Written by renowned church historian and Baylor University theology professor Roger E. Olson, The Essentials of Christian Thought[1] explores the metaphysics embedded in the biblical narrative.
The book aims to emphasise the biblical worldview to help Christian readers and educators avoid conscious or unconscious syncretism. According to Olson, this worldview provides the most satisfactory answers to life’s fundamental questions.
He presents God as supernatural and personal, yet not human. Being supernatural means being independent of nature, while being personal implies possessing intelligence, will, and self-determination. The author refers to this perspective as “biblical theistic personalism”. After introducing this perspective, he presents and evaluates competing philosophies: metaphysical dualism, metaphysical monism, panentheism, and naturalism.
God is a supernatural and personal being, not bound by nature. Furthermore, God is both self-sufficient and vulnerable.
Olson then presents several elements that define the ultimate reality of the Bible. The biblical worldview encompasses both God’s reality and the reality of creation. God is both supernatural and personal, yet not bound by nature. Moreover, God is both self-sufficient and vulnerable. Consequently, God is open to being influenced by God’s creatures, albeit not in the manner asserted by process theology. God experiences the flow of time and acts and reacts in relation to the created world.
Created reality is thus contingent. Although affected by sin, its destiny is divine restoration. This restoration involves every being, and education can only play an important role when it integrates biblical faith into the learning process. The author concludes by offering a model for integrating faith and learning.
The Essentials of Christian Thought is a well-written book. Olson’s reasoning is straightforward. Each chapter builds on the previous one, with clear transitional paragraphs. The seven interludes enrich the flow of thought rather than interrupting it. Olson clearly states the purpose of the book as a whole and of each chapter.
He helps the reader to understand the implications of competing non-biblical views of reality while building a solid case for the biblical philosophical perspective. Although there is sometimes a sense of the need to engage with recent authors (such as Kevin J. Vanhoozer and John C. Peckham), the author succeeds in synthesising the central facets of the biblical worldview that truly represent “the essentials of Christian thought”.