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Elenctics

Elenctics, in Christianity, is a division of practical theology concerned with persuading people of other faiths (or no faith) of the truth of the Gospel message, with an end to producing in them an awareness of, and sense of guilt for, their sins, a recognition of their need for God's forgiveness, repentance (i.e. the disposition to turn away from their sin) and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

Johan Herman Bavinck (1964:221) explains that:


Perhaps the most famous example of specifically elenctic literature in the history of Christianity is St. Thomas Aquinas' great work, Summa Contra Gentiles.

– a Swiss-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian who wrote Institutio Theologiae Elencticae.

Francis Turretin

Bavinck, Johan Herman. 1964. An Introduction to the Science of Missions. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

An English translation of Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles, with minor abridgement, is available at

https://web.archive.org/web/20060922115356/http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/gc.htm

Turretin, Francis, Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Translated by George Musgrave Giger, edited by James T. Dennison, Jr. (1992).  0-87552-451-6

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