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This book exposes and defends crucial items in the theological world-view of Christianity from the perspective of Christian philosophy. The topics considered include the nature of religious unbelief, the existence of God, the nature of God, religious faith, creation, revelation, Christology, redemption, scripture, and the beatific vision. The book revolves around questions like: Why believe in God? What is God like? Who was Jesus Christ? What is incarnation? How are humans redeemed? How should theology be done?

Christianity is deeply interested in the living human body, since each body is a person, and each person a creature and image-bearer of God. The classic sources of the Christian tradition engender a spiritual philosophy that challenges the contemporary gnostic impulse to marginalize the body, to reduce it to meat. At the same time, a Christian metaphysics of the flesh affirms the human substructure as a bodily-spiritual synthesis. Since the person is an enfleshed spiritual being, the human body bears intrinsic personal meaning. In the three great mysteries of God's dealings with the universe—creation, incarnation, and resurrection—all material reality, but especially spirited, sensible, sexed, and social human flesh, is radically implicated. By dwelling in these mysteries, that is, by mentally and physically assimilating ourselves to the semitive and sacramental symbols that communicate their truth, we find that they have power to illumine whole vistas of knowledge that do not belong exclusively to the provenance of Christian revelation and belief, but are open to all people. In the light of the incarnate Christ, these other spheres of reality become especially luminous. With a Christian metaphysics of flesh, illuminated by the incarnation, we are able to address a number of pressing intellectual, ethical, and social questions about bodily life with philosophical integrity.

This book provides a detailed examination of Karl Barth's theology during the time he was professor at the University of Göttingen (1921–6). The analysis draws on a variety of posthumously published works by Barth (especially his academic lecture courses in dogmatics, exegesis, and historical theology), as well as on better known texts from the period, providing comparisons and contrasts with some of Barth's major contemporaries. A major task of the book is to examine in detail the Unterricht in der christlichen Religion (Göttingen Dogmatics), the only full dogmatics cycle Barth completed during his lifetime. A picture emerges of Barth's concerns during this period that is different from many other established accounts: rather than being ‘occasionalist’ or dualist, Barth's theology in the 1920s was characterised by an orientation towards the eschatological encounter between God and humankind. Barth's intention in the Göttingen Dogmatics was to introduce his students to their responsibility before the Word of God, all other theological topics then flowing towards or from the ‘dialogical’ moment of encounter between this Word and human beings. This reading is borne out by in-depth analyses of some of the major themes in the dogmatics: revelation, incarnation, resurrection, pneumatology, moral, and sacramental theology. While Barth's focus on the eschatological presence of God explains the freshness and immediacy of his writing in the 1920s, it is also shown at a number of points how this perspective generates various dilemmas in his theology, which remain unresolved during this period.

Hindu God, Christian God, an exercise in comparative theology, proposes that theology today is an interreligious discipline and illustrates this with reference to Christianity and Hinduism. Thinkers in many religious traditions share similar theological questions and problems in their quest to understand their faith, and so too use comparable methods for seeking right answers. However, much traditions emphasize their uniqueness and the necessity of faith, their thinkers usually teach, and often such teachings are recorded and become available as books that can be read and understood, and even translated. Religions are partially intelligible to outsiders; reasoning inquirers, in beginning to understand various beliefs and practices, cross even the most firmly fixed religious boundaries. In the process, they learn from the new tradition and also see their own tradition anew, by a comparative reading process. The best theology is therefore not only interreligious but also comparative, well versed in how different traditions have dealt with the same concerns.

It is also dialogical, since authors must explain their ideas in ways that at least make sense to thinkers in the other traditions being discussed; they also need to be willing to learn from the critiques and responses of those other thinkers. Lastly, the discovery of common ground and shared concerns does not mean agreement; believers can still disagree and continue to hold views at odds with what others believe. Apologetics remains an issue.

Hindu God, Christian God argues these points by bringing into conversation Christian theological beliefs – exemplified by the writings of Richard Swinburne, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, and Karl Barth — and beliefs from some major Hindu traditions, including Nyaya [Logic], Vaisnavism [devotion to Visnu], and Saivism [devotion to Siva], as expressed in classic Sanskrit‐ and Tamil‐language texts. Issues discussed include Hindu and Christian views of God's nature; proofs for God's existence; the true religion; incarnation or divine embodiment; revelation as offering definitive knowledge of religious truth.

Maximus the Confessor (580-662) is increasingly regarded as a theologian of towering ecumenical importance. This book engages the full vista of Maximus’ profound incarnational and cosmic theology with the question: What happens to the body when human beings are deified? The answer unfolds in five chapters under the rubrics of epistemology, cosmology, christology, ecclesiology and spirituality. Each specifies an integral dimension in the Confessor’s theological vision and its central motif, viz. God the Word wills always to be embodied in all things. By virtue of their respective teleological orientation to Christ the incarnate Word, creation, history and the life of virtue each functions as a pedagogical strategy by which the transcendent God simultaneously conceals and reveals himself with the aim of leading all creation, including matter and the body, into deifying union with himself by grace. Ultimately it is the deification of Christ’s body that constitutes the paradigmatic and definitive renewal of fallen creation.

This book offers an in-depth study of Saint Thomas Aquinas's thoughts on God and evil, revealing that Aquinas's thinking about God and evil can be traced through his metaphysical philosophy, his thoughts on God and creation, and his writings about Christian revelation and the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The book first gives an introduction to Aquinas's philosophical theology, as well as a nuanced analysis of the ways in which Aquinas's writings have been considered over time. For hundreds of years scholars have argued that Aquinas's views on God and evil were original and different from those of his contemporaries. The book shows that Aquinas's views were by modern standards very original, but that in their historical context they were more traditional than many scholars since have realized. The book also provides insight into what we can learn from Aquinas's philosophy.

