“The shapers of the Christian tradition believed God was helping us,” Charry says. “When they explained that well and when they explained that poorly…are questions that require thoughtful discernment. [In my book, I] caution against obliterating the theologians of the past. Perhaps we can learn something about the cultivation of the soul from them.”

While Charry’s books deals primarily with the church fathers, Sang Hyun Lee has achieved renown for his work on the Puritan philosopher theologian Jonathan Edwards.

Lee, who is the Seminary’s Kyung-Chik Han Professor of Systematic Theology, began researching Jonathan Edwards’s work three decades ago when he was a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard Divinity School. This research resulted in the publication of The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton University Press, 1988).

Since its publication, the text has received the highest praise from scholars and theologians alike. Most recently, Lee’s text was lauded in Roland A. Delattre’s essay titled “Recent Scholarship on Jonathan Edwards,” which appeared in the October 1998 issue of Religious Studies Review. Having considered recent books on Edwards by ten scholars including John E. Smith, Robert Jenson, and Stephen Danial, Delattre concludes, “It is

Sang Lee, I think, who has made the most enduring contribution to our understanding of Edwards’s thought.”

Earlier reviews printed when Lee’s book was first published made other observations. Alan Heimert of Harvard wrote, “Lee’s book establishes him at the forefront of Edwards scholarship. It is the most significant treatise on Edwards since Perry Miller.” William Spohn of Berkeley, writing in Religious Studies Review in 1990, observed, “This is an outstanding work that should redefine the discussion of America’s premier theologian.”

According to Lee, “Edwards’s reconception of reality as a system of dispositions rather than substances, his notion of faith as a perception of God’s beauty, and his conception of creation as God’s spatio-temporal repetition of God’s initial glory still offer much insight to contemporary theological discussion.”

The blending of the historical and the constructive is important to Lee who, like Migliore and Charry, views systematic theology as a way of rethinking our Christian message in our own context. For Lee, who is a naturalized Korean American, this has resulted in a twenty-year commitment to building and developing an Asian American theology. Lee hopes to spend next year, his sabbatical year, refining his constructive theological manuscript tentatively titled The Liminal Creativity of

Last but certainly not least among the Seminary’s systematic theologians is Bruce L. McCormack, who was recently awarded the Karl Barth Prize by the Board of the Evangelical Church of the Union in Germany for “his outstanding contributions to research in the theology of Karl Barth, research which has sought to address North American questions while simultaneously preserving the theological and philosophical inheritance of Europe.” McCormack is the first American to receive the award.

The jury included theology professors Ebernhard Jüngel — a previous recipient of the award — and Wolfe Krötke as well as the Bishop of Berlin, Wolfgang Huber. They described McCormack’s book on Barth, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology, as “a striking example of intellectual biography.”

McCormack, who considers his scholarly efforts “an attempt to mediate the most significant results of Barth European scholarship to American researchers,” is gratified that German scholars have acknowledged the significance of his work.

“I suppose what pleases me most about being awarded this particular prize,” he says, "is that my work has been seen as having performed a valuable service to German culture and its intellectual traditions…. To work outside of the German context and to have [my] work recognized by those who grew up in it—that is the biggest thrill for me.”

McCormack goes on to say that, outside of Europe, Princeton Seminary is the best place to study Barth’s theology. He cites Princeton’s strong tradition of hospitality toward Barth as one factor.

“Not only did Barth speak here in 1962 (in his only trip to America),” McCormack says, “but from the earliest days of his growing influence, Princeton Seminary was one of the few places not easily put off by his sharp dialectics and his massive critique of natural theology.”

McCormack credits the establishment of the Center for Barth Studies (in conjunction with the Karl Barth Society of North America) at PTS last year as another reason that Princeton compares favorably with the very best German institutions devoted to Barth research.

President Thomas A. Gillespie sums it all up when he says, “Princeton Seminary is blessed by the presence in the Theology Department of four strong and gifted systematic theologians. Each represents a particular emphasis of the Reformed tradition,” he continues, “and their combined witness is a source of great stimulation to students.

“I know of no other theological school that enjoys such excellence among its theologians.”