Who is the ''greatest theologian of all-time?''
According to a recent online-survey, French theologian and reformer, John Calvin is “the greatest.”
Who is the greatest theologian of all time? According to a recent online-survey, French theologian and reformer, John Calvin is “the greatest.”
“Calvin won by a fairly decent margin,” said Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D., founder of TheologicalStudies.org, a one-stop Christian information and news site that conducted the poll.
Out of eight options given, Calvin received the most votes at 24 percent. Augustine came in second with 16 percent, Karl Barth and Luther each received 14 percent, Jonathan Edwards received nine percent, Thomas Aquinas had eight percent, and Friedrich Schleiermacher came in last with less than one percent of the votes. The rest, 14 percent, went to “other.”
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But is Calvin really the “greatest”?
Dr. William Lane Craig, research professor at Talbot School of Theology at La Miranda, Calif., doesn’t agree.
“I think he just made too many missteps to say that he is the greatest theologian,” said Craig. “Presumably, the greatest would be someone whose system of thought is largely true and I don’t think that’s the case with Calvin.”
According to Craig, it is inappropriate to pull out just one person as being “the greatest” because there are too many theologians who “deserve to be mentioned.”
“People like Athanasius, the champion of Nicene Orthodoxy who fought against Arias and heresy of Arianism, is a very important person to count and would deserve to be mentioned,” he said. “I would say that drafters of the Council of Chalcedon of the Chalcedonian statement would rank up there at the top.”
Vlach, a Professor of Philosophy at Southeast Community College in Lincoln, Nebraska, also would choose someone else – “probably Augustine or Luther.”
But as far as Calvin goes, Vlach understands why he was selected.
“Different people have different ideas of what being the ‘greatest’ means,” explained Vlach, “I think people probably went with the theologian that had influenced them the most.”
“There are a lot of people, evangelicals and protestants, that really identify with Calvin’s theology since he wrote so much on theology that is influential today,” said Vlach.
The poll was conducted in May and was based on responses from 400 web viewers.
