Who was the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th Century?

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Tim

Tim

Puritan Board Graduate
Who was the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th Century?

Please pick who you think is the greatest according to the following criteria.
1. He is able to see things that others cannot, or connects things in a new way (while still being faithful to revealed Truth of old);
2. He is able to articulate his ideas well and make them understood;
3. His ideas have real meaning for people (i.e., they make a difference).

My vote would be Francis Schaeffer for helping us understand our history and our possible future. A close second would be Greg Bahnsen for his ability to explain apologetics.
 
Tim said:
Who was the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th Century?

Please pick who you think is the greatest according to the following criteria.
1. He is able to see things that others cannot, or connects things in a new way (while still being faithful to revealed Truth of old);
2. He is able to articulate his ideas well and make them understood;
3. His ideas have real meaning for people (i.e., they make a difference).

My vote would be Francis Schaeffer for helping us understand our history and our possible future. A close second would be Greg Bahnsen for his ability to explain apologetics.
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I really appreciate Schaeffer, for his understanding that Culture, Arts and Philosophy are not optional to understand the modern man.

I would say: Abraham Kuyper

Kuyper founded the VU (Free University in Amsterdam), a University (Universal Knowledge) where Philosophy was researched in a Calvinist Frame of Thought - Herman Dooyeweerd, Th Vollenhoven (who were actually brothers in law) are just the most renowned of many Reformed Scholars.

For instance Cornelius Van Til was heavily influenced by both, while
Banshen and Frame owe a lot to Van Til.

As Schaeffer was very influenced by Hans Rookmaaker, the Art Historian that made his doctorate in the VU and lectured worldwide.

All this can traced back to the vision of Abraham Kuyper.

Kuyper on his speech at inaugural address at the dedication of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said:

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’

It had a lasting impact on the audience, some said: we left ready to make another reformation.

And Holland had a Reformation, in the Church, in Government and in Society.


In 1898 Abraham Kuyper was invited to deliver several lectures at Princeton University, he spoke on this:

Lecture 1: Calvinism as a Life System
Lecture 2: Calvinism and Religion
Lecture 3: Calvinism and Politics
Lecture 4: Calvinism and Science
Lecture 5: Calvinism and Art
Lecture 6: Calvinism and the Future

http://www.kuyper.org/main/publish/books_essays/printer_17.shtml
 
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I would say it is Joel Osteen for helping us understand that Christ came so we can get rid of the bad habits that make our lives unhappy.

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

Okay, put the rocks down, I admit it was a bad joke.

me very sorry:(
 
Tim said:
Wikipedia says that Kuyper was homeschooled!
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I guess that means that his primary school was at home,


but he made the Gymnasium (roughly equivalent high school), in Holland this means, even today, 5 years of latin and 5 years of Greek, plus all else, ufff

Later he graduated with highest honors from Leyden University.

He went on to receive his Doctorate in Sacred Theology also from Leyden.

He taught Dogmatics, and later, being nominated by the Queen: Prime Minister of Holland, was replaced by Herman Bavinck.
 
Manuel said:
I would say it is Joel Osteen for helping us understand that Christ came so we can get rid of the bad habits that make our lives unhappy.

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

Okay, put the rocks down, I admit it was a bad joke.

me very sorry:(
Click to expand...

:doh: :lol:

What a silly joke! Everybody knows who the real powerhouses are:

tim.jpg
 
There are so many that it might just be impossible to say with any sense of finality. Schaeffer was/is great. Kuyper too. But I just finished reading a biography of Gresham Machen and would like to throw his name into the ring as all of the criteria definitely apply to him. (Also, he was from Baltimore and is buried here.:))
 
I would say it was RJ Rushdoony for his 1) Institutes of Biblical Law and 2) reviving the Christian school and homeschool movement.
 
RJ Rushdoony.

1) Without him to read, what would Francis Scheaffer have had to say?

2) Also I would think that the Christian School & Home School movements are possibly the most signifigant trends in protestantism of the last 40 years.

3) His followers were key in debunking dispensationalism.

4) He introduced the Old Testament to an entire generation of evangelicals, who BTW have still never heard of him.
 
Rushdoony said Van Til was the greatest, but one can not underestimate the influence of the homeschooling movement, and Rushdoony is the central figure.

Today there are scores of thousands, and it will soon be millions, of people entering the workforce and gaining the franchise that where homeschooled largely because of Rushdoony's influence. He constantly wrote about it and defended it in courtrooms all across the nations (and almost never was thanked by the people he helped afterwards).

He didn't care if anyone was Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, etc..as a young man I did some tree trimming work for a guy who was Arminian Baptist, and we were all in a coffee shop, and in explanation of why his daughter was in the Chalcedon Christian school, he said "All my Children have to have at least one year in Rushdoony's school".
 
Sergius Bulgakov

Vladimir Lossky

Henri de Lubac

Hans urs von Balthasar

Schaeffer wasn't that profound. As others noted, he simply copied Rushdoony but he got to maintain Reformed respectability. While I learned the Reformed faith under Bahnsen and Rushdoony, most of philosophy and theology has moved on.
 
