Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Preface

1. Introduction
Questionable Alternatives
The Gender Issue
The Theological Task

2. Theology's Attempt to Define God
Act and Being
Essence and Existence
Essence and Attributes
God and Necessity
Rationalism and Mysticism
Supernaturalism and Naturalism
God's Almightiness in Question

3. The Self-Revealing God
Natural Knowledge of God
God as Elector and Persuader
The Authority of Holy Scripture

4. Transcendence Immanence
Infinity and Spirituality
Immutability and Impassibility
Reinterpretations of Transcendence
Dynamic Transcendence

5. Power Wisdom
Creator and Redeemer
Lord and Ruler
Wisdom
Glory
The Problem of Evil

6. Holiness Love
Two Sides of God
Divine and Human Love
Holiness and Justice
The Call to Holiness

7. The Mystery of the Trinity
The Biblical Basis
Historical Development
Contemporary Reassessments
Restating the Trinity
Trinitarian Spirituality
Appendix A: Modern Forms of Unitarianism
Appendix B: Subordination and Equality

8. The Biblical-Classical Synthesis
The Living God and the Eternal Now
Providence and Fate
Truth as Event and Idea
Revelation and Reason
Agape and Eros
Blessedness and Happiness
Grace and Merit
Sin and Ignorance
Prayer and Contemplation
Justification and Deification
Reconciliation and Reunion
Resurrection and Immortality

9. The Biblical-Modern Synthesis
Authority and Truth
God, Humanity and the World
The New Spirituality
Worldviews in Conflict
God and Futurity
Appendix C: Open-View Theism

Epilogue
Notes
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
Index of Scripture

About the Author

Donald G. Bloesch (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is professor of theology emeritus at Dubuque Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. He has written numerous books, including Essentials of Evangelical Theology, The Future of Evangelical Christianity, The Struggle of Prayer and Freedom for Obedience. He is also a past president of the Midwest Division of the American Theological Society.

Reviews

"I haven't read any theological work as biblically and historically rich, as intellectually satisfying, or as spiritually exhilarating as Bloesch's [early volumes of Christian Foundations] since Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics." -- David Gill in Christianity Today