In terms of Christian history, the seventeenth century in Europe is often seen as one of religious wars and of the development of the great systems of post-Reformation Protestant orthodoxy. However, as Professor Scholder shows in this brilliant book, it is even more significant that it was the period of the birth of modern critical theology: the time when the traditional Christian view of the world began to fall apart under the impact of science and philosophy.

How that happened, is the story told in this book.

The key element in Christian claims to truth was, of course, the Bible, and Professor Scholder begins by showing how a challenge to that claim was already being mounted in the previous century by the Socinians, with their discussion of the relationship between reason, scripture and dogma. Then came controversies over specific issues, which are illustrated in detail. The findings of Copernicus and Galileo questioned the credibility of the biblical view of the place of the earth within the universe on the basis of astronomy; in the wake of the voyages of discovery, other equally important if lesser known figures questioned the biblical view of history on the basis of the new geographical evidence which had come to light.

and Now there seemed to be not one truth, but two: the truths of the Bible and the truth ascertained by modern investigations there were still the challenges of Descartes and Spinoza to come.

The consequences of the seventeenth-century intellectual revolution are still with us, and there is no better guide to an understanding than this most-gifted historian of our age.

Klaus Scholder, who died in 1985, was Professor of Modern Church History in the Evangelical Theological Faculty at the University of Tübingen. He is the author of The Churches and the Third Reich (2 vols) and A Requiem for Hitler