Ivanhoe said:
Sergius Bulgakov

Vladimir Lossky

Henri de Lubac

Hans urs von Balthasar

Schaeffer wasn't that profound. As others noted, he simply copied Rushdoony but he got to maintain Reformed respectability. While I learned the Reformed faith under Bahnsen and Rushdoony, most of philosophy and theology has moved on.
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Could you please tell us a few things about these men you listed? What makes them great? I am eager to hear of what they have done! I have never heard of them (am I sheltered?).
 
The first two are Russian guys. They left Mother Russia when the Bolshevieks took over. They went to Paris and introduced to the West many things that were kept hidden.

I don't agree with everything they say. I think Bulgakov's "intrapesonal" personal essence of the Trinity borders on adding another member to the Trinity, but he does clarify the current debates of his time.

Lossky is just fun to read, even when he is annoying.

de Lubac was a Catholic who advocated a very non-Cahtolic reading of Aquinas and nature-grace.

von Balthasar, another Catholic, blessed the chuch by bringing aesthetics back into the conversation.
 
Schaeffer wasn't that profound.
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What?!?! That's like saying Francis Bacon wasn't all that smart because he didn't start the Scientific revolution he only popularized it. Schaeffer was a profound thinker, one who not only wrestled with big ideas, he made them popular as well. I'm not saying this to discount any of the other names mentioned. Indeed, I'm not sure that I would call Schaeffer the greatest thinker. However, we should approach this great man with some humility. :2cents:
 
Tim said:
Who was the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th Century?

Please pick who you think is the greatest according to the following criteria.
1. He is able to see things that others cannot, or connects things in a new way (while still being faithful to revealed Truth of old);
2. He is able to articulate his ideas well and make them understood;
3. His ideas have real meaning for people (i.e., they make a difference).

My vote would be Francis Schaeffer for helping us understand our history and our possible future. A close second would be Greg Bahnsen for his ability to explain apologetics.
Click to expand...

I would say that R.C. Sproul and J.I. Packer should be considered as well...especially because of how the articulate ideas in an easily digestible way.
 
C.S. Lewis. You can't read Mere Christianity or A Grief Observed and not be moved by this man's intellect and reason. And of course The Pilgrim's Regress. His ability to define between faith and reason(seems to be influenced by John Locke); and one(me at least) cannot read his works without "Wow! I never thought of it like that!" going through your(my) head every ten minutes.
 
Ivanhoe said:
Schaeffer copied and pasted Rushdoony and Van Til.
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That is true, but also on Philosophy and Science there are the pure thinkers and developers and the spreaders, the ones that take it to a broader, simpler, popular audience.

Everyone can remember Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan.

I think Francis Schaeffer did a very god job publishing books with a good depth of apologetics and cultural debate, translated in many languages (even portuguese :) ) and reaching a Christian audience mainly used to read books called 5 steps with a Sun Set on the cover.

And throughout that interaction and wide reaching, Schaeffer never compromised, always stood for Scripture Inerrancy, Reformed Doctrine, Biblical Creationism…
 
ServantofGod said:
C.S. Lewis. You can't read Mere Christianity or A Grief Observed and not be moved by this man's intellect and reason. And of course The Pilgrim's Regress. His ability to define between faith and reason(seems to be influenced by John Locke); and one(me at least) cannot read his works without "Wow! I never thought of it like that!" going through your(my) head every ten minutes.
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Good point. Even though I, like many here, have some problems with much of his theology as far as greatest Christian thinkers go, he's definitely up there in the running.
 
I'm itching to say Cornelius Van Til. However, I cannot say that he fulfills the criteria of being easy to read. I'm seminary trained and I find him hard slogging. The honor would then undoubtedly have to go to C.S. Lewis, much as I appreciate Gordon Clark (my father was his best friend), Van Til, and others that have been mentioned. The theonomist authors, unfortunately for those who claim them to be the greatest thinkers, have not had the influence outside their own relatively small circles necessary to be considered as the greatest thinker of the 20th century (with the possible exception of Rushdoony).
 
Van Til, Rushdoony, and Bahnsen (whose full potential was not realized due to his untimely death).
 
Ask Mr. Religion said:
What? No Barth? I'm just sayin'. :2cents:

AMR
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I think it was Somerset Maughan who received a manuscript of a candidate to publish a novel and answered him:

Your book has good and original ideas, just a pity that the good are not original and the original are not good.

Karl Barth, the genuine good belongs to Calvin, the genuine original to Kirkegaard...
 
I am dying to say Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. He was brilliant but did not successfully connect beyond the circles of reformed clergy and academics.

John H. Gerstner would be my first choice. He had an insightful critique of Barthian and Brunners version of neoorthodoxy, and its links with older forms of liberalism. He showed the problems with the VanTillian approach to apologetics. Would the recovery of Jonathan Edwards have occurred without Gerstner? How many of us were pointed to B. B. Warfield by him? He provided a new and helpful way of reading St. Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Bardwardine. R. C. Sproul is fine but he built on a foundation layed by Gerstner.
 
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