Search Results

Scholars of the patristic era have paid more attention to the dogmatic tradition in their period than to the development of Christian mystical theology. This book aims to redress the balance. Recognizing that the intellectual form of this tradition was decisively influenced by Platonic ideas of the soul’s relationship to God, the book begins with an examination of Plato and Platonism. The discussion of the Fathers which follows shows how the mystical tradition is at the heart of their thought and how the dogmatic tradition both moulds and is the reflection of mystical insights and concerns. This new edition of a classic study of the diverse influences upon Christian spirituality includes a new Epilogue which brings the text completely up to date.

The global reality of suffering and death has demanded an authentic theological response in every era and has impelled debate concerning God's relationship to suffering and the conceivability of the suffering of God. In a former age, theology proposed an omnipotent and impassible deus ex machina in answer to this question. However, contemporary theologies have proposed alternatives to this understanding of God in relation to the world. With such theologies, this book proposes that a truly viable response to cosmic suffering is the recognition that God participates in the cruciform existence of the cosmos and its creatures. Informed by the understandings of evolutionary science, grounded within a panentheistic paradigm of the God‐world relationship, and rooted within the Christian theological tradition, this book develops a systematic understanding of the Triune God's intimate involvement with the suffering of the cosmos and its creatures in dialogue with the insights of scientist‐theologian Arthur R. Peacocke. Recognizing that its proposals must demonstrate practical value in response to cosmic and human suffering, the book sets forth a female procreative model of the creative suffering of the Triune God, an ecological ethics based on the midwife model of care, and a pastoral model of threefold suffering in God as steps toward Christian praxis in response to the pain, suffering, and death endemic in cosmic existence and human experience.

This book articulates a Christian theology of the body in light of both the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the ethical concerns of feminism. In conversation with Augustine and Calvin, the book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of their theologies of the body and shows how the Christian tradition contains resources for conceptualizing a theology of the body as it coheres with resurrection doctrine. Beginning with eschatology, rather than creation, allows the book to address the disorder of bodies under the condition of sin while offering a constructive proposal for understanding the redeemed body through Christology. The book proposes a grammar in which human psychosomatic unity becomes the conceptual basis for sanctification. Using gender as an illustration, it interrogates the difference resurrection doctrine makes for holiness. The last part of the book suggests that access to human bodies comes through the body of Jesus Christ. Because death has been overcome in his resurrected body, human embodiment can bear witness to the Triune God.

This book considers two basic questions: how can we live well in the face of death?; and when, if ever, is it legitimate deliberately to bring human life to an end? It does so by considering the distinct theological approaches to death shown by four outstanding Christian thinkers: Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and Karl Rahner. These philosophers' thoughts constitute a single extended argument on the theology of death which can be set out in relation to the practical realities of grief, fear, and hope in the face of death. There is a rightful place for grief, a good grief, even for a Christian. Augustine teaches us that death is something with which we have to contend, and indeed that the difficult and painful process of contending with death is a means through which we are brought to our final joyful end. A key point for Thomas Aquinas is that, in itself, it is always wrong to kill a human being on account of the dignity of human nature. Rahner adds that it also stands in contradiction to the supernatural destiny of human beings. Rahner is at his most profound in describing how the need to surrender oneself to God in death is anticipated throughout life. The aim of this book is not primarily to make a contribution to the knowledge of the history of theology, but rather, through engagement with the thought of theologians of the past, to reflect on some of the practical and existential issues that the approach of death presents for us.

The book provides a critical and constructive overview of historic and contemporary themes on the family in Christian social and political thought. The principal historic sources examined include Greco-Roman and biblical texts, patristic and medieval literature, and selected Reformation, Puritan, and 19th century authors. The development of modern liberal thought on marriage and family is subjected to extensive scrutiny by surveying the works of some of its leading founders, proponents, and contemporary critics, including a range of Christian theological responses. The chief weakness of late liberalism is that it promotes a voluntaristic vision of civil society, which portrays human associations solely as the outcome of the corporate will of autonomous individuals. The central constructive argument of the book is that such a vision has effectively eroded an understanding of the family as the most basic and natural form of human association, thereby diminishing contemporary Christian social and political thought. In order to rectify this situation, the philosophical and ideological presuppositions of late liberalism is subjected to critical analysis regarding its understanding of the nature of human associations in general, and the familial association in particular. Building upon this analysis, an alternative set of philosophical, theological, and moral presuppositions are developed, which provide the basis for developing a normative account of the family in opposition to that offered by late liberalism. This alternative account in turn may be used to inform contemporary Christian social and political thought.

