Ever since the Reformation, Protestant Christians have believed in

the sola sciptura principle, where the Bible is held as the utmost
and ultimate authority. Yet when Christian doctrine is held up to
the magnifying lens, there are clear traces of its true intellectual
roots, traces that go back to Augustine, Aquinas and even to Plato
and Aristotle. Through a long historical process, human philosophy
and tradition have gradually replaced and distorted Christian teach-
ings to the point that what most Christians today know and experi-
ence as Christianity is vastly different from what Christ believed
and taught over two thousand years ago.

In Basic Elements of Christian Theology: Scripture Replacing Tra-

dition, Fernando Canale examines the causes behind this distortion.
He explores all basic elements of theology: the reality of God, his
Trinitarian nature, foreknowledge, predestination and creation; first
presenting and then contrasting the approaches between Christian
tradition and the Bible.

The reader will detect how Christian tradition has failed, time and
again, to integrate all biblical teachings into a coherent theological
system. Canale concludes by proposing a new, biblically based
theological matrix, one that logically integrates all basic elements,
and that promises to shape all future interpretation of Scripture and
construction of Christian doctrine.

For the past twenty years, Fernando L. Canale, PhD, has

served as professor of theology and philosophy at Andrews
University’s Theological Seminary. He is also the author
of numerous articles and three other books: Toward a
Criticism of Theological Reason: Time and Timelessness as
Primordial Presuppositions, Back to Revelation-
Inspiration: In Search of New Foundations, and The Cogni-
tive Principle of Christian Theology: A Hermeneutical
Study of the Revelation and Inspiration of the Bible. He
lives in Berrien Springs, Michigan, with his wife, Mirta.