The Thiselton Companion to Christian Theology

Anthony C. Thiselton

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 2015 Anthony C. Thiselton

All rights reserved

Published 2015 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thiselton, Anthony C.

The Thiselton companion to Christian theology / Anthony C. Thiselton.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-8028-7232-6 (cloth: alk. paper)

1. Christianity—Dictionaries. 2. Theology—Dictionaries. I. Title.

BR95.T54 2015

230.03—dc23

2014035864

www.eerdmans.com

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Time Chart

List of Entries

Entries, A–Z

Preface

Several features of this Companion to Christian Theology are distinctive. First, a single author has written the 600-plus articles in this book. This has the advantage of coherence, and avoids the danger of presenting an uneven work, which often becomes the fate invited by a multiauthored volume. A single author provides a single judgment, in this case gained from fifty years of teaching and research. It also ensures that the entries receive the word length that each subject or thinker genuinely needs, rather than one imposed in advance by a general editor or format.

Second, a judicious balance between research material and a tool for teaching has been reached in the work. I originally conceived of this work as a teaching tool comparable to my Concise Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: OneWorld, 2002; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005). As I wrote, however, it became clear that many topics deserved long, thoughtful essays, which drew on research, evaluation, and careful judgment. The articles on God, Christology, and the Holy Spirit, for example, vary between 20,000 words and 28,000 words apiece. Similarly, the entry on the atonement merits 16,000 words. These are all subdivided into biblical and historical sections, and are often divided topically, for the sake of convenience and readability. Each section has its separate bibliography. Hence this work combines some shorter articles, which sometimes constitute explanatory teaching tools of 50–100 words, with longer articles that embody reflection and research. Some 122 articles exceed 1,000 words; over 480 are shorter articles.

I must bear full responsibility for the length and selection of each article, and I readily confess to the difficulty of choosing some subjects over others among 600 articles. There are bound to be mistakes. The length accorded to specific theologians varies enormously, depending on their creative originality and influence, and the confines of space. Wolfhart Pannenberg, for example, receives more than 8,000 words, and Karl Barth and Martin Luther some 6,000 words each. Augustine, Bultmann, Balthasar, Calvin, Küng, Moltmann, and Rahner receive 5,000, or a little less. On the other hand, numerous theologians receive less than 100 words, ...