This book introduces the concept of theistic natural signs. It argues that these signs, the concept of which comes from a modified and expanded account of Reidian natural signs, provide sufficient evidence to support belief in God for at least some people. The book first explains the Reidian account of natural signs and adapts that account to provide the framework for theistic natural signs. The book then argues that theistic natural signs provide the intuitions that undergird many of the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for God's existence. Cosmic wonder, beneficial order, perception of the self as a responsible and accountable moral agent, and perception of the value of the human person are four natural signs that the book considers at length. It is argued that theistic natural signs should be consistent with the Pascalian constraints formalized in the Wide Accessibility and Easy Resistibility principles, and that each of the four signs mentioned does meet those standards. While it is not argued that theistic natural signs provide a conclusive proof for God, it is maintained that they do provide significant evidence for anyone whose epistemic stance is sufficient to avoid general skepticism. Even though these natural signs, taken alone, may lead only to a thin theism and do not provide what is necessary for a meaningful faith in God, they do provide important overall support for theism.

Attention to embodiment and the religious significance of bodies is one of the most significant shifts in contemporary theology. In the midst of this, however, experiences of disability have received little attention. This book explores possibilities for theological engagement with disability, focusing on three primary alternatives: challenging existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology, and exploring new theological options based on an understanding of the unsurprisingness of human limits. The overarching perspective of this book is that limits are an unavoidable aspect of being human. In addition, since most of us also experience limits that take the form of disability at some point in our lives; could be described as disability is more “normal” than non-disability. If we take such experiences seriously and refuse to reduce them to mere instances of suffering or randomness, we discover insights that are lost when we take a perfect or generic body as our starting point for theological reflections. While possible applications of this insight are vast, this work focuses on two areas of particular interest: theological anthropology and metaphors for God. This project challenges theology to consider the undeniable diversity of human embodiment. It also enriches previous disability work by providing an alternative to the dominant medical and minority models, both of which fail to acknowledge the full diversity of disability experiences. Most notably, this project offers new images and possibilities for theological construction that attend appropriately and creatively to diversity in human embodiment.

The works of Ambrosiaster, a Christian writing in Rome in the late 4th century, were influential on at the time and throughout the Middle Ages. This book starts by addressing the problem of the author's mysterious identity (which scholars have puzzled over for centuries) and places him in a broad historical and intellectual context. Later, it addresses Ambrosiaster's political theology, an idea which has been explored in other late Roman Christian writers but which has never been addressed in his works. The book also looks at how Ambrosiaster's attitudes to social and political order were formed on the basis of theological concepts and the interpretation of scripture, and shows that he espoused a rigid hierarchical and monarchical organization in the church, society, and the Roman empire. He also traced close connections between the Devil, characterized as a rebel against God, and the earthly tyrants and usurpers who followed his example.

This book reveals the Hebrew Bible to be a sophisticated work of political philosophy, and the birthplace of egalitarian thought. Focusing on the Pentateuch, this book lays bare the manner in which the Bible appropriated and reconstituted ancient norms and institutions to create a new blueprint for society. Theology, politics, and economics were marshaled anew to weaken traditional seats of power, and to create a homogeneous class of empowered common citizens. Much of this anticipates developments in the history of political thought that would recur only during the Enlightenment and in the thought of the American Founding Fathers. Ancient religion granted sacral legitimation to the ruling classes and saw the masses as mere servants. The Pentateuch, by contrast, elevates the common citizenry in the eyes of God by invoking the political institution of the vassal treaty, and casting Israel as a subordinate king to the Almighty through the theology of covenant. Through the prism of the political philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Montesquieu, the book demonstrates the Pentateuch to be history's first proposal for the distribution of political power. Utilizing the anthropology of pre‐modern economies, ancient norms are explored concerning land tenure, taxation, and loans are reworked so that the common citizenry remains economically secure. Invoking the transformational role of the printing press in the spread of the Reformation and the birth of the Enlightenment, the book identifies far‐reaching consequences in the Bible's approach to what was then the new technology of communication: the alphabetic text.

