Divine Agency and Divine Action


Book Description

This volume argues that in order to understand divine action, one must begin with the array of specific actions predicated of God in the Christian tradition.




Divine Agency and Divine Action, Volume II


Book Description

Divine Agency and Divine Action, Volume II builds on Volume I, which established that no generic concept of action will suffice for understanding the character of divine actions explicit in the Christian faith. Volume II argues that in order to understand divine action, one must begin with the array of specific actions predicated of God in the Christian tradition. William J. Abraham argues that one must practice theology in order to analyze properly the concept of divine action. Abraham offers a careful review and evaluation of the particularities of divine action as they appear in the work of biblical, patristic, medieval, and Reformation-era theologians. Particular attention is given to the divine inspiration of scripture, creation, incarnation, transubstantiation in the Eucharist, predestination, and divine concurrence. The work does not simply repeat the doctrinal formulations found in the Christian tradition, but examines them in order to find fresh ways of thinking about these issues for our own time, especially with respect to the contemporary debates about divine agency and divine action.




Retrieving Nicaea


Book Description

Khaled Anatolios, a noted expert on the development of Nicene theology, offers a historically informed theological study of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, showing its relevance to Christian life and thought today. According to Anatolios, the development of trinitarian doctrine involved a global interpretation of Christian faith as a whole. Consequently, the meaning of trinitarian doctrine is to be found in a reappropriation of the process of this development, such that the entirety of Christian existence is interpreted in a trinitarian manner. The book provides essential resources for this reappropriation by identifying the network of theological issues that comprise the "systematic scope" of Nicene theology, focusing especially on the trinitarian perspectives of three major theologians: Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. It includes a foreword by Brian E. Daley.




The Theology of Colin Gunton


Book Description

In The Theology of Colin E. Gunton, a number of contemporary theologians from across the world critically engage with the work of this influential British theologian. Gunton's handling of the gospel of Jesus Christ is celebrated, key doctrines critically examined, and his contribution to the ongoing theological task carefully evaluated. Contributors address key issues at the centre of Gunton's understanding of the Christian gospel, thereby enabling readers to appreciate how Gunton's fundamental analysis of the relation between God, creation and Jesus Christ impacts the church's ongoing task of faithful theological enquiry. In this volume of essays, contributors explore Gunton's constructive thinking on a range of doctrinal topics, as well as critically analyze Gunton's theological method and use of the Christian tradition. As such, this collection of essays provides the Christian theological community with its first wide-ranging and carefully argued examination into the influential work of Colin E. Gunton.




The Mind of Christ


Book Description

This book brings a variety of theological resources to bear on the now widespread effort to put humility in its proper place. In recent years, an assortment of thinkers have offered competing evaluations of humility, so that its moral status is now more contentious than ever. Like all accounts of humility, the one advanced in this study has to do with the proper handling of human limits. What early Christian resources offer, and what discussions of the issue since the eighteenth century have often overlooked, is an account of the ways in which human limits are permeable, superable and open to modification because of the working of divine grace. This notion is especially relevant for a renewed vision of intellectual humility-the primary aim of the project-but the study will also suggest the significance of the argument for ameliorating contemporary concerns about humility's generally adverse effects.




The Pursuit of Safety


Book Description

In this constructive theological analysis of safety, theologian Jeremy Lundgren addresses the conceptual development of safety through premodern, early modern, and late modern settings and gives practical guidance on how to faithfully engage the pursuit of safety in the present day.




Christology and Cosmology


Book Description

This book offers a fresh interpretation of the relation between Greek thought and ancient Christian theology through an analysis of three foundational and controversial thinkers: Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Athanasius. As an urban teacher, civic apologist, and ascetic bishop, each of the three theologians offered a distinctive Christian response to the religious and ecclesiastical issues of the third and fourth centuries. Each cosmology and Christology therefore reveals particular concerns about individual and social identity and salvation in the developing Christian community.




The Knowledge of God: Essays on God, Christ, and Church


Book Description

The Knowledge of God turns to consider the knowledge of God revealed in the Word of God, with several essays addressing the doctrine of God, then the person of Christ, and finally the miracle of the church. Michael Allen shows the exegetical shape of historical and dogmatic reasoning as well as the significance of thinking about these topics in their interrelationships with a range of other Christian themes, not least the doctrine of the living and true God. In each of these topics, the theme of the promise and nature of God's presence (whether in his own life or then in the economy of the incarnation and of the church) proves to be a unifying thread. The gospel is shown to be rooted backward in God's own life and to have consequence forward for the ongoing life of Christ displayed in his church. This volume explores what it means to learn of and come to know God, who has life in himself and then shares his life with us in the coming of his Son and the ongoing presence amidst his body, the church of Christ.




Christology, Ancient and Modern


Book Description

A Fresh Look at the Doctrine of Christ. Christology was the central doctrine articulated by the early church councils, and it remains the subject of close theological investigation today. Christology, Ancient and Modern—the first volume in a series of published proceedings from the annual Los Angeles Theology Conference—brings together conference proceedings, surveying the field and articulating the sources, norms, and criteria for constructive theological work in Christology. The ten diverse essays in this collection include discussions on: The types of historical Christologies and evaluations of various approaches to the theology of Christ. A close look at the trajectory and divergence of modern denominational understandings of Christ's work and person. Discussions of implications and challenges to specific Christologies regarding detailed exegetical considerations. Each of the essays collected in this volume engage with Scripture as well as with others in the field—theologians both past and present, from different confessions—in order to provide constructive resources for contemporary systematic theology and to forge a theology for the future.




The Interpretation of Kenosis from Origen to Cyril of Alexandria


Book Description

The self-emptying of Christ, proclaimed in the letter to the Philippians 2:7, remains a much-debated topic in modern theology and exegesis. This book brings the insights of Greek Christianity to the understanding of kenosis to illustrate that new dimensions of the topic open up when it is examined in the historical era of early Christianity.