131 Christians: Theologians

Athanasius

- "Black Dwarf" - exiled 5 times by four Roman emperors. - his writings of Life of St. Antony shaped the future of the church. - false charges were spread about him. - wrote On the Incarnation establishing orthodoxy -fought against Arianism because it denies the Trinity -Created the festal letter setting dates for Christian festivals like Easter and Lent

Jonathan Edwards

- America's greatest theologian - Had 11 children - A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God - Justification by Faith - Fueled the Great Awakening - inspired George Whitefield - Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God - religion is rooted in the affections not reason - wrote Treatise on Religious Affections and Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England -Encouraged singing Christian hymns instead of only Psalms - wrote Freedom of the Will - insisted on professions of faith with a description of the conversion experience before receiving Communion, which got him ousted from his church - Claimed that God is the power that holds atoms together (Newtonian Physics) - Rarely even gestured during his sermons

John Calvin

- The Institutes of the Christian Religion - Always associated with Geneva - wrote a commentary on De Clementia by Seneca - he was Lutheran - developed the doctrines of predestination - rise of capitalism, individualism, and democracy - wrote Ecclesiastical Ordinances setting a hierarchy for the church and the city (pastors, doctors, elders, and deacons) - so efficient that Geneva had no beggars and someone wrote that Geneva was the perfect school of Christ - crucial in the death of Michael Servetus

Karl Barth

- altered the course of theology - wrote Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans - dialectical theology or the theology of crisis - wrote Church Dogmatics - founder of the Confessing Church against the Nazis' ideology - wrote Barmen Declaration put Jesus against Hitler and national socialism - against infant baptism - Deliverance to the Captives - said, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so" - did not believe in the infallibility of Scripture (only Jesus was infallible) - most important theologian of the 20th century

Anselm

- an Italian monk - one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages - wrote Proslogion "God is higher than anything that humans can imagine" - concluded faith is the precondition of knowledge - wrote Why Did God Become Man? In Adam, all humans had sinned against divine holiness and reparation could only be made by Christ - On his deathbed he said he wanted to discover the origin of the soul because no one else could do it if he didn't, but died before he could

John of Damascus

- born into a wealthy arab-christian family - became a monk in Bethlehem - main point was that it is ok to "venerate" icons as a point of faith - The Fount of Wisdom - summary of Eastern Orthodoxy - 1890 became a doctor of the church

Jacob Arminius

- he questioned Calvinism - he was accused of Pelagianism and other heresies - On Reconciling Religious Dissensions among Christians - Arminian theology - Influenced John Wesley

Augustine of Hippo

- his father was a pagan - more interested in learning about sex than religion. - catholic - monk to bishop, he did not want to be a priest at all - wrote The City of God that Rome was being punished for its past sins

Martin Luther

- nicknamed the Philosopher - became a monk after promising God to get him through a thunderstorm - wrote 95 Thesis, The Address to the Christian Nobility, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, On the Freedom of a Christian - Reformation/Rebellion - Separated the Catholic Church - wrote Larger and Smaller Catechism - The older he got the more he said bad things against a lot of people - Translation of the Bible into German - In most libraries, books by and about Martin Luther take up more space than any other person after Jesus

Thomas Aquinas

- nicknamed the dumb ox and the doctor of angels - was fat, had dropsy and one eye larger than the other - greatest theologian of the Middle Ages - wrote Summa Theologica - reason and revalation both come from God - also wrote Summa Contra Gentiles - a manual for missionaries to the Muslims - Aeterni Patris endorsed Thomism - Had a vision before he died that caused him to stop writing because all his other writings were like straw