This paperback reprinting of Gustaf Aulen's great textbook of systematic theology should be a welcome delight to the Christian theologian. The reputation if this second English edition, based on the fifth and most extensively revised Swedish edition, has steadily increased over the years as a clear and sound guide to the substance of the Christian faith. Besides treating the whole compass of traditional themes associated with the doctrines of God, Christ, and the church, Aulen in this edition has provided new chapters on the Communion of Saints and on the relation between scripture and tradition. The chapters on the biblical validation of the content of faith, the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and the unity of the church and the disunity of the churches were rewritten. The statements on the relation between the two testaments, creation and redemption, natural law, the resurrection, the validity of infant baptism, and eschatology were substantially revised. Aulen's keen analysis and clear presentation of the fundamental motifs of the Christian faith, his sharp demarcation of these motifs from their aberrations in the history of Christian thought and in contemporary theology, and especially his profound sense of the oneness of the church's faith have endeared this book to students, theologians, clergymen, and hosts of intelligent and inquiring laity of every denomination.
