(As posted on the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association Discussion
list, September 27, 1999)
In God of Many Names I offer a list of 24 different models of religions and ideologies which are in a way all theological. These include the various kinds of Buddhism, Taoism, Materialism, Nationalism, Islam, Existentialism, etc. Each of these offers an explanation (or theology) of what is/should be ultimate reality for us as humans.
And even Christian theology is not one thing. The model used by Augustine
and Calvin is nothing like the model used by Clark Pinnock and your humble
gadfly. Having looked at the models (some call them world-views)
which appeal to us, we will have to choose between two or three of them
as explanations for ultimate reality. It is only then, having made this
choice (I use Creative Love Theism as my lens, model, vision of what the
Bible is all about), that we can make it Queen. And I certainly believe
that the theology I have chosen to teach and live by marvelously illuminates
every academic discipline. It is not Queen by definition or any kind of
logic, but by the free choice of those who hunger and thirst for God's
kind of love.