Great Personalities and Christian Theology

Great and gifted personalities arise throughout history. Their influence is so powerful they cannot be ignored.

In Christian theology we think of the Apostle Paul, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, and Karl Rahner. The Christian tradition has been shaped by these men, all of whom viewed theology as the servant of the church. All of them attempted in one way or another to interpret the content of the Christian faith for their times. None of them arrived at truth without a personal struggle. A number of them were criticized severely and thought to be heretics.

And all of them are now dead, but their influence is still with us. Anyone seriously studying the history of Christian thought must pass through these personalities.

Theology doesn’t stand still. Christian theology is reflection on a living faith. It cannot afford to become brittle. Dogmas and doctrines can be outgrown, but Christ still remains. If Christian theology is the intellect applied to Christian beliefs and behavior, it must keep pace with every new generation, everything, in other words, that has to do with being “human.”

Jesus said the wise householder brings out of his treasure things both old and new (Matt 13:51-53). This is the task of theology—to reappraise the old in light of the new and to interpret the new in light of the old. What makes great theologians “great” is their creative power to reconstruct and reinterpret the Christian faith for their generation. This is why the task of theology moves on, synthesizing the old and the new, critiquing the tradition, formulating new approaches, and so forth.

Yet through it all, Christian theology is committed to the redeeming work of Jesus Christ as it is remembered, proclaimed, and lived in and through the church and in the lives of Christians. One could argue that all Christian theology is reflection on John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” Christian theology is Christology, no matter what topic is being discussed. Jesus of Nazareth—his person and work—is the normative center of Christian living, the church, and theology.

In the end, it really is about God’s self-disclosure through Jesus, and what this means for us and for the world.