A New Critical Biography of Charles Hodge

Until very recently, some of our Old Princeton heroes had failed to garner much of any biographical or systematic analysis.  Thankfully this is beginning to change.  For instance, Benjamin B. Warfield is now graced with Fred Zaspel’s helpful treatment of his theology here.  Gary Johnson’s fine edited volume on Warfield, obtainable here, also adds to our appreciation of the Lion of Princeton, as does Kim Riddelbarger’s research.  I am aware of least two biographies of Warfield in the works and look forward with much anticipation to their release.

Charles Hodge has shared a similar fate to Warfield.  Up till now the only biography of Professor Hodge was that written by his son with a few years of Charles Hodge’s death.  It is still must reading and can be obtained here.  But I am very pleased to announce the release of the first critical (read, “thoughtful” and “objective”) biography of Charles Hodge penned by Paul Gutjahr, professor at the University of Indiana,  and published by Oxford University Press.  Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy looks to be a substantial piece of scholarship.  Look for a full scale review sometime in the future.  You can find the book here.

Also, for further thought about Old Princeton and the life of the mind, there is nothing better than Paul Helseth’s volume, Right Reason and the Princeton Mind, which can be obtained here.  Dr. Helseth offers some thoughtful challenges to the idea that the stalwarts of Old Princeton were bald rationalists and allowed their Calvinism to be held captive to Scottish Common Sense Realism simpliciter.  Questions still remain about apologetic methodology but it is a good day when thoughtful analyses as reflected in the various volumes noted here see the light of day.

It is a good time to be Reformed, by God’s grace.  Old Princeton lives on!