall of 1990, while I was serving there as Ezra Squire Tipple Visiting Professor of Historical Theology. How, I wondered, could I get my graduate students to enjoy exploring some themes in sixteenth-century theology – the course that I had been assigned to teach? Eventually, I developed the approach that underlies this book: I would get the students to interact with carefully chosen texts. I would begin each seminar by setting out the background to a text – introducing the author, the context, and the ideas – and then allow students to explore the text interactively, raising questions and making points. It worked well. On my return to Oxford, I continued the process, gradually expanding the range of texts. This collection of readings is the result of that long process of trial and error.

The Reader provides more than 350 readings, drawn from 250 different sources, spread throughout the two thousand years of Christian history, each illustrating a key doctrine, point of view, intellectual development, or theological landmark. It encourages you to engage actively with these texts by providing each of these readings with an introduction, a comment, and study questions that will allow readers to deepen their familiarity with and confidence in the study of Christian theology.

Every attempt has been made to ensure that the work is broadly representative, chronologically and intellectually, of the two thousand years of sustained critical reflection within western Christianity on its leading themes. The readings are drawn from a wide variety of theological genres – works of systematic theology, conciliar pronouncements, confessions of faith, catechisms, sermons, biblical commentaries, poems, hymns, and letters. On rare occasions, readings are drawn from non-Christian sources (such as Karl Marx), where the author or current of thought which they represent has had a significant impact on Christian theological reflection.

This Reader is an introductory text which assumes little prior knowledge on the part of its readers. Within the limits of the space available, every effort has been made to explain the importance of each reading, identify its context and key features, and alert the reader as to what to look out for in reading the text. Many of these readings are taken from classic sources, such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. Yet, despite this focus on classic texts, a substantial proportion of the sources in this Reader date from the past two hundred years, ensuring that classic and modern writings are both fairly and fully represented.

Sadly, there is not space to include all the texts which one might hope to include in a work of this sort. Time and time again, pressure on space has forced me to set to one side texts which many readers will feel ought to have been included, or to give only a brief extract from a text which some will feel merits fuller citation. I apologize for these shortcomings, of which I am only too painfully aware. The omission of any particular theologian must not in any way be understood to imply that this theologian has made an insignificant contribution to the development of Christian theology.

It is the firm intention of the author and publisher to make this volume as useful and as helpful as possible in the long term. The structure of the work has been designed to make inclusion of additional or alternative texts possible in later editions without major disturbance to its existing form. Both the author and publisher are committed to responding to reader evaluation in improving and extending the work in the future. If you have any comments which might be helpful in this ongoing process of revision and improvement of the present edition of this volume or of Christian Theology: An Introduction, you are invited to send them in writing to the publishers.

In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy engaging with this collection of texts!

Alister E. McGrath

Oxford University

Each text in this Reader follows a common structure, as follows.

Each text is identified by a number, which allows cross-reference to texts within this Reader. This number allows the chapter within which the reading occurs, and the location of that reading within the chapter, to be identified. Thus “4.10” (Gregory of Nazianzus on Apollinarianism) refers to the tenth reading within Chapter 4, dealing with the person of Jesus Christ.

This is followed by a concise statement concerning the author and theme of the reading. For example, the title “Thomas Aquinas on the Principle of Analogy” (1.10) allows the reader to identify both the author of the piece and its broad theme. The readings have been grouped thematically over ten chapters, and are arranged chronologically within chapters. Augustine's views on the church are thus found before those of Aquinas. Note that a reading allocated to one chapter may well prove to be of relevance in other contexts.

This is followed by an introduction to each reading, which provides background information to the text and allows its importance to be appreciated. In most cases, the introduction will be brief, offering some information about the writer and the text; in others, a more extended introduction is required to ensure that the full significance of the text in question is understood. The introduction may draw attention to matters such as the date of writing of the text, its original language, information concerning technical terms, other writers referred to in the text, or points of possible difficulty. A glossary of significant theological terms is also provided at the end of the work. The introduction ends by referring the reader to other related texts of interest within the Reader, where this seems appropriate.

The text itself then follows, translated into English where necessary. Extended texts have occasionally been abridged, to allow the exclusion of material which was judged not to be of critical importance to the point under discussion. The exclusion of material is indicated in the standard manner, using ellipsis as follows: [...]. Where the original text is not in English and the reader might benefit from knowing, for example, the original Latin term or phrase being translated, this term will be included in italic type in square brackets. Those readers who do not need to know the original terms can safely ignore them.

The text is followed by a comment, which is intended to help the reader appreciate the importance of the text, to draw attention to some of its specific features, and to explain any points of particular difficulty.

A series of questions for study then follows, designed to help the reader engage with the text. These ensure that the text has been properly understood and that its significance has been appreciated.

