Systematic Theology: The Works of God

Jenson's second volume of systematic theology presents a distinctively postmodern reconstruction of Christian doctrine that engages profoundly with questions of divine action and presence in history. Building on his earlier volume on the Triune God, Jenson develops a theology centered on the narrative identity of God as revealed in Israel and Jesus Christ, offering a bold alternative to both classical metaphysical theology and modern liberal reductions.

The work's central contribution lies in its reconceptualization of God's relationship to time and creation. Jenson rejects the traditional distinction between God's eternal being and temporal acts, arguing instead that God's being is constituted by divine self-involvement in history. This temporal ontology of God challenges both classical theism's emphasis on divine immutability and process theology's limitations on divine sovereignty. Against theologians who preserve divine transcendence by distancing God from temporal reality, Jenson insists that the biblical God is identified precisely through historical acts of liberation and promise.

Methodologically, Jenson employs a narrative hermeneutic that privileges the biblical story over philosophical abstraction. He engages critically with patristic and medieval sources while drawing extensively on twentieth-century theology, particularly Barth and Pannenberg. His approach represents a form of revisionary orthodoxy that maintains traditional doctrinal commitments while radically reinterpreting their metaphysical foundations. The work addresses contemporary challenges from both scientific materialism and religious pluralism by grounding theological claims in the particularity of the Christian narrative rather than universal religious experience or natural theology.

Jenson's treatment of creation, anthropology, and eschatology flows from his temporal understanding of God. Creation is interpreted as God's opening of temporal space for creatures, while human beings are understood as those addressed by God's word of promise. His ecclesiology emphasizes the church as the community where God's future breaks into present history. Throughout, Jenson maintains a robustly trinitarian framework that refuses to separate discussion of God's being from God's salvific acts.

The significance of this work lies in its ambitious attempt to reconstruct systematic theology without relying on Hellenistic metaphysics while avoiding liberal reductionism. Jenson demonstrates how classical doctrines can be reformulated within a thoroughly historical and narrative framework. His temporal ontology of God offers resources for theological engagement with contemporary philosophy and science while maintaining the irreducible particularity of Christian claims about divine identity and action.