These are encouraging days for the discipline of systematic theology. Recent seasons have seen the publication of a number of one-volume accounts of Christian dogmatics, with parts of various multi-volume offerings also appearing with regularity. This exuberance for serious enquiry into the meaning, coherence, and implications of Christian doctrine has been present not only in those areas of theological inquiry which have consistently exhibited a long-standing passion for such endeavor; an important feature of recent trends is a passion for systematic work also becoming evident in confessional domains which on occasion in the past have treated such activity with indifference or even suspicion. The result is an increasingly rich and contoured landscape in contemporary dogmatic theology, hopefully to the benefit not only of the academic scholar but of the churches both challenged and sustained by such work.

A relatively recent arrival in this landscape is the work Christian Faith: Dogmatics in Outline by Professor Brian A. Gerrish, John Nuveen Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he taught theology for over three decades, before becoming Distinguished Service Professor of Theology at Union Presbyterian Seminary. This volume has been eagerly anticipated not only by those pupils of Gerrish who benefitted from his teaching directly in the course of their theological formation, but also by a wide array of other scholars who have appreciated both the significant and insightful research Gerrish has undertaken in historical and systematic theology over the years and the careful, measured, and gracious way in which he prosecutes his work. This reviewer for one would like to acknowledge a significant personal debt to Gerrish in respect of lessons learned from him concerning the content and the conduct of theology, including over one treasured dinner in his company.

In what follows, this review seeks to provide an account of this important volume, according attention both to its theological structure and its material character, and to offer some personal reflections—broad and particular—on some of the dogmatic issues that it raises.

Christian Faith: Dogmatics in Outline is a one-volume treatment of Christian faith, running to over 300 pages of densely set text. The volume opens with theological prolegomena before moving to an exploration of the major loci of Christian theology, and proceeds in four sections.

The first, an introductory section, is devoted to consideration of “Dogmatics as a Field of Inquiry,” and deals with the subject matter, definition, and method of dogmatics. For this reason, it deserves particular attention, in order to appreciate the kind of dogmatics this work instantiates.

For Gerrish, the subject matter of dogmatic theology is “the distinctively Christian way of having faith” (3). This opening definition indicates that whatever “Christian faith” means is susceptible of understanding against a broader, public understanding of “faith” in general. Gerrish here introduces a concept that will have currency (both formal and material) in the remainder of the volume—the concept of “elemental faith.” This faith indicates “confidence in the intelligibility of the world we experience and of our own existence in it” (9). Without confidence in such order, not only religion but also science would collapse: the use of human reason depends on it. This elemental faith is thus not peculiarly Christian, or even peculiarly religious; moreover, it cannot be proven, or indeed disproven. It simply describes the human way of being in the world, a confidence that is often latent or subconscious, yet that is often under threat, even “under siege” (10).

Christian faith as a particular description of faith “begins from the revelation of God in Jesus Christ” (8). And its relation to elemental faith is that it confirms this faith in an orderly environment and that it specifies the latter by articulating something of the order perceived. In so doing, Christian faith goes materially beyond elemental faith, and does so in ways which will inevitably conflict with other paths which go materially beyond elemental faith in different directions. Substantively, Christian faith specifies elemental faith as “filial trust in God ‘the Father of Jesus Christ’” (12), and comes to expression in (second-order) statements of belief.

Christian dogmatics, then, is simply “the theoretical, critical, and systematic discipline that seeks to establish the unity, and to test the adequacy, of the beliefs and dogmas in which Christian faith is expressed” (13). With this in mind, Gerrish purposes in his dogmatics to test both “‘the proper doctrine of faith’ (redemption) and the theistic doctrine of faith presupposed therein (creation)” (21). The two criteria which are deployed for this testing are “Christian tradition, which interprets the Apostolic witness to Jesus Christ, and... present-day thought and experience, insofar as they call for reinterpreting the tradition” (21). The latter criterion is exemplified for Gerrish by two significant contemporary voices which address the tradition—the findings of natural and social sciences, and the experience of racial discrimination, poverty, and gender bias.

