Making book lists

It's difficult for me to make a definitive list of books nowadays. I could do it prior to conversion and learning real, on-the-mark biblical doctrine. In fact I had a 7 book list that was rock-like in being definitive and immutable and balanced. But post-conversion it's difficult to list the same books, and I'm not even talking about easy to give up influences of youth like Herr Nietzsche or Mr. Emerson. I mean influences like the Homeric epics and Plutarch. In a way I see them as Christian, though. In the sense that some influences reside at the summit level and contain enough of what is universally true to be worthy to be set alongside explicitly Christian works. Who could argue with a shelf that contained the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Plutarch, and Calvin.

There's also the problem of whether to include influences that are not 'names' (are not time-vetted, known 'great works'), yet contain influence you know is rare and inspired and summit level. Not many contempory works could even fall into this category, but influences having to do with elucidating the practical level of the faith can. These are school influences though, and one can't speak out of school. It's where the Words of God "don't throw your pearls before swine" become a knife in your conscience, and you just follow.

I've been reading Calvin's Commentaries (actually I've been skimming through the Library of Christian Classics selection [0664241603] which I just aquired used) and have been struck continually how alive his writing is and how on-the-mark his insight is and how clear and strong and bold his approach is. How much he understood the faith. (How much he understood man, the world, and the devil...) So, I put Calvin's Commentaries on my new list (I can see that's definitive right now). What gets taken off? I mean if I were to make a new definitive list post-conversion?

We all learn from a thousand and one influences which lead us to where we eventually end up. (If we do, that is, end up at the summit level...) Lists usually always overpass all the influential early and mid-climb influences. We don't want people to associate them with where we are now. Or use them to mock us or just use them as ammunition against us. Many influences that may have been big in our development might have - certainly did - contain much chaff. People focus on the chaff, when you were interested in the wheat. "You read that book? so you're like a [fill in the taboo incorrect abomination]?" I have little patience for that empty nonsense. Still, even if I didn't care about that it would still be hard to include early and no-longer-important-to-me influences in a list. Even though one of them may have saved your life even at one point or stage of your life.

I focus, now that I've been at the summit for awhile, on influences that carry higher visual language or metaphor for universal subjects (On War is an example of that; and so is Wealth of Nations, though that is harder for most people to see). War, Wealth, Government... Works that are not merely the literature of knowledge but the literature of power (to use de Quincy's terms). Didactic or philosophical works can be of the literature of power as well. The Homeric epics (more Christian than people suppose). The closest to Holy Writ, but close like planets are the closest bodies to the Sun. A poem like Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. Plato. Montesquieu. Thucydides is a rare influence in that it is the closest thing to a bible in the category of history. It's like a block of stone you have to chip away at to get at what it has to offer, but... Plutarch is human architecture. Plutarch's Lives present patterns of inner development via lives of heroes. It's a sacred work. Herodotus' book in its own way carries sacred influence. (By sacred I'm not saying 'Biblical'. Calm down, heresy hunters...)

Talking about what an early influence can do for your development there are few works more powerful on the developing understanding than the first history of the world you read. (If you've ever read one and have experienced what I'm talking about, of course. It's not automatic.) So now, though, I come to sacred history and then I learn of Covenant Theology and the history suddenly slips time itself and reaching back before Creation begins in the council of the Godhead and ends after time ends... I search for classic, inspired works on this subject and come across an Owen (Biblical Theology) and a Witsius (Economy of the Covenants). Not to mention Holy Writ itself. I force my way through Vos, and... Lose patience with these theologians... Between the prolixity of the Puritans and the academic knotwork of a Vos or Kline... They don't make it easy. (But the subject matter is rarely explained with understanding because few men attain real understanding of it.) Then some seminarian writes a 'Simple Introduction' to Covenant Theology but decides to screw it all up by writing it in dialogue form. A. you need at least a modicum of literary talent to pull that off. B. Covenant Theology is not the subject matter to apply it to. Though I appreciate his effort.

Just as the Bible doesn't give up understanding of itself promiscuously neither does Covenant Theology. It's all offered, like the practical level of the faith, palm half-open. You are forced to make some real effort. Effort and zeal is rewarded... You learn that when you've been on the open sea some...(no, I can't speak out of school...) To sum up on making book lists... When you get to the summit read works that go into essence (and that you want in essence). Conquer them, possess them. Works that are like physical monuments of universal influence and not merely books containing surfacy knowledge about things. Find seven. Don't waste time. Count your days...