A Theology Primer

by Robert Cummings Neville

"The book is very interesting -- dense and complicated theological issues are reframed and the issues and arguments are adumbrated in clear fashion." -- Lonnie D. Kliever, Southern Methodist University

"Neville has written an elementary textbook of Christian theology that is both readable for the layperson and is also philosophically and theologically sophisticated. He does not exhaust theological doctrines; but, instead, provides a classical framework for the discussion of contemporary social and political issues. He is sensitive to the implications of non-Christian religions as they bear upon the questions and formulations of Christian belief systems. He also provides a place for a discussion of feminist and third world liberation theologies within the context of classical theological formulations. Neville writes with clarity and force." -- Charles E. Winquist, Syracuse University

"It presents a concise systematic summary of the Christian faith. In addition to getting it all together within a very few pages, it makes interesting connections to major world religions. I also liked the author's invitation to enter into critical dialogue with his perspective. The work goes to the central task of Christian theology, and is a significant contribution to the field, in so far as it represents the outline of a well-known scholar's systematic views." -- Walter E. Wyman, Jr., Whitman College

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Robert Cummings Neville (born May 1, 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.) is an American systematic philosopher and theologian, author of numerous books and papers, and ex-Dean of the Boston University School of Theology. J. Harley Chapman and Nancy Frankenberry, editors of a festchrift—a collection of critical essays written in Neville's honor—entitled Interpreting Neville, consider him to be "one of the most significant philosophers and theologians of our time". Neville was Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and has taught at Yale, Fordham, and the State University of New York Purchase. He is now a professor at Boston University He was granted a Doctorate honoris causa by the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Far Eastern Studies in 1996.

Reviews

[Andrew]

Consistent with his speculative metaphysics, Neville develops a short systematic theology organized around the core Christian motif of the broken and renewed covenant between God, we human creatures, and all creation. The foci of the covenant correspond to the metaphysical features of determinacy: the cosmological features of form, components, existential actuality or location, and value, and the sheer ontological feature of being. The covenant may be (and is) broken in respect of any and all of these, through unrighteousness, impiety, faithlessness, despair. The covenant is renewed through righteousness, piety, faith, hope, and harmonizing them all, love. The specification of these themes to Christian categories is rich and deep, without precluding recognition that other religions at least might be alternative paths of salvation. The application to Christian persons and institutions is throughout marked by Neville's pragmatic fallibilist realism, to produce a theology that never bullshits about the failures of the Church nor about its normative ideals.