Gerrish turns next to the architecture of a dogmatic system, something, he notes, that is “not a trivial matter” (22). For his part, Gerrish follows the pattern of the major dogmatic works of John Calvin and Friedrich Schleiermacher by offering a two-part system, detailing first creation, which he describes as “theistic faith” (32 [italics in original]), and then distinctively Christian faith, which he describes as “redemption faith” (32). Yet Gerrish cautions that this material order of presentation should not be taken to reflect either the path of Christian experience or the path of logical argument; it is driven instead, at least in part, by the desire not to exclude “the possibility of interpreting [Christian faith] in connection with other modes of faith” (32), and possibly also by the desire not to foreclose conversation between creation faith and natural science (see 41).

With the introduction complete, Part I, “Creation,” enters into the domain of dogmatics proper, and seeks to present theism, or theistic faith, as the presupposition of Christian faith. In this section, there are chapters on the world as creation, God as Creator, and the human being as created. There follows Part II, “Redemption,” which is by far the longest section of the book, and treats of the particular affirmations of Christian faith under two sub-divisions. The first sub-division deals with “Christ and the Christian,” covering themes traditionally addressed in the loci of hamartiology, Christology, and soteriology; the second sub-division deals with “The Spirit and the Church,” treating themes pertinent to the loci of election, pneumatology, ecclesiology, and sacramentology. The concluding section treats the doctrine of the Trinity and eschatology.

These dogmatic chapters broadly follow a common pattern. Each chapter begins with a thesis statement articulating concisely the constructive position reached within the chapter, and there follows a short introduction to the locus under review. Thereafter, there are usually three (though sometimes four) distinct sections in each chapter. The first section surveys and evaluates the material in Scripture that is germane to the locus. The second (and occasionally also the third) section presents and engages something of the history of the locus in the Christian tradition, drawing on a wide array of sources, among which Calvin and Schleiermacher are permanent and prominent fixtures. The final section offers a response to some of the history of Christian thought on the locus and outlines and explicates the constructive position Gerrish reaches. The result of this pattern is that in the case of each doctrine considered, material is offered in respect of scriptural exegesis, historical theology, and dogmatic theology.

It would be difficult to attempt a material summary of Gerrish's entire dogmatic theology as it unfolds across these dense and rich chapters—such might perhaps best be gained from the opening thesis statements of each chapter, statements which are gathered together in an Appendix at the end of the volume. But perhaps instead one might venture a somewhat hazardous and infelicitous attempt to characterize the substance of the volume more generally.

One might recognize, first, that the strongest influences upon this dogmatic work are the theologies of Calvin and Schleiermacher, Gerrish's confessed “two principal guides” (77)—not simply in terms of the presentation of the historical theology, but also in the articulation of constructive theology. Given that much of the raw material for this volume is rooted in years of teaching Calvin's Institutes and Schleiermacher's Christian Faith to students of dogmatics, this is not a great surprise. To some, such a joint inheritance would suggest that the material was being pulled in two different, even incoherent, directions, the theologies of Calvin and Schleiermacher being perceived as radically divergent and even incommensurable. Yet as Gerrish demonstrates clearly—time after time in his historical theological work here, and at greater length and in greater detail elsewhere—Schleiermacher is in truth as much a genuine heir of Calvin as is, for example, Barth. In his own dogmatic work, Gerrish is evidently drawn towards the Calvin–Schleiermacher line far more than towards that of Calvin–Barth, and within that first trajectory, he should probably be located rather nearer the Schleiermacher pole than that of Calvin. Supporting evidence for this might be sought in the way in which, in line with Schleiermacher rather than Calvin, Gerrish decouples the doctrine of creation from accounting for the origin of the world (40), hesitates to affirm particular acts of God in history such as miracles (118), rejects a penal substitutionary account of the work of Jesus Christ (130), questions the pre-existence of Jesus Christ (157), understands the doctrine of election in primarily corporate terms (207), and demonstrates great circumspection in eschatology (314–19).

