Thomas F Torrance

This book provides an important study of the theology of Thomas F. Torrance, who is generally considered to have been one of the most significant theologians writing in English during the twentieth century, with a view toward showing how his theological method and all his major doctrinal views were shaped by his understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Torrance pursued a theology that was realist because he attempted to think in accordance with the unique nature of the object that is known. In holding to such a methodology, he drew an analogy between theology and natural science. This book demonstrates how, for Torrance, God relates with humanity within time and space so that creation finds its meaning in relation to God and not in itself; this enabled him to avoid many theological pitfalls such as agnosticism, subjectivism and dualism while explaining the positive implications of various Christian doctrines in a penetrating and compelling manner. This book offers an important resource for students of theology and for scholars who are interested in seeing how serious dogmatic theology shapes and should shape our understanding of the Christian life.

This companion volume to T. F. Torrance's Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ presents the material on the work of Christ, centered in the atonement, given originally in his lectures delivered to his students in Christian Dogmatics on Christology at New College, Edinburgh, from 1952-1978.

Dealing with the issue of church unity and the ecumenical movement, Professor Torrance reminds Christians in a collection of essays that any theology which is faithful to the gospel must be a theology of reconciliation.

When the Nicene Creed affirms that the eternal Son of God 'for us and for our salvation came down from heaven', it asserts that God Himself is actively present within the space and time of our world. The philosophical problems that this involves are bound up with Christian theology, and form the subject of this book. Professor Torrance begins with a critique of modern Protestant thinking, and proceeds to examine the place of spatial and temporal elements in basic theological concepts. He then offers a positive account of the relation of the incarnation to space and time. While related to the work of the great theologians of the past, this study is also supremely relevant to theological thinking in this age of science.

Cutting across the divide between East and West and between Catholic and Evangelical, Thomas F. Torrance illuminates our understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Torrance combines here the Gospel and a theology shaped by Karl Barth and the Church Fathers, and offers his readers a unique synthesis of the Nicene Creed. This volume remains a tremendously helpful resource on the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. The new introduction for this Cornerstones edition is written by Myk Habets, the leading Thomas F. Torrance scholar today.

T. F. Torrance is widely regarded as the most significant British academic theologian of the twentieth century. He is especially noted for his ground-breaking contribution to the study of the relationship of Christian theology and the natural sciences. He is unquestionably one of the most prolific of theological writers and is the most senior member of the nearest thing to a 'theological dynasty' that Great Britain has ever produced. Here, Alister McGrath, himself one of this country's leading theologians, traces the development of Torrance's theological thought and provides a comprehensive account of his life and career. Particular attention is paid to the important role played by Torrance in the English-language reception of the theology of Karl Barth, and to his pioneering engagement with the relation between theology and science. While making extensive reference to Torrance's published works, McGrath also draws on important unpublished writings and private papers. The book contains many unpublished photograhs, together with a complete bibliography of Torrance's works.

In this volume, Jason Radcliff examines T. F. Torrance's reading of the church fathers. Radcliff explores how Torrance reconstructs the patristic tradition, producing a Reformed, evangelical, and ecumenical version of the Consensus Patrum ("Consensus of the Fathers"). This book investigates how Torrance uniquely understands the Fathers and the Reformers to be mutually informing and how, as such, his approach involves significant changes to both standard readings of the Fathers and Torrance's own Reformed evangelical tradition. Torrance's approach is distinctive in its Christocentric rootedness in the primary theme of the Nicene homoousion ("of one essence [with the Father]") and its champion Athanasius of Alexandria. The book explores Torrance's inherently broad ecclesiology and constructive achievements, both of which contribute to his ongoing ecumenical relevance.

The doctrine of the Trinity has become the focal point of theological discussion and has immense implications for our knowledge of God. Professor Torrance shows that God is not a remote, unknowable deity but is free to go outside of himself in order to share with us the Communion of Love which he is himself. Throughout this study, Professor Torrance brings out the existing ecumenical consensus between Roman and Protestant Churches and the recent agreement between Orthodox and Reformed Churches. In the exploration of this theme and, through the examination of critical issues in the history of thought, he points a way toward doctrinal agreement.