New Dictionary of Theology Historical and Systematic

2^nd edition. London, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016. – 1016 p.

ISBN 978-0-8308-7962-5 (digital)

ISBN 978-0-8308-2455-7 (print)

 

This classic one-volume reference work has been appreciated for decades. It is now substantially expanded and revised to focus on a variety of theological themes, thinkers and movements. From African Christian Theology to Zionism, this volume of historical and systematic theology offers a wealth of information and insight for students, pastors and all thoughtful Christians. Over half of the more than eight hundred articles are new or rewritten with hundreds more thoroughly revised. Fully one-third larger than its predecessor, this volume focusing on systematic and historical theology has added entries and material on theological writers and themes in North America and around the world. Helpful bibliographies have also been updated throughout. Over three hundred contributors form an international team of renowned scholars including Marcella Altaus-Reid, Richard Bauckham, David Bebbington, Kwame Bediako, Todd Billings, Oliver Crisp, Samuel Escobar, John Goldingay, Tremper Longman III, John McGuckin, Jennifer McNutt, Michael J. Nasir-Ali, Bradley Nassif, Mark Noll, Anthony Thiselton, John Webster and N. T. Wright. This new edition combines excellence in scholarship with a high standard of clarity and profound insight into current theological issues. Yet it avoids being unduly technical. Now an even more indispensable reference, this volume is a valuable primer and introduction to the grand spectrum of theology.

 

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Barclay, William (1907–78)

 

A Scottish biblical scholar, Barclay was born in Wick, and educated at Glasgow and Marburg. He ministered on industrial Clydeside before his appointment in 1947 as lecturer in New Testament (professor from 1964) at Glasgow University. He combined classical scholarship with an ability to communicate with all classes, whether in shipyard, lecture room, print, or through television. His Daily Study Bible (NT) series sold some 1.5 million copies, was translated into numerous languages including Burmese and Estonian, and brought him a further ministry through correspondence worldwide. Theologically, he called himself a ‘*liberal evangelical’. He claimed to be the only member of his divinity faculty who believed Matthew, Luke and John wrote the Gospels attributed to them. Nonetheless, he was a *universalist, reticent about the inspiration of *Scripture, critical of the doctrine of substitutionary *atonement, and given to views about the *virgin birth and *miracles which conservatives would find either heretical or imprecise. He once described *Bultmann as the most evangelical preacher he had ever heard, because all his writings aimed at confronting the individual with Christ. In the context of marked decline in Church of Scotland membership, he deplored the virtual disappearance of *church discipline and suggested a two-tier category of membership: those ‘deeply attracted to Jesus Christ’, and those prepared to make total commitment.

 

Bibliography

Selected works: Testament of Faith (London, 1975), also published as A Spiritual Autobiography (Grand Rapids, 1975).

 

Studies: R. D. Kernohan (ed.), William Barclay: The Plain Uncommon Man (London, 1980); J. Martin, William Barclay (Edinburgh, 1984); C. L. Rawlins, William Barclay: The Authorized Biography (London, 1998).

 

J. D. Douglas

 

 

Gregory of Rimini (c. 1300–58)

 

Gregory was born at Rimini in Italy. Having become an Augustinian friar, he proceeded to study and then to lecture in theology. From 1341 to 1351 he taught at Paris. In 1351 he returned to the Augustinian house at Rimini, becoming in 1356 and 1357 vicar general and prior general of the order. His most important surviving work is a commentary on the first two books of Peter *Lombard’s Sentences.

 

Gregory’s theology has been described as an *Augustinian response to the questions of the fourteenth century. He accepted, with his contemporaries, the separation of *faith and reason, revealed truth and natural knowledge. He emphasized the limits of reason and the inscrutability of God’s ways. He based theology on God’s *revelation, allowing little scope for a *natural theology. He was a philosophical *nominalist. Thus far, Gregory was in accord with the dominant and radically untraditional Ockhamist school (see *William of Ockham). But Gregory’s theology, more traditional than theirs, was a return to the teaching of Augustine. Together with his contemporary *Bradwardine, he opposed the current *Semi-Pelagianism. He stressed the sovereignty of God and our total dependence upon grace for salvation. Fallen humanity can do no good without God’s grace. Election is God’s sovereign and unmerited choice of us. Gregory followed Augustine in teaching that those who die unbaptized in infancy are condemned to hell, for which he earned the title tortor infantium. But a fairer assessment of his theology as a whole is found in the more traditional title, doctor authenticus.

 

Bibliography

G. Leff, Gregory of Rimini (Manchester, 1961).

 

A. N. S. Lane