Learning Theology with the Church Fathers

Learning Theology with the Church Fathers. By Christopher A. Hall. Downers Grove, III: InterVarsity Press, 2002. 307 pp. $15.00 paper.

Learning Theology is the second in Christopher Hall's three-volume introduction to patristic theology. The first volume, Reading Scripture with the Fathers, recounts the approaches to biblical exegesis of eight theologians of the catholic tradition. The third proposed volume, Praying with the Church Fathers, will examine the spiritual disciplines and worship of the ancient church. Learning Theology explores the major loci of Christian dogmatics, (for example, the Trinity, Christology, ecclesiology, soteriology) as articulated by major patristic theologians. Hall confesses up front the problematic nature of the division of the trilogy. On the one hand, the Fathers would not have separated dogma from Scripture. On the other hand, theology for the Fathers was never separated from the life of piety. Rather, faithful theology arises only out of the life of spiritual discipline and within the corporate worship of the Church. As a "primer for beginners," Learning Theology must, for pedagogical purposes, operate within this artificial division.

One of the strengths of the book for which Hall deserves commendation is the range of the audience for whom he has written. Although he assumes that it might serve as an introduction for seminary students,...