The chapter in which the text is located concludes with a list of helpful works for further reading, allowing you to take the topic further if you wish to.

The source of the text is identified in a later section of the work, for the benefit of readers who wish to study the text in its original context or language, or, where material has been omitted, who wish to examine the passage intact.

This book has been written primarily with the needs of two groups of people in mind: those who are studying it by themselves, and those who are being taught it as part of a seminary, college, or university course.

The basic idea behind this book is to make your task as a teacher as rewarding and as stimulating as possible, by setting before students a wide variety of interesting texts along with campus-tested explanatory material. The book is designed to save you trouble and effort, and allow you to do some creative and exciting things with your students and the texts, rather than having to spend endless hours of classroom time on very basic explanations and comments.

This collection of readings is intended to be as useful as possible to teachers of theology at every level. You will find the following information useful in helping your students get the most out of the texts.

1. 1 This is a collection of readings in Christian theology which does not advocate any denominational or ideological agenda, other than enabling students to learn how to engage with theological texts and gain the maximum benefit from that engagement. The texts have been selected to give continuous and comprehensive coverage of the major theological debates and developments of the past two thousand years of Christian history. Some 250 different sources have been used. In preparing for the fifth edition of this work, extensive research was undertaken with student readers to identify which texts were likely to be most useful to those studying courses in Christian theology, and what additional resources would be helpful to students as they engaged with these texts. Modifications to the text of the fourth edition reflect this process of consultation.
2. 2 The contents of this book can be mastered without the need for any input on your part. Every explanation which this book offers has been classroom-tested on student audiences, and refined until students reported that they could understand the points being made without the need for further assistance. If you set students the assignment of reading a collection of named texts, you can realistically expect them to have grasped their basic features and themes before you begin to take them further and deeper.
3. 3 A new feature of this edition is the provision of video resources (see p. xxiii), written and recorded on location in Oxford University especially for this work. These introduce the book and its structure, and will help students get much more out of engaging with its themes. These resources are available directly through the publisher's website and through YouTube and Vimeo, free of charge and without any copyright restrictions. You are free to use them in your teaching if you wish; there is no need to seek permission from either the author or the publisher.
4. 4 The book aims to encourage students to interact with the original texts of Christian theology. Most teachers report that students find themselves intimidated by this interaction, partly because they are worried that they will not be able to make sense of what they read. This work aims to build student confidence by offering several layers of assistance, all of which have been tested on student audiences – and modified where necessary – to make sure that they work. This new edition includes significant additional pedagogical material to help students study on their own, including dedicated video resources (see above).
5. 5 This is not a collection of texts aimed at church historians. There are many documents – such as the Toleration Edict of Galerius (April 311) – which despite their historical importance have limited theological relevance. The texts have been chosen on the basis of the known needs of those studying Christian theology at seminary, college, or university level. Church history is a separate discipline, requiring its own collections of texts, many of which are currently available to interested readers elsewhere. Nor is this book a specialist reader, focusing on one historical period, a specific writer or theological school, or a geographical region. The work is intended to act as a general introduction to the great tradition of doing theology within a Christian context, in order to encourage its readers to take matters further for themselves. Nor is it a “hall of fame,” designed to acknowledge and honor theological luminaries. It is, first and foremost, an educational resource, using representative texts to allow readers to deepen the quality of their grasp of Christian theology.
6. 6 Each of the approximately 350 readings is provided with an introduction, a comment, and a set of questions for study. These have been written as clearly as possible, and students should find that they have been given enough assistance to be able to approach a text with confidence and make sense of what they read. You may find it helpful to read the preceding section entitled “To the Student: How to Use This Book,” which will give you an idea of how students are being encouraged to approach these texts.
7. 7 The work is theologically neutral; it does not advocate any denominational agenda. Thus the work will help your students understand Barth (or Aquinas or Augustine or Luther), but it will not ask them to agree with Barth (or Aquinas or Augustine or Luther). The book aims to put you, the teacher, in the position of interacting with the classic resources of the Christian tradition, on the basis of the assumption that your students, through reading and reflecting on the texts contained in this book, will have a good basic understanding of the issues and have had the experience of engaging directly with the original texts, rather than reading about them at second hand.
8. 8 Although this work is ideally suited as a companion volume to Christian Theology: An Introduction, which is now in its sixth edition, it can be used on its own, or as a companion to other introductions to Christian theology.
9. 9 There is a website linked to this text and its companion volume, Christian Theology: An Introduction. It is the intention of both the author and the publisher to use this site to provide updated bibliographies, additional teaching materials, and other material which it is hoped will be of use to all those teaching theology. A useful list of relevant reading material, much published in the past 15 years, is provided at the end of each chapter, and a list of additional readers is to be found at the end of the work. It is intended that the website will provide an expanded and continually updated collection of materials of use to both teachers and students.