No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Foundations of Evangelical Theology)

Rating:
Summary: the very best of systematic theology
Review: I am halfway through reading this book and I am very impressed with it. Feinberg gives you a paronamic view of the concepts of God through many centuries and philosophies...he gives much depth and thought to it. This is an excellent reference source for theology proper

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Contemporary Statement of Evangelical Theology
Review: No One Like Him is the most comprehensive and contemporary work currently available in Evangelical (systematic) theology proper. The author, Dr John Feinberg, Chairman and Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (and my doctoral advisor), not only brings readers into contact with the core historical positions grounding evangelical theology, but significantly emphasizes more contemporary questions within evangelical theology including the perspectives of divine temporality and process theology, both issues regarding which Feinberg has published major previous works. This may very well be the most thorough and current work dealing with the increasingly popular Process Theology from an Evangelical Perspective.

This massive 800 page theology text treats thoroughly the 'Being and Nature of God' and 'Acts of God', as well as humanity's 'Concepts of God' wherein trends in contemporary **thought** are analysed and evaluated. If you want to swim in the deep end with a trusted instructor, I thoroughly recommend this text.

This volume is one of 10 planned for the 'Foundations of Evangelical Theology' series. Future contributing authors will include Bruce Demarest, David C Clark, Kevin Van Hoozer, and Walter Kaiser.

Happy reading. Happy Learning. Happy thinking.

sdf

Rating:
Summary: A Flawed Gem
Review: The King who cares. This is the appellation given by Feinberg to God at the beginning of his monumental tome. He argues that this is a necessary response to the concerns raised by both Openness and Process Theology and rightly so. The distant, impassive God of much classical Christian Theology has little appeal to today's relational culture. A theology which features an immanent, caring God while remaining thoroughly orthodox is much needed.

Unfortunately this book fails to deliver. Part way through, Feinberg begins addressing topics which have a direct bearing on the classic Calvinist-Arminian debate and from that point on things start to unravel. Zealous to defend his own brand of moderate Calvinism, Feinberg loses sight of his "King who cares" motif and instead paints a picture of God that is not significantly different from every other Calvinist theology on the market. Since this is, in large part, exactly what Openness and Process theologians were reacting against in the first place, it is difficult to see how this adds anything useful to the debate.

Feinberg is at his weakest when analyzing the arguments for and against a given position. This is not due solely to the occasional less-than-even-handed way he deals with positions he does not agree with, but also to his somewhat clunky prose.

His handling of Biblical evidence is also irritating. While it is important, even paramount, to assess the Biblical data on a given subject, those sections of the book seem to be assembled with a concordance and a handy suply of conjunctions with little thought put into the arrangement of the evidence.

Still, there are moments of brilliance. Feinberg's exposition of the various ideas and the history behind them is handled with all the skill of a natural born teacher. This alone would make the read worthwhile. In addition to that, however, the number and diversity of the sources he assembles is impressive and makes this book a perfect jumping-off point for anyone interested in learning more about the subject.