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This chapter is concerned with the relationship between Christian hope and public reason, especially as articulated in John Rawls's essay ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’. With reference to Matthew 25, it argues that Christian hope goes beyond history, but that Christian love is expressed within history and that this tension can be the source of a specifically Christian service to democratic societies. Hope is crucial to the ethical life of democratic societies in three particular ways: it inspires a discernment of human capacities which evokes moral virtue; maintains a conviction of the openness of the future to human striving; and teaches a certain detachment from the fruits of that striving. The chapter considers how Christian hope can serve this public political hope while at the same time maintaining a distinctively Christian identity, focussing on the use of the religious language of hope by Christians in the public political forum.

Two further difficulties with D’Costa’s account – at least when transferred to the case of a non-religious atheist – are addressed in this chapter: (i) the atheist’s seeming lack of opportunities to receive and cooperate with grace, and (ii) the doctrinal inadmissibility of post-mortem conversion. This is primarily done via an extended theological interpretation of Matthew 25.31–46 (‘Whatever you have done to the least of these my brothers…’), inspired by a specific strand of its reception in the Catholic hagiographical and magisterial traditions. Particular attention is paid to the witness and writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and the resources these contain for a (quasi-) sacramental understanding of the atheist’s graced encounter with the ‘anonymous Christ’ in his minimi (‘least ones’).

This chapter examines further cumulative evidence for a theology of union with Christ in the New Testament. First the participatory representation of Jesus’s death using covenant and flood imagery in 1 Peter is considered, before examining the significance of the expression ‘partakers of the divine nature’ in 2 Peter, usually misunderstood to reflect the assimilation of Greek notions of participation, but grammatically requiring a different interpretation, that of covenant partnership. Sparing but significant participatory elements in James are considered to be consistent with the eschatological themes traced throughout this study. Revelation is then seen to represent believers as martyrs who participate in the victorious death of the Lamb. Finally, the Synoptic Gospels are seen to be marked by an apocalyptic restoration theology; within this, Matthew develops two images that are strikingly oriented towards union: the yoke of Matt 11:25–30 and the Son of Man seated upon the throne in 25:31–46.

This chapter examines the ways in which the incarnation of Jesus Christ is specifically represented as an outworking of divine humility. Importantly, this is rendered using imagery borrowed from biblical descriptions of wisdom, something that is suggestive for reflection on intellectual humility. Particular attention is paid to Philippians 2:1–11, which presents Christ’s ‘humility of mind’ as exemplary for Christian life and conduct. The humility in question is not associated with limitation or deficiency, and far less with sin, but rather with ‘selflessness’ and ‘servanthood’. Participation in Christ’s wisdom entails a preparedness to make sacrifices intended for the flourishing of others or for the glory of God. The chapter will also consider 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:10, where the ‘wisdom of God’ is contrasted with human wisdom, and Matthew 11:25–30, where Jesus is represented as the embodiment of divine wisdom.

This chapter examines the practices with which intellectual humility is enmeshed in the Christian life: patience and gratitude, which are both manifested in prayer. The discussion recognizes that intellectual humility does not function in isolation, as a virtue in its own right, but is expressed through, and fed by, other practices within the life of faith, as the minds of believers are rightly ordered with respect to God. Patience and gratitude are not represented within the New Testament simply as dispositions, but as deliberate volitional activities, by which the lordship and the goodness of God are acknowledged and behaviours modified accordingly. The chapter traces the key ways in which faithful servants are represented as ‘waiting upon God’ and giving thanks to him, and considers the ways that that these practices are represented as bearing on the epistemic and volitional characteristics of those servants.