The Transforming Power of Grace

Rating:
Summary: Grace- it's not just for Calvinists anymore! ;- )
Review: OK, you've hear the historical "spins". Pelagius was condemmed by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Supposedly (accodring to argumentative rhetoric) nothing less that full-on, five-point Calvinism might as well be Pelagianism.

Perhaps what is needed is not so much a well-crafted argument against certain thological notions, but a simple revisiting of the background that got us to where we are at? Far more than what happened with Pelagius must be considered, in terms of how these things were addressed by the Church in all phases of history.

Thomas Oden has been very honest and perceptive about both scripture and the history of the Church's interpretation of these issuses. In this book, he surveys the Biblical concept of Grace as it has been seen throughout Church history, discusses points of controversy such as that of Pelagius/Augustine, brings out some aspects of this not as considered, and draws a good cross-denominational "consensus theology" on how the Grace of God works in people's lives. He also goes a long way in vidicating his own Wesleyan/Arminian perspective in this light. Oden is a scholar of first rank- easily on a par with Sproul, Packer, etc. and very engaging reading. Read it, and be enlightened of the arguments you are often presented with.

Rating:
Summary: A careful examination of the doctrine of grace
Review: Thomas Oden, author of a three-volume systematic theology, here focuses on a careful examination of the doctrine of grace. Once again, he follows the method of presenting what he understands to be the ecumenical consensus of the church as particularly expressed in Scripture, the patristic writers, the medieval consensus, and classical Reformation theology. While he introduces this study as a contribution to Christian spiritual development, he is quite clear that it is not the experience of grace with which he is concerned but the description of God's grace in its manifold forms as presented in classical theology.

The reader is presented with the classical categories in the discussion of grace. It often seems that one is getting the Summa Theologica digested and without the objections and answers. Only on the issues of grace and freedom (Pelagius) and election (Arminius) is there extended discussion and the recognition of serious division in the "consensual tradition." There is little effort to relate to contempo­rary theological discussions or to issues about grace in the life of the Christian. In the effort to avoid the individualism and narcissism of contemporary religious life, Oden stresses the covenant character of grace and in a remarkable way relates "call" (klesis) to the community (ekklesia).

The book is a useful comprehensive summary of the classical teaching about grace as God's objective work, and, for study groups, it might provide an interesting basis for discussion involving a more contemporary and experiential exploration of the life of faith as the reception of grace.

C. Benton Kline
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, GA.