Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Book Review: "The Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer

The Knowledge of the Holy (1961) by A. W. Tozer (8/2/11)  This is an excellent book which considers many attributes of God each separately while recognizing throughout that they are all connected (or more properly, one unified being, which is God Himself.  Tozer would say that you cannot say God's attributes are interconnected, because you cannot properly even tease them apart.)  He also emphasizes the need to grow in a knowledge of God even though He is unknowable.  The book would be all but perfect if it were not for the last two chapters.  Throughout the whole book Tozer emphasizes the need to not leave out any one attribute in a finite attempt to explain another, but then in the second to last chapter he tries to explain God's sovereignty and how that interacts with human will in such a way as to limit God's omniscience.  He would have been better off explaining sovereignty biblically and leaving the rest up to the reader.  The last chapter then gives the "requirements" for knowing God, which I believe to be overly cumbersome and complicated, and somewhat unbiblical.  However, as a whole, the book is an excellent treatise on the attributes of God, and rather accessible and readable at that.

No comments:

Post a Comment