Hard to argue with the dominant presence of Tom Torrance on the Scottish theological landscape for over 60 years. He is a mountainous presence, admired worldwide for his contribution to the study of Barth and Calvin, the relations of Christian faith to scientific ways of knowing, the development of a viable theological rapprochement on the Trinity between the East and the West, and all these informed by deep long reading in patristic, reformed and ecumentical theology.
But he doesn't only gather, reconstruct and recycle the theological products of others, he is also a creative and cosntructive theologian in his own right. It is that combination of creative assimilation and constructive initiative that makes this book on the Christian doctrine of God such rich, hard, rewarding reading.
In a more playful mood last night I drafted some Haiku in celebration of Torrance and his theological heroes. As always, I use the 5x7x5 haiku structure, the trinitarian structure indicating what Jonathan Edwards might have called 'the shadow of divine things'!
Torrance Haiku
...
Athanasius,
Lucid apologist for
‘The Incarnation’...
Homoousios,
One substance with the Father,
Torrance-structured truth....
Calvin’s Institutes,
Reformed fons et origo,
Torrance’s benchmark....
Barth’s Church Dogmatics,
Everest meets Niagaran
Grammar of The Word....
Scottish Dogmatics
Displaying Reformed barcodes,
Geneva and Basle.
This is very witty, and right on target!
I have a great appreciation for Torrance that I expect will grow with time and further study. It is always nice to find others in the blogosphere who are reading him.
Posted by: WTM | May 16, 2007 at 05:45 PM