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The Holy Spirit in Christianity is portrayed as God who exists actively through human experiences. The presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells in human’s heart is a unique presence of one of the Persons of the Trinity. However, the Holy Spirit’s presence in human experiences is not always identified as the ‘Person’ of God. Here the language of dogmatic theology might not be clear and inspiring to Christians to recognise the unique presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and in the living of faith in the Church. There is a need to contemplate the aspects of human personal experience of the Holy Spirit in relation to the theological language of the Persons in Trinity so that the faithful may discern the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. It is therefore important that in theological discussions about the Holy Spirit there is an awareness to view the need of ‘translating’ theological language into simpler language of catechism. In order that the faithful are able to identify the presence and the works of the Holy Spirit in experiences, in prayer, and in the life of faith, catechetical language about the Holy Spirit should bring more images related to human experience.

The topic of this study is the relationship between dogmatic and moral theology. In the fi rst part of this paper the author defi nes this relationship as a hermeneutic circle and as an analogy of the trinitarian perichoresis. The second short chapter of this article is concerned with the issue of the natural and supernatural in the moral theology. In the third part the writer considers the relationship between Christ and the Torah. In the following paragraph we can see the relationship between the image of God and requests of moral theology. In the fi fth short chapter we can fi nd some inspirations of how to conceive of a new trinitarian moral theology. In the last point the author presents the thinking of Saint Bonaventura about theology of Sapientia that creates harmony between intellectus, affectus, contemplation and ethics.

Addressing the imputed opposition between Christian theology and metaphysics from the premise of the inadmissibility of severing ties with the Holy Fathers of the Church, this paper argues for the necessity of revisiting dogmatical works like the Fountain of Knowledge and Ambigua with the scope of ascertaining their perspective on the issue. Brief textual analyses will show why the sublation of the Messalian and Evagrian extremes by the Orthodox Byzantine synodal theology (with the purpose of a Union in God) was and remains necessary. On a third layer, the paper gives some indications of the relation in which certain methodological and systematical traits of the cataphatic and apophatic Orthodox dogmatic theology stand to scientific thought. Keywords: St. John of Damascus, St. Maximus the Confessor, Orthodox dogmatics, philosophy, science, metaphysics, intellect, perception.

The aim of this article is to briefly introduce and to examine the views of the founders of the four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence (namely, Abū Hanīfa Nuʻmān ibn Thābit, Mālik ibn Anas, Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfʻī, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal) and that of their renowned students and followers, regarding the legitimacy of engaging in the study of Islamic doctrinal beliefs or Kalām . Different, and often conflicting, views have been postulated on this matter. Some Sunni thinkers have condemned the pursuit of theology as an act of heresy and denounced its practitioners as apostates. Other Sunni thinkers have extolled this discipline as the noblest of sciences whose learning and teaching are, at least under certain circumstances, incumbent. This fundamental dispute regarding the legitimacy of the discipline of theology has resulted in a rather contentious and opaque scholarly environment. In addition to the inherent importance of the discipline of theology as such, the significance of this dispute is compounded by the impact that the attitude one adopts toward this discipline can have on the development of the intellectual and rational aspects of Islam. A negative attitude toward theology, for example, can hamper the application of rational elements to Islamic doctrine. Our focus in this article is on analysing the views of the leading thinkers and jurists of the Sunni school and investigating the most authoritative sources of doctrinal tradition within this major denomination of Islam. Our study leads us to conclude that the disapproving views of the preeminent Sunni figures should be construed, not as a denunciation of the discipline of theology per se , but as a refutation of certain theological principles and persuasions that are viewed as incompatible with orthodox Islamic faith. In addition to and preceding that conclusion, this article provides a survey of the literature concerning the views of Muslim scholars on the legitimacy of Kalām . After categorising these views into the two opposite camps of Kalam’s legitimacy and illegitimacy, the article then proceeds to evaluate and critically analyse them, and to resolve some of their initial incompatibilities. Contribution: The article sheds new light on the historical development of the discipline of theology within the Sunni schools of Islam. This is a little-studied and often overlooked subject that can help in attaining a better understanding of how this critical field within religious studies has emerged into its present form.

Presencia y transfiguración constituyen en el oriente cristiano dos conceptos clave de la teología del icono a partir de los cuales pueden establecerse las distintas funciones que Oriente atribuye a la imagen de culto cristiana. Vinculadas a la teológica dogmática y enmarcadas en el misterio de la Encarnación de Cristo, estas dos nociones condensan tanto las enseñanzas y exigencias de la tradición teológica de los Padres de la