Unearthing Treasure in Clay Jars: T. C. Chao and the Formation of Chinese Dogmatic Theology

Abstract

T. C. Chao (1888–1979) was a leading Chinese Protestant theologian renowned for his creative works of Chinese theology. Although scholars have traced significant changes and shifts in Chao’s theology in the 1940s, a particular formal aspect of his mature thinking has not received the attention it deserves. Chao began to emphasise and practise a particular form of Chinese theology in the 1940s and early 1950s, namely, doctrinal or dogmatic theology. This paper traces the development of Chao’s dogmatic theology and examines one representative dogmatic locus in his thinking, the doctrine of the Trinity. It argues that Chao’s turn to dogmatics not only richly illuminates a crucial aspect of his mature life and thought, but also sheds light on the legacy of Andrew Walls, whose work highlights Christianity’s cross-cultural diffusion and the gospel’s encounter with the cultural worlds it takes root within.