Was there a “center” to Owen’s theology?
Some would caution against searching for integrating motifs for fear of reductionism. For example, in Claims of Truth, Trueman writes: …the intellectual content of Owen’s thouht defies simplistic reduction to one or two key themes. His use of the various strands of the Western tradition, the need to develop new ways of expressing and defending Reformed theology in the light of novel heresies and attacks, and the sheer breadth of his own reading all suggest that we are dealing with a thinker whose thought can be reduced to a few simple ‘big ideas’ only at the cost of losing much of the subtlety of what he has to say, and indeed transforming his theology into a caricature which he himself would not have recongized. (p. 43) With that warning in mind, though, we would tend to agree with Richard Daniels, who wrote in his dissertation on The Christology of John Owen: …there is one motif so important to John Owen, so often and so broadly cited by him, that the writer would go so far as to cal
