Oliphint, K. Scott. Thomas Aquinas (Great Thinkers). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017, pp. 145, $14.99, paperback. Scott Oliphint serves as professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He studied directly under Cornelius Van Til, the father of present-day presuppositional apologetics. Oliphint champions Van Til’s view in the twenty-first century through his publications, such as, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith; Revelation and Reason: New Essays in Reformed Apologetics; as well as the editor for numerous books on Cornelius Van Til, including: The Defense of the Faith; Christian Theistic Evidences, and Common Grace and The Gospel. His latest contribution, Thomas Aquinas, is one book in a series of publications reviewing “Great Thinkers,” which seek to understand and evaluate influential theologians and philosophers throughout church history. At the outset of the book, Oliphint states his interest in this book is to argue that Reformed Thomism cannot be reconciled with historic Reformed theology. “Whatever ‘Reformed Thomism’ might be,” says Oliphint, “or might mean, in our current context, it cannot be a synthesis of biblically foreign Thomistic teachings and a consistent, biblical theology” (p. 3). He believes Reformed theologians either cannot incorporate Aquinas’s views into their…