Yet the danger in relying too heavily on a characterization of Gerrish's work as relating to that of Schleiermacher, or indeed to any other theologian, is to overlook the many and significant ways in which Gerrish offers creative contributions to the dogmatic landscape. These contributions are invariably constructive and insightful, and deserve far more attention than can be afforded in this brief review. For the purposes of illustration, three might be mentioned. First, there is Gerrish's expansion of the concept of sin under the rubric of “estrangement.” This enlarged category includes not only the rebellious defiance conventionally equated with sin and pride, but also the mistrust and anxiety that “has more to do with depletion of the self than with self-assertion” (89). Second, there is the decision by Gerrish to organize his account of the work of the Redeemer with primary focus on the kingly office of Jesus Christ. Attention to the kingly office resonates profoundly not only with the scriptural witness of Christ's Lordship and the Kingdom of God but also with a prominent strand in the tradition. Hence, Gerrish writes, “the prophetic twofold activity of Christ as prophet and priest” is to be subsumed to this office, with each of the aspects of this activity addressing one of the forms of estrangement just noted (133). And—it might be noted in passing—the architectonic of Part II of the volume continues with this dual trajectory through the pairs of reconciliation–renewal, election–ecclesiology, and baptism–eucharist. Third, in his discussion of other religions as part of the doctrine of election, Gerrish indicates a preference for a “hypothetical pluralism” (211). He suggests that “to say that the Christian receives faith as the gift of Jesus Christ does not imply that the common faith of humanity cannot be had in any other way” (211). Such a move holds open the simultaneous possibility of engaging in genuine dialogue with other religions without diminishing the force of one's Christian convictions. In these examples of creative thinking, as in many others, Gerrish shows himself to be in line with both of his dogmatic criteria—seeking to remain faithful to Christian tradition and to listen to the voices and needs of the contemporary world.

One might recognize, second, the rather Reformed instincts which surface regularly in the course of his work. Gerrish offers an explicit acknowledgement in the Preface that “some of my initial preferences are suggested by my location in the Reformed or Calvinist tradition” (x). He mentions at this point the regulative role assigned to covenant/election and the teleological understanding of the world existing to manifest the divine glory. One might add to this a series of further material Reformed instincts which the book might be seen to manifest: a central concern for the doctrine of divine providence (40), a desire to avoid any confusion of God and humanity (157), a covenantal argument for infant baptism (274), and resistance to the transformation of eucharistic elements (286). The extensive use of Scripture (see the impressive Scripture index at 341–46) is also—albeit not exclusively—indicative of a rather Reformed way to proceed. And of course the material prominence of Calvin and Schleiermacher—received with both appreciation and criticism—in every dogmatic chapter necessarily affords a rather Reformed contour to the work. At the same time, Gerrish is explicit that his task is to write a Christian and not simply a Reformed dogmatics (x), and to suggest that his work is a “Reformed dogmatics” would seem unnecessarily constrictive. The very range of sources which Gerrish draws on alongside Calvin and Schleiermacher is indicative of a scholar both keenly aware and deeply respectful of the diversity of Christian reflection across the tradition. Moreover, the commitment to ecumenism that surfaces at regular intervals in respect of controversial doctrines (strikingly, 189–92) is further testimony to Gerrish's desire to speak to the whole church with this dogmatic work. Finally, on regular occasions in the book, particularly in the endorsing at points of the work of Luther (133–34) and of the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council (233–35), the volume resists confessional type-casting.

And one might recognize, third, that this work seeks to be a dogmatics for the present day. As noted above, Gerrish explicitly elevates present-day thought and experience as a criterion for testing and revising the tradition (21). Certainly, this criterion is alongside the rather more conventional criterion of the Christian tradition as interpretation of the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ (21). Yet the inclusion of this criterion at all may be enough to cause hesitation among certain readers. Gerrish calmly observes, however, that the tradition of the church—including Scripture—has become estranged from the contemporary world to the extent that the core theological problem facing dogmatics is no longer the relationship between Scripture and tradition but the relationship between Christian tradition (including Scripture) and the world (32). It is a telling observation when Gerrish writes that the admonition “that mediation between biblical faith and modern thinking is capitulation to alien ideas misses the point: the modern mind is not just the enemy out there, but the believer—sometimes the perplexed believer—in the pews, or even in the pulpit” (32). In the dogmatic chapters, contemporary concerns are raised at frequent junctures: scientific positions are recognized in the chapter on the Creator (54), liberation concerns are examined in the doctrine of the Trinity (303), and feminist concerns are attended in the material on sin (85) and the atonement (131); in a welcome move, the attempt is made to avoid gender-exclusive language in referring to God. It is perhaps something of a surprise, indeed, given the way in which the dogmatic criteria are articulated at the outset, that concerns of this sort are not aired more frequently in the volume; yet perhaps the concerns of such voices are also addressed from the outset by, for example, Gerrish's desire not to defend the Genesis accounts of creation as literal or symbolic accounts of the origin of the universe (40), or by Gerrish's rejection of a penal substitutionary account of atonement (130).

