Theological works

One thing too about theological works (that occurs to me, as an afterthought on the previous emails) is, as C. S. Lewis observed, they are very devotional type influences, unintentionally. Even the most technical of them are devotional because of their very subject matter. And it's not a negative thing to say about devotional writings that they can be overdosed on easily. It is just their nature. Theological works pack a lot of knowledge (knowledge about ultimate things) in each chapter and paragraph. We can take in so much. I think this is part of why it is difficult to engage theological works in anything but a reference book type way.

Still we have to get the whole to see the parts in relation to the whole.

This is also why I like so much the concise works like Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine and Packer's Concise Theology. Berkhof's give a true whole, including knowledge on the three covenants and so on. - C.

ps- I guess I *have* read a theological book complete: Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine... I also saw it as complete, and worthy of unique status. In other words, if it was all you had, along with the Bible, you could draw everything - the 'whole' - from both. Then if you had the Work sources you'd have enough to get the real complete whole...

pps- This brings up another thing I was thinking about recently: we need to not get too 'outside our school.' Once we discern our school influences (and have found the list that represents the whole) we need to zero in on them and not continually flirt with influences from perhaps other schools, as worthy as they may be in their own world and context. It's a cosmos issue. School is a cosmos and needs to have perimeters and boundaries.