Wrath Among the Perfections of God's Life

Dr Jeremy Wynne holds a doctorate in Systematic Theology from King's College, University of Aberdeen.

'Talk of divine wrath stands at the margins of much contemporary theology, and the great merit of this fine essay is not simply to recall attention to a neglected scriptural theme but to show how it belongs to a well-ordered account of God's perfect righteousness. This is a potent exercise in exegetical dogmatics--well-researched, carefully argued, and elegantly presented--that should be of considerable interest both in the church and the academy.' - Donald Wood, Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Department of Divinity and Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, UK. - Donald Wood 'Wrath Among the Perfections of God's Life sets out to correct a long-standing deficit in modern academic theology, the hostility toward Divine wrath as an attribute of the Divine nature. As such, the book itself is decidedly modern in its approach and content: while Lactantius, Irenaeus and Nyssa make important but slender contributions to the work, Schleiermacher, Barth, and Bavinck dominate. The Protestant scholastics -notably Turretin -come in for close attention, and through them, Calvin's Institutes. This is natural, for the opposition to Divine wrath as an attribute, or even aspect, of God's nature is born of the modern era, and has become axiomatic in Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and present-day adherents. This lacuna extends to Biblical scholarship in the modern vein, as this work amply demonstrates. Wynne shows a fine range in his treatment of contemporary authors, moving deftly from analytic philosophers, to systematicians such as Webster, Jungle and Tanner, to secondary authorities on Reformed dogmatics. Wynne's aim is to open up conceptual and doctrinal space for Divine wrath within the life of God: such wrath, he argues, should be set out as a mode of God's righteousness, serving the end of God's merciful justification of the ungodly. Wynne has shown independence of mind and judgment; he has marshaled extensive research in primary and secondary materials; he has argued a clear and sustained thesis through careful and rigorous conceptual analysis. Most importantly, Wynne has taken a doctrine self-evidently central to Christian teaching in the pre-modern era, the wrath of the Living God, and brought it back into conversation with modern academic theology and exegesis -a fine scholarly gift to theology.' - Kate Sonderegger, Professor of Theology, Virginia Theological Seminary, USA. - Kate Sonderegger

• Acknowledgments; 1 A Systematic Approach Reconsidered; 1.1 Theological Approaches to the Topic of Wrath; 1.2 Renewed Interest in the Divine Perfections; 1.3 Purpose, Plan and Limitations; PART ONE; 2 The Subject Matter of the Doctrine of the Divine Perfections: Content Impressing Form; 2.1 The Living God; 2.2 The Self-Named God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; 2.3 The Eternal God; 3 The Arrangement and Inner Logic of the Divine Perfections:Form Reflecting Content; 3.1 Efficiency and the Way of Intensification: Francis Turretin on the Reformed Orthodoxy Arrangement of the Attributes; 3.2 Beyond the Subjectivity of Morals and Doctrine: Friedrich Schleiermacher on the Attributes which Relate to the Immediate Self-Consciousness; 3.3 An Overflowing Depth: Karl Barth on God's Love in Freedom Modes of Divine Perfection; PART TWO; 4 The Lord's Vineyard and the Rule of his Generosity: Matthew 20:1-16 and Isaiah 5:1-7; 4.1 The Image of the Vineyard; 4.2 The Righteousness of God: Self-Identical in Every Mode; 4.3 The Living Parable; 5 Wrath, Righteousness, and the Acquittal of the Guilty: Romans 3:21-26 and Exodus 34:6-7; 5.1 Sinners under God's Wrath; 5.2 The Gift of Jesus Christ: Wrath and the Exchange of Death for Life; 5.3 Acquittal of the Guilty; 6 Publication of Salvation and Final Judgment: Revelation 14:14-20 .... and Amos 3:2; 6.1 The Righteous God, the Hope of the Persecuted; 6.2 Wrath, History and the Divine Pedagogy; Bibliography; Subject Index; Scripture Index.