At the close of this overview of the structure and material of Christian Faith: Dogmatics in Outline, it is worth pausing to reflect on what a remarkable achievement the volume represents. As has hopefully become apparent already, the volume is both carefully conceived and structured and rich in material insight and creativity. It is hugely erudite, drawing effortlessly not only on Calvin and Schleiermacher, but also on an array of distinguished theological greats—as well, occasionally, as on some rather overlooked theological lights. It draws perhaps most of all on the text of Scripture itself, and in doing so displays a great sensitivity to and critical awareness of the text and of its history of interpretation. Yet for all its erudition, the volume is a work of real humility, with Gerrish acknowledging freely its inability to be fully comprehensive, its areas of (relative!) inexpertise, and its moments of dogmatic agnosticism. And it is also a work of thoroughgoing irenicism, seeking ecumenical ground where possible, yet sensitive to theological difference, and refraining from sharp condemnation or unhappy polemic.

For all its merits, and these are many, it would not be a work in dogmatics if it did not regularly raise questions and provoke disagreement—or at least a desire for further conversation. In this latter spirit, there follows a critical investigation of two particular issues—the conception of the doctrine of creation, which bears on the structure of the work as a whole, and the understanding of the relationship between God and Jesus Christ, which bears centrally on its material.

First, on the doctrine of creation: this is attended in Part I of the volume, and refers for Gerrish to “the kind of world presupposed by Christian faith” and “the distinctively theistic understanding of the relationship between the continuing course of the world and the creative activity of God” (35–36 [italics in original]). Underlying Christian faith, therefore, as a presupposition, is a theistic faith in a Creator God. And the doctrine of creation thus attends to the following question: if one has faith in God as the Father of Jesus Christ, what kind of world and what concept of deity are presupposed? It is this kind of move that Schleiermacher explicitly pursues in his own Christian Faith, expounding in a first section the presuppositions of the Christian religious affections.

There are two issues which one might observe in the way in which Gerrish proceeds from here.

The first issue concerns the source of the material which is exposited in these presuppositional sections. When Schleiermacher operates in this presuppositional mode, he seeks to resile from the Christian religious affections and to attend instead to the basic, stripped-down feeling of absolute dependence that is contained in every Christian religious affection. This gives to the reflections in these paragraphs a real and purposeful air of abstraction, for all that he rehearses or references the statements of certain theologians and creeds (and, more occasionally, biblical texts) as color or support for his argument. When Gerrish operates in this same mode, however, the argument has a rather different texture, for Gerrish begins in each case with Scripture, and particularly with the Old Testament. While this bears only tangentially on his treatment of creation per se, it bears extensively on his treatments of the Creator and of the creature, and it is in the course of the former that he speaks of the “so-called ethical monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures” as being the “particular instance of theism presupposed by faith in Jesus Christ” (45).

On one level, this different texture demonstrates clearly how Gerrish understands the value of the Old Testament for dogmatics rather differently from Schleiermacher—as requiring “more systematic attention . . . than Schleiermacher allowed for” (26). And such indeed seems broadly desirable. Yet on another level, it is not entirely clear how Gerrish is using the term “presupposition” in this account. The ethical monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures might plausibly be construed as a chronological presupposition of Christian faith for the first (Jewish) followers of Jesus Christ, or the ethical monotheism attested in the Hebrew Scriptures might in some way be construed as a logical presupposition in an argument leading to Christian faith. But Gerrish intends neither of these (32); and it is not even clear that it is experientially true for Christians today that their Christian faith (on Gerrish's definition) presupposes Jewish religion. The theistic faith which Gerrish seeks to exposit at this point in the work has, he observes, “much in common with the other two ‘Abrahamic faiths’” (32); yet what appears in this section seems to be simply identical to one of these faiths rather than a common core of theistic beliefs. The question here, then, would be this: in what way does Gerrish describe the Jewish religion as a presupposition of the Christian faith . . . and does Christian faith really presuppose this?

