This is really two books in one: a dictionary in whcih a reader can browse through piquant explorations of some of the most interesting topics in Christian theology, and an intellectual autobiography in which the author has used those topics to give an account of the traditions to which he owes the formation of his own mind and spirit. As he says, "An intellectual autobiography in the format of a 'philosophical dictionary' permits the self-indulgence of employing the seeming objectivity of some eighty-two entries, arranged in the impersonal sequence of alphabetical order, to express a completely personal set of prejudices."