Many books have been published on Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), widely regarded as the greatest American theologian. Some are by experts who typically write only for fellow specialists. Others are by popular authors who are unaware of recent scholarly discoveries. This book contains chapters based on the latest research on the subject of Edwards and the result is an introduction to North America’s most important religious mind on subjects he considered vitally important: revival, Bible, typology, aesthetics, literature, preaching, philosophy, and world religions. It also includes a survey of his life and career, extended reflections on his relevance to today’s church and world, and much more.

This book studies the development of a distinct, progressive variant of Catholicism in 20th century Western Europe. This Left Catholicism served to lay the basis for the subsequent events and evolutions associated with Vatican II. Initially emerging within the boundaries of Catholic Action, fuelled by the growing power and self‐confidence of the Catholic laity, a series of challenges to received wisdom and an array of novel experiments were launched in various corners of Western Europe. The moment of liberation from Nazi occupation and world war in 1944/45 turned out to be the highpoint of the promising paradigm shifts at the center of this book. Concentrating on interrelated developments in theology, Catholic politics and apostolic social action, most concrete examples are drawn from Italian, French, and Belgian national contexts. This book highlights organisations (e.g. the Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne), social movements (e.g. the worker priests) and intellectual trends (e.g. la nouvelle théologie), at the same time that it demonstrates the pivotal contributions of key individuals, such as the theologians Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier — or millenarian activist priests, such as Don Zeno Saltini or Don Primo Mazzolari, operating in the epicentre of radical post‐liberation Italy, the Emilia‐Romagna. Based on research in more than twenty archives between Leuven and Rome, this study suggests that first‐wave Western European Left Catholicism served as an inspiration — and constituted a prototype — for subsequent Third World Liberation Theology.

This book is an initial response to the call of the World Council of Churches for renewed theological reflection on the biblical roots of ordination to strengthen the vocational identity of the ordained and to provide a framework for ecumenical dialogue. It is grounded in the assumption that the vocation of ordination requires an understanding of holiness and how it functions in human religious experience. The goal is to construct a biblical theology of ordination, embedded in broad reflection on the nature of holiness. The study of holiness and ministry interweaves three methodologies. First, the history of religions describes two theories of holiness in the study of religion — as a dynamic force and as a ritual resource — which play a central role in biblical literature and establish the paradigm of ordination to Word and Sacrament in Christian tradition. Second, the study of the Moses in the Pentateuch and the formation of the Mosaic office illustrate the ways in which the two views of holiness model ordination to the prophetic word and to the priestly ritual. And, third, canonical criticism provides the lens to explore the ongoing influence of the Mosaic office in the New Testament literature.

This volume, a sequel to the author's earlier book The Beauty of the Cross, carries the study of Christian soteriology into the Renaissance, Reformation and Counter‐Reformation eras. Drawing on original documents and classic works of art and music, it uses the theology of the passion to exemplify the parallels and the divergences between conceptual and aesthetic theologies of this era, which represented a crucial turning point in both religion and the arts. The book examines the two great revolutionary movements that gave birth to the modern West, the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, showing how they affected each other and transformed Christian thinking and imagination. After an introductory section dealing with a “paradigmatic” artistic portrayal of the Passion, each chapter examines the “theoretical” as well as the “aesthetic” mediations of the theology of the Passion of Christ and its relationship to human salvation. The theologies of Savonarola, Vincent Ferrer, Gabriel Biel and the nominalists, Luther, Calvin, Robert Bellarmine, and the Council of Trent are examined as examples of the early Catholic Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Counter‐Reformation. These are placed in correlation to the new situation of art in the era of Frà Angelico, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dürer, Cranach, and the Mannerists. In addition to specifically theological themes, the book explores the effects of theology and preaching on the arts, examining the iconoclasm of some of the early Reformers, the use of pictorial art in service of the word in Lutheranism, and the regulation of the arts by the Council of Trent.