Such concern leads to a second issue at this point—the division of material between creation (the presupposition) and redemption (the experience). In Gerrish's treatment of God as Creator, for example, his aim is to determine the “basic concept of deity presupposed by Christian faith in God ‘the Father of Jesus Christ’” (52)—in other words, to characterize the general relationship between God and the world without reference to the particular relationship between God and humanity in Jesus Christ. Yet he concludes his survey of the Hebrew understanding of God by noting that this “took shape in the context of Israel's history, interpreted in terms of election, covenant, and redemption,” on which basis “a good deal must be postponed to part II” (51). As an aside, having profiled the divine attributes of justice, goodness, and steadfast love in the Old Testament, Gerrish considers how these attributes are demonstrated also in material in the New Testament (52)—yet given his later recognition that within that context, it will be “inextricably bound up with the theme of redemption through Christ” (62), the work seems misplaced.

The question that arises here concerns the legitimacy—or otherwise—of reading the Old Testament without reference to the covenant or to redemption. Two difficulties in particular present themselves. The first is practical: how can one separate those texts in the Old Testament which pertain to the themes of redemption and covenant (and therefore would belong in Part II) and those which do not (and would therefore belong in Part I)? This seems at best hugely difficult, perhaps comparable to the occasional and aporetic attempt to separate Gospel and Law in the same text. The second is theological: what is the relationship between the picture of God in the general (creation) relationship and that in the special (redemption) relationship? One might hope and expect that the two would be in harmony, and this perhaps explains the desire to track the Hebrew vision of God into the New Testament just questioned. And one might expect further that the two would represent a stepwise understanding of God, such that the latter redemption knowledge would add to or further specify the creation knowledge. But Gerrish himself observes that there are difficulties with the Hebraic conception of God (53), and these would seem to require not so much addition or further specification as amendment or even rejection. And even where such correction is not in view, if the move is made to read the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ—and therefore with the broad grain of the tradition of the church—it is not entirely clear that the Old Testament can ever be considered as referring to a general or non-redemptive relationship.

Second, on the relationship between God and Jesus Christ: this is treated in Part II of Christian Faith, and centrally in Gerrish's chapter on the person of the Redeemer. In this chapter, Gerrish holds firm to his two dogmatic criteria and proceeds to offer a rather critical account of the classical Christology of the Christian tradition. He observes that “if it is asserted that one cannot be a Christian without saying, ‘Jesus is God,’” then the basis of this assertion is not to be found in Scripture (144), and he considers that affirmations of the divinity of Jesus Christ in Scripture and in later tradition “can be understood as expressions of the discovery of faith” but “cannot be taken literally as factual assertions” (157). For Gerrish, indeed, the statement that “God has become man” is nonsensical; one is better to stick with the biblical affirmations that “Jesus is Lord” and “God was in Christ” (157). Similarly, the notion of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ is “incurably docetic, impossible to square with Jesus’ real humanity, and . . . has every appearance of being mythological” (157); it can, therefore, only be taken metaphorically. It is the divine plan that is pre-existent, not the divine person of the Son of God who becomes incarnate in Jesus Christ.

Positively, however, Gerrish posits that “the work and person of Christ were creative events that brought about a new situation in human history” (157, emphasis added). Gerrish posits at this point a clear link between creation and redemption, with Christian faith seeing the work and person of Christ as “woven into the fabric of creation” and the coming of Christ as “placed in the setting of the Creator's design for humanity” (157). There was, after all, one divine plan all along, which includes both creation and redemption.

Moreover, the adoption of the Pauline expression “God was in Christ” is, Gerrish writes, “particularly apposite because it tells of an activity of which God is the subject” (158 [italics in original]). The exact relationship between the activity of God and the activity of Jesus Christ is not explained by Paul, Gerrish acknowledges, but Gerrish here quotes P. T. Forsyth with approval, to the effect that God and the human meet in Jesus Christ “in action... as two movements in mutual interplay, mutual struggle, and reciprocal communion” (158).

