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How can the contemporary feminist theologians continue to remain engaged with the Christian tradition, whose creeds and sacred texts pose seemingly insuperable obstacles for a diversity of feminist thinkers? This chapter argues that a postliberal rule theory approach to doctrine allows us to see how womanist theologies that are ostensibly disconnected from the Nicene-Chalcedonian creedal tradition (and possibly even at odds with each other) are regulatively instantiating a stream of that tradition in diverse ways. Employing feminist, deconstructive, postcolonial, and queer hermeneutical tools, the chapter offers a reading of John 4 that subverts the dominant tradition's masculinist, heteronormative, christocentric, or imperialist interpretations of this story as an account of the successful conversion of a Samaritan woman with dubious morals, misguided messianic notions, and illicit desires. This reading stands as an example of how the feminist scholar might resist “disciplinary” biblical texts, even while (perhaps surprisingly) finding herself still desiring to continue to read such texts at all.

This chapter examines this Cassian's Christocentrism with specific reference to the monastic character of Cassian's theology. Cassian's treatise On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius the heretic will be chiefly in evidence. It is argued that Cassian's Christological treatise is an indispensable part of his theological oeuvre. Against several detractors of Cassian's treatise, it is argued that it is a work of genuine interest, not simply for the light it throws on Cassian's other works, but in its own right as well. Indeed, it may fittingly be considered the apex of Cassian's literary career.

This chapter explores the “christocentrism” in Barth’s theology. For Barth, “christocentrism” refers to the attempt to understand every doctrine from a centre in God’s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. “Christocentrism” was a methodological rule, and not a priori principle. It is shown that a lecture by Parisian pastor Pierre Maury on the subject of election paved the way for a form of “christocentrism” synonymous with the name of Karl Barth.

This concluding chapter, “Theodore and Cyril in Dialogue: Analysis and Implications,” returns to charges surveyed in the Introduction, namely, that Theodore—and by extension Antiochene exegesis—failed to unify the Testaments due to his failure to find Christ in the Old Testament. Drawing on the revised descriptions of the preceding chapters, it challenges this analysis and its reading of Constantinople II. It further challenges the continued polarization of Theodore and Cyril’s Old Testament exegesis on the basis of “christocentrism” as an evaluative label for Theodore (negatively) and Cyril (positively) and advocates for a dynamic, developmental account of early Christian interpretation.

After a brief summary of Duns Scotus’ life and works, this chapter offers an overview of Scotus’ theology, showing how Scotus’ principal theological aim was theoretical generality: the attempt to treat of God and creatures using the same metaphysical tools—in particular, the same theories of unity and distinction. Despite his status as a radically innovative and original thinker, Scotus’ debt to twelfth-century theology is also highlighted, along with the aim, shared with these earlier theologians, of showing as much as possible of the Christian faith without appeal to revelation. Topics covered include: the theory of individuation, the coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity, the proof for the existence of God as a Trinity of persons, the univocity of being, the Immaculate Conception, Christocentrism, will and freedom, and the doctrine of grace.