The 14th-century English philosopher and theologian John Wyclif (d. 1384) has been described as a forerunner of the Reformation, but is better understood as the last important thinker of Oxford’s “Golden Age” of theology. Rather than describing him in terms of what would occur a century and a half after his death, this book describes Wyclif as coming at the end of a period of great intellectual activity. His logic, epistemology, and metaphysics emerge from academic discourse engendered by Ockham’s conceptualism and sharpened by the semantic analysis of the Mertonian Calculators. The theological innovations for which Wyclif is best known, including a heightened emphasis on Scripture in Christian life, his rejection of transubstantiation, and his program for ecclesiastical reform, are best understood in terms of the philosophical theology that he developed during his years at Oxford. This book attempts such an understanding by correlating the substance of these theological ideas to Wyclif’s philosophical works, showing how they articulate his scriptural hermeneutics and homiletics, his understanding of predestination, and his criticism of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Albert Schweitzer maintained that the idea of “Reverence for Life” came upon him on the Ogowe River as an “unexpected discovery, like a revelation in the midst of intense thought.” While Schweitzer made numerous significant contributions to an incredible diversity of fields —medicine, music, biblical studies, philosophy and theology — he regarded Reverence for Life as his greatest contribution and the one by which he most wanted to be remembered. Yet this concept has been the subject of a range of distortions and misunderstandings, both academic and popular. This book provides a new interpretation of Schweitzer's reverence and shows how it emerged from his studies of German philosophy, Indian religions, and his biblical scholarship on Jesus and Paul. By throwing light on the origin and development of Schweitzer's thought, we are led to a closer appreciation of the contribution that reverence makes to current ethical concerns. Life‐centered ethics — in the broadest sense — has continued to flourish, though Schweitzer's pioneering contribution is often overlooked. Not only did he help put the issue on the moral agenda, but, most significantly, he also provided much sought after philosophical and theological foundations. Schweitzer emerges from this critical study of his life and thought as a remarkable individual who should rightfully be regarded as a moral giant of the 20th‐century.

Recent sociological studies have confirmed the persistence of profound internal challenges to the continuity of Judaism as a religion and to the Jews as a people. These challenges are eroding the foundations of Jewish identity and are threatening the authenticity of Judaism as a historical living faith-tradition. This work “makes the case” for a return to Jewish theology as a means of restoring Jewish authenticity and for reversing self-destructive trends. After identifying and critiquing various “substitute faiths” embraced by many contemporary Jews in Chapters One and Two, the nature and goals of Jewish theology are examined (Chapter Three). Rather than depicting theology as “faith seeking understanding,” the chapters that follow present a comprehensive theology of Judaism, deeply rooted in classical Jewish texts, and an understanding of theology as “faith seeking meaning (Chapter Four). Rather than portraying theology, as often has been the case, as a systematic creed imposed from without, theology is presented here as an outcome of the dialogue between an individual's quest for meaning and the spiritual and intellectual resources of a historical faith-tradition—in this case, Judaism. Features of faith such as living in a covenantal relationship (Chapter Five), seeking a rendezvous with God in the self, the sacred word, the world, and the sacred and ethical deed, are offered as paths to individual meaning and to creating one's life as a work of art (Chapter Six), despite the challenges of evil and absurdity encountered in daily experience (Chapters Seven and Eight).

The ascetic tracts of 7th century writer Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian) provide a wealth of material to better understand early Christian asceticism. The study focuses on the role of the body in various ascetic techniques, such as fasting, vigils and prayer, and on the way the ascetic relates to the society. For Isaac, the ascetic is to function as something like an icon, an image that showed the world the reality of God's Kingdom already in this life, by clearly indicating the difference between God's ways and men's. The study reviews the scholarly discussion on asceticism and early monasticism of the last three decades, and then proceeds to analyse the texts of Isaac to reveal an emphasis on asceticism as a practice that is at the same time performative, transformative and bodily. This contrasts with the long‐established conception of asceticism as based on a negative view of the body. Isaac displays a profound understanding of the way body and soul are related, demonstrating how the body can be used to transform the personality of the ascetic, and to communicate the change to the world, without the use of words. By giving a thorough overview of Isaac's ascetic thinking, the study brings Isaac's fresh perspective to bear on an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of the Christian tradition, showing that asceticism is and important ecclesiological theme and that a theology of asceticism should be a political theology.