But a concern may arise here in respect of the divine activity which is said by Gerrish to take place in Jesus Christ, and may do so because of what Gerrish states elsewhere in Christian Faith about divine activity. In his doctrine of creation, Gerrish observes that “the activity of the Creator need not be taken to imply the divine interventionism that occasions the supposed conflict of religion and natural science” (55–56). And in his doctrine of redemption, he correspondingly states—explicitly following Schleiermacher—that “we do not admit the reality of any individual and temporal divine acts” and therefore that “the notion of particular acts of God in history is improperly anthropomorphic” (118 [italics in original]). In other words, as Gerrish notes elsewhere, “no event can be either more or less the effect of divine activity than any other event” (107).

Such a construal of the divine activity would seem to rule out any distinction between general revelation and special revelation, and Gerrish recognizes this issue. He moves explicitly to affirm that God the Creator “is made known in the covenant of grace, that is, in a particular story that includes the call of Israel, the gift of law, and the manifestation of the gospel in Jesus Christ” (107 [italics in original, emphasis added]). Yet in light of his non-interventionist stance, he recognizes that it becomes necessary to rethink special revelation. In his own work, he achieves this by suggesting that God's activity is to be conceived “not as resembling the interaction between one self and another but as more like the relationship between a single self and its own mental activities or bodily cells” (118). He explains: “although everything I do is my activity, some of the things I do are better indications than others of my essential and characteristic self and may be said to reveal who I am” (118). Gerrish acknowledges that this is a rather anthropomorphic analogy, and certainly, this conception of a scale of correspondence between action and essence may be applicable to human beings, and become particularly relevant when it comes to questions of sin (or estrangement) and the regular occlusion of genuine humanity. Yet it remains difficult to conceive of such a scale applying to God, as if there were actions of God that would not reveal God. Concerns in respect of the hiddenness or “left hand” of God may gain traction here, as well as renewed worries about the division of what is proper to God as Creator and God as Redeemer.

But a further, directly Christological question arises here: if the activity of God cannot be construed in terms of particular acts in history, how can one understand the activity of God in Jesus Christ to be in any way particular or unique? The same question haunts Schleiermacher's account of the person of Jesus Christ, for Schleiermacher is similarly opposed to divine intervention in the created order. Yet, as Gerrish quotes, Schleiermacher writes of the work of the Redeemer as resulting in “the powerful God-consciousness [being] implanted [in human nature] as a new vital principle” (127), a statement that evidently leads to an unresolved tension between new implanting and non-intervention. For Schleiermacher, Gerrish observes, this new implanting in Jesus Christ means the embodiment of the religious ideal in a historical person (156). But the latter is precisely what Gerrish calls indefensible: “It is one thing to say that Christ disclosed or presented the ideal, quite another to believe that he actualized it” (156 [italics in original]). The language of new implanting is thus rather studiously avoided by Gerrish in his own account, and the tension present in Schleiermacher seems to be avoided.

But there is a cost to avoiding the tension, and that is a seeming inability to describe how this activity of God in Jesus Christ is in any meaningful way qualitatively different from the activity of God elsewhere in creation. Gerrish acknowledges that, in his teaching, Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God as “already present, or dawning, in his own activity” (133). And for Gerrish, the work of Jesus Christ creates a new situation in human history, as noted already. But combined with a determinedly naturalist reading of divine providence and divine activity, even in Jesus Christ, it becomes difficult to conceive of the appearance of Jesus Christ as representing anything other than a natural progression of events, albeit one within the one divine plan. Such a view would indeed create space for the possibility of there being “other ways to salvation” (211), which may relate to Gerrish's stance of hypothetical pluralism, and thus attend carefully to contemporary concerns. But it is less clear that such a view fits so neatly with the scriptural accounts pertaining either to the uniqueness of Jesus and his work or to the radicality and newness of his work. In the final analysis, it is not entirely clear that the apostolic witness of the tradition (including Scripture) would agree that a new situation in human history can be created, as Gerrish affirms, without a new divine activity or intervention within creation.

The two issues raised for critical comment are designed not so much to contradict or correct Gerrish as to seek opportunity for further conversation. And if one were to note that further issues might be raised on any number of topics in the volume in similar fashion, this would not be in itself to evidence or suggest any failings or infelicities on the part of the volume. Rather, it would be to accord it high praise indeed by way of recognizing its exuberant fecundity in raising and addressing the core issues of dogmatic enquiry in ways that illuminate and challenge. In respect of this volume, then, as in respect of his many volumes and essays over the past decades, one can only express the highest gratitude to and utmost respect for its author.