Cover of The Transforming Power of Grace

The Transforming Power of Grace

How does an infinite God relate to finite human beings? How does the death of Jesus Christ bring about human salvation? How are Christians able to actively address the world's ills while maintaining their citizenship in the kingdom of God?

These are questions the church grapples with today, as it always has. Yet, according to Thomas C. Oden, contemporary theology has neglected the church's traditional answer to these questions: the doctrine of grace. All too often modern theologians either ignore the doctrine of grace or relate it to the achievement of a particular political agenda. Oden asserts that only by reclaiming the centrality of grace—defined as God's self-giving through Jesus Christ in personal encounter with the individual human will—can Christian theology be true to the gospel.

Read more

In order to reclaim the doctrine of grace, the author reaches back, beyond the fragmentation of theology that took place during and after the Enlightenment. He draws upon the ecumenical consensus held by early Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant theologians, councils, and creeds regarding this cardinal Christian doctrine. By adducing this ancient unity, Oden challenges modern assumptions concerning the sources and methods of the theological enterprise and calls contemporary Christians to discern what their forebears in the faith knew to be essential to the gospel: that to be a Christian is to be formed, nurtured, and upheld solely by divine grace.

Themes
religionchristian
Audience
adult
Length
medium · 212 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Transforming Power of Grace? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Transforming Power of Grace. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities Shares theology, arminianism, soteriology
  2. Against Calvinism Shares theology, arminianism, soteriology
  3. Why I Am Not a Calvinist Shares theology, arminianism, christian
  4. The Federal Vision Shares theology, soteriology

“If you want more of the same, start with these.”

  1. God in Our Midst: The Tabernacle & Our Relationship with God
  2. Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters
  3. Providence Prayer: How Does God Work in the World?
  4. How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps

“If it was the theology that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach
  2. Easy Chairs, Hard Words
  3. Chosen But Free
  4. Finally Alive: What Happens When We Are Born Again?

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. For Us and for Our Salvation: The Doctrine of Christ in the Early Church
  2. Core Christianity: Finding Yourself in God's Story
  3. Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers
  4. He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace