Theology of Creation and the Use of Scripture Creation,David Fergusson,Eerdmans, 2014 (ISBN 978‐0‐8028‐7196‐1), viii + 149 pp., pb $18 From Nothing: A Theology of Creation,Ian A. McFarland,Westminster John Knox, 2014 (ISBN 978‐0‐664‐23819‐3), xvii + 212 pp., pb $35

David Fergusson's recent book, Creation, overviews differing aspects of creation for a theologically‐literate but non‐specialist readership, while Ian McFarland's From Nothing: A Theology of Creation offers a sophisticated account of the meaning and theological implications of the classic doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Although both books make constructive appeal to Scripture, I suggest that their use of Scripture indicates that their creative theological thinking is not primarily done by working through the interpretative challenges that Scripture presents. There thus remains a distance between biblically and systematically oriented theological thinking.     

Justification Vindicated Justification: Volume One,Michael Horton,Zondervan, 2018 (ISBN 978‐0‐310‐49160‐6), 400 pp., pb £39.99 Justification: Volume Two,Michael Horton,Zondervan, 2018 (ISBN 978‐0‐310‐57838‐3), 528 pp., pb £39.99

Writing from a classical Reformed perspective, Horton reviews the entire history of ‘Justification’ and then sharply criticizes many fashionable movements in theology that he sees as a betrayal of the doctrine. These include ‘the new perspective on Paul’, the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa, Radical Orthodoxy, and even the Lutheran–Roman Catholic Joint Declaration of 1999. Writing with theological and pastoral passion, Horton is a formidable polemicist who never loses sight of his central concern, so that his book is both an exciting debate and a moving witness to the Pauline, Lutheran, and Calvinist Gospel.