The Vigilant God

“Horton Davies, one of the most distinguished church historians in his generation, is best known for his multi-volume magnum opus, Worship and Theology in England. Among his many lesser-known books, The Vigilant God, stands out as perhaps the most enduring and moving. Its topic is the providential governance of humankind in an essentially good world that has been set out of whack by sin. Its conversation partners are among the greatest theologians who have put pen to paper over the ages.”—Jeffrey L. Stout, Princeton University
“The Vigilant God<\i> is a mature scholar’s return to the theological traditions that shaped his life and work. Horton Davies focuses on four great figures of that tradition—Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Barth—giving particular attention to the place of Election in each. This book comes most fully alive in the last two sections, those on Calvin and Barth, for these two biblical theologians have had the greatest influence on the author’s own formation. Calvin is a better expositor of Scripture than Augustine, Davies argues, partly because the Genevan makes Scripture, rather than the Church, the final authority for Christian theology. But the admirer of Calvin is left with the burden of double predestination, a doctrine that, at least to modern sensibility, makes God seem unjust and that ultimately makes human virtue impossible. Davies believes that Barth has largely resolved this dilemma by moving the focus of God’s Election from the individual soul to Christ himself…. Davies was a remarkably wide-ranging historian of the Christian Church, one who was just as alert to the roles of liturgy and arts and music as he was to doctrinal controversies. This little book is a masterful account of how an earnest Christian scholar has been shaped by, and has struggled with, his theological inheritance.”—David B. McIlhiney
“This welcome new edition of The Vigilant God, a title invited by Psalm 121, is not without a touch of irony, at any time, least of all in our own. Horton Davies declares, ‘…in these days of our confusion.’ The concern is theodicy in terms of the doctrine of Providence in Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Barth. Davies boldly, unpretentiously, and wisely offers the approachableness of the giants.”—David Cain, University of Mary Washington