A Cloud of Witnesses , Ten Great Christian Thinkers by Alister McGrath IVP 1990.

 

There are at least three ways of approaching a body of knowledge; discover it yourself, read about it or read the biographies of those who did the finding. In Geography you can travel, read a text or the life of Humbodlt. In Chemistry text books abound,  or you may read the life of Sir Humphrey Davy, or ,subject to health and safety, you can experiment in your garden shed. We are all theologians for life is the laboratory of theology.  The book I am recommending represents the biographical approach to knowledge.  As I read this book I began to appreciate some old well known doctrines in a new and vital way. That which we take for granted was hammered out in the lives and thinking of these theologians.

I had read of the battle of Athanasius over the divinity of Christ. It is still being fought today. He summed it up in this reasoning" Only God can save, Jesus saves,  therefore Jesus is God. "  The grace of God has been precious to me for decades, but reading of Augustine's struggle brought it home to me with special vigour.  Reading about the controversial Karl Barth has made me appreciate the spiritual significance of Scripture and the awesome significance of preaching. Who would have guessed that my yearning for the other was given such significance by the eloquence of C.S. Lewis. There are others; Aquinas, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. There are so many discoveries to make and old truths to rediscover.