The growth of both philosophy of mind and cognitive science has developed our understanding of the human mind in ways that just a few decades ago were unthinkable. As ideas from philosophy of mind begin to cross over into philosophy of religion, there is renewed interest in questions about the divine mind, about how it might relate to a human body, and about whether incarnation itself might be articulated with the conceptual tools offered by the current research developments in the philosophy of mind. This book offers chapters by leading philosophers of religion representing these new approaches to theological problems such as incarnation. The doctrine of incarnation—that Jesus Christ was God become human—has always been one of the most central and distinctive features of Christianity. Similar doctrines about divine humans can be found in other religions, from the claims to divinity made by ancient kings and emperors to the concept of avatars in Hinduism. But many people regard the notion that a human being could also be divine as unjustifiable or incoherent, and none of the many attempts to articulate it philosophically has earned general acceptance. The chapters explore, from a variety of different viewpoints, whether any metaphysically rigorous and coherent model of incarnation can be defended today.

St. Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373, canonized 1391) was one of the most charismatic and influential female visionaries of the later Middle Ages. Altogether, she received some 700 revelations, dealing with subjects ranging from meditations on the human condition, domestic affairs in Sweden, and ecclesiastical matters in Rome, to revelations in praise of the Incarnation and devotion to the Virgin. Her Revelations, collected and ordered by her confessors, circulated widely throughout Europe and long after her death. Many eminent individuals, including Cardinal Juan Torquemada, Jean Gerson, and Martin Luther read and commented on her writings, which influenced the spiritual lives of countless individuals. Birgitta was also the founder of a new monastic order, which still exists today. She is the patron saint of Sweden, and in 2000 was declared (with Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein) co-patroness of Europe. This is the first of four volumes offering the first complete translation of the Revelations into English since the Middle Ages. This volume, which covers Books I-III of the Revelations, contains some of her earliest visions, dating from the 1340s. Book I addresses some of the major themes of her spirituality, and Books II and III contain a sustained critique of the classes of knights and bishops. The introduction outlines the major characteristics of Birgitta's spirituality, her life and work, her style and use of sources, and the main features of her theology.

This book offers a brief introduction to the life and thought of Saint Anselm (c. 1033–1109). Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury for the last sixteen years of his life, is one of the foremost philosopher-theologians of the Middle Ages. His keen and rigorous thinking earned him the title “The Father of Scholasticism”, and his influence is discernible in figures as various as Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, the voluntarists of the late-13th and 14th centuries, and the Protestant reformers. Part I of this book lays out the framework of Anselm's thought: his approach to what he calls “the reason of faith”, his account of thought and language, and his theory of truth. Part II focuses on Anselm's account of God and the divine attributes, and it shows how Anselm applies his theory of language and thought to develop a theological semantics that at once respects divine transcendence and allows for the possibility of divine rational knowledge. In Part III, the book turns from the heavenly to the animal. It elucidates Anselm's theory of modality and his understanding of free choice, an idea that was, for Anselm, embedded in his conception of justice. The book concludes with a discussion of Incarnation, Atonement, and original sin, as the chapters examine Anselm's argument that the death of a God-man is the only possible remedy for human injustice.

Theodoret of Cyrus (c.393-466) was the most able Antiochene theologian in the defence of Nestorius from the Council of Ephesus in 431 to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. While the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius are extant today only in translations or in fragments, Theodoret's voluminous works are largely available in their original Greek. This study of his writings throws light on the theology of those councils and the final evolution and content of Antiochene Christology. This book demonstrates that Antiochene Christology was rooted in the concern to maintain the impassibility of God the Word and is consequently a two-subject Christology. Its fundamental philosophical assumptions about the natures of God and humanity compelled the Antiochenes to assert that there are two subjects in the Incarnation: the Word himself and a distinct human personality. This Christology is not the hypostatic union of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

This book is about what it is for there to be a God, and what reason there is to suppose that God to be the traditional Christian God. Part 1 (Chs.1 to 5) analyses the metaphysical categories needed for this purpose – substance, cause, time, and necessity. Part 2 (Ch. 6 to 10) begins by setting out some of the different ways in which the doctrine that there is a divine individual (an individual with the traditional divine properties) can be developed. There can be more than one divine individual so long as a first such individual is necessarily the cause of the existence of the others. Given the supreme moral goodness of cooperating with one individual in sharing everything with a third individual, it follows that if there is one divine individual, there will be three and only three such individuals; hence the necessity of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity – that there is one God consisting of three divine persons. One of these persons may choose to become incarnate, i.e. human, and there are reasons why he would do so.

The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead involved a violation of natural laws, and so could have happened only if natural laws depend for their operation on God, who set them aside on this occasion. The main reason he would have for setting them aside would be any reason he had himself to become incarnate; the Resurrection would then be the divine signature on his work, showing that he had become incarnate. So any evidence from natural theology that there is a God with a certain nature, and any reason to suppose that having that nature would lead a God to become incarnate, is evidence (background evidence) that some sort of super‐miracle like the Resurrection would occur. Any evidence against the existence of God or against him being such as to become incarnate would be evidence against the Resurrection. I argue that God does have reason to become incarnate—to provide atonement, to identify with human suffering, and to reveal truth. Our evidence about the life of Jesus (the prior historical evidence) is such that it is not too improbable that we would find it if God was incarnate in Jesus for these reasons. Our evidence about what happened after the death of Jesus (the posterior historical evidence) is such that it is not too improbable that we would find it if Jesus had risen from the dead. For no other prophet in human history, is there anything like this combination of prior and posterior historical evidence. Given a moderate amount of positive background evidence, it then becomes very probable that Jesus was God Incarnate who rose from the dead.