
Wow! What a book! It was fascinating, enlightening, challenging, and it taught me. I must admit there were times I struggled. There were times I had to lay it aside and come back later. A few times I wondered if I were too dense and were in over my head. But I kept coming back and I am so glad did.
Where I kept running into problems was when I needed a bit more philosophy background than I had. If that describes you, do as I did and persevere. He’s going somewhere and will get back to the more comfortable surroundings of theology soon enough. If you will hang on, he will show that we have had a bit too much Greek influence on our theology and that has put us in scriptural quandaries. I was convinced.
Before I say more, I must admit Leithart is a brilliant writer. I do feel he pitched this volume to professional theologians (untranslated words are a dead giveaway). I wish he had veered toward about 20% more popular in writing style (I mean, how many professional theologians are there?), but the denseness was worth it still. I’ve read some of his more popular works and he is great whether you agree or not. He has original thinking in his works and he is profoundly and pleasingly provocative.
I’m not going to rehash the book here. Just experience it. For me, he tweaked my thinking on some of the attributes, particularly accommodation. Further, he opened my eyes to how crucial the idea of Creator is and made me understand my God even more. Finally, he blew me away in his discussion of time.
I tend to be a bit liberal with praise in my book reviews, but there’s no grading on a curve here. This is a great one.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.