Celtic Origins to Reformed Orthodoxy

History of Scottish Theology

This three-volume work comprises over eighty essays surveying the history of Scottish theology from the early middle ages onwards. Written by an international team of scholars, the collection provides the most comprehensive review yet of the theological movements, figures, and themes that have shaped Scottish culture and exercised a significant influence in other parts of the world. Attention is given to different traditions and to the dispersion of Scottish theology through exile, migration, and missionary activity. 

The volumes present in diachronic perspective the theologies that have flourished in Scotland from early monasticism until the end of the twentieth century. The History of Scottish Theology, Volume I covers the period from the appearance of Christianity around the time of Columba to the era of Reformed Orthodoxy in the seventeenth century. Volume II begins with the early Enlightenment and concludes in late Victorian Scotland. Volume III explores the 'long twentieth century'. Recurrent themes and challenges are assessed, but also new currents and theological movements that arose through Renaissance humanism, Reformation teaching, federal theology, the Scottish Enlightenment, evangelicalism, mission, biblical criticism, idealist philosophy, dialectical theology, and existentialism. Chapters also consider the Scots Catholic colleges in Europe, Gaelic women writers, philosophical scepticism, the dialogue with science, and the reception of theology in liturgy, hymnody, art, literature, architecture, and stained glass. Contributors also discuss the treatment of theological themes in Scottish literature.

Volume 1: Celtic Origins to Reformed Orthodoxy

Straddling over a millennium of theological work, these essays explore the beginnings of Scottish theology from the time of the Columban church through monasticism to the era of medieval scholasticism, and then from the Reformation (1560) to later traditions of Reformed orthodoxy until c.1700. Well-known figures including Scotus, Richard of St Victor, John Mair, John Knox, Andrew Melville, Samuel Rutherford, and Henry Scougall are explored, while attention is also devoted to the ways in which Scottish theology was connected to philosophy, law, politics, church life, and patterns of spirituality. The period under review includes the foundation of five Scottish universities in St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen (King’s and Marischal), and Edinburgh. The influence of Reformed confessions, particularly the Westminster Confession (1646), is treated in several essays both as a standard of uniformity and a source of controversy. Throughout the volume, the multiple connections with Europe and other parts of the British Isles are evident through exile, dispersion, international debates, and institutional links.