How can we make theology more constructive? Twentieth-Century British discussion about the Christian 'image' of God and 'myth' of the Incarnation has been widely admired for its honesty but criticized as being too insular and too negative. Neither criticism applies to this book, the first major publication to come from the author, who is now Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. He offers a systematic exposition of the most characteristic Christian doctrine in dialogue with other thinkers around the world and across the centuries. His aspiration is to do for 'love' what eminent German theologians have recently done for 'faith' and 'hope.' He knows well that the idea of the love of God, although so prominent in the Bible, has been under fire in the modern world -- for many serious reasons, here taken seriously. 'Talk to God is notoriously complex,' he writes, 'and talk of love notoriously sentimental.' But he carefully demonstrates that the tradition that begins in the Bible is still vital enough to help crucially in the new urgent reconstruction of Christian belief. From a more profound theology of the love of God at work in the creation and redemption of man, a renewal of faith and hope would follow.
