An accidental blog

"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.

Monday 10 February 2014

Bartholomew and Goheen Christian philosophy - a short review

Christian Philosophy
A Systematic and Narrative Introduction
Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013

A fuller review will be published in Koers.

Christian Philosophy, though self-contained, is the third of a trilogy of excellent books. The first The Drama of Scripture (2004) showed us our place in the biblical story, the second Living at the Crossroads (2008) (see my review here) provided a missional focus for a Christian worldview. Christian Philosophy provides a superb overview of philosophy from a distinctively Christian perspective, based on scripture and a Christian worldview.

What has been needed for a long time is a book accessible to Christian undergraduates that provides a navigation around the difficult terrain of philosophy; a book that takes both philosophy and the Christian faith seriously and addresses the concerns that Christian have with philosophy  This is that book.

This book should be compulsory reading for Christians at university whatever their discipline. Christian pastors owe it to those in their congregations who intend to go to university to make sure that they get a copy and inwardly digest it. I don’t apologise for being so effusive about this book - it is that good. 


Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Approaching Christian Philosophy
1. Why Philosophy?
2. Faith and Philosophy
Part 2: The Story of Western Philosophy
3. Ancient Pagan Philosophy: The Pre-Socratics to Socrates
4. The High Point of Greek Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, and Their Legacy
5. Medieval Synthesis Philosophy: Augustine to Abelard
6. The Middle Ages: Aristotle Rediscovered
7. The Renaissance and Reformation
8. Early Modern Philosophy: Bacon to Leibniz
9. Modern Philosophy: Hume to Schleiermacher
10. Modern Philosophy: Romanticism to Gadamer
11. Postmodernism and Philosophy Today
Part 3: Christian Philosophy Today
12. Christian Philosophy Today
13. Reformed Epistemology
14. Reformed Epistemology Applied
15. Reformational Philosophy
Conclusion
Annotated Further Reading List

Index

2 comments:

sarah vandergugten said...

I'm sure you mean "inwardly digest" not "inwardly disgust." Thanks for the review!

stevebishop said...

Oops,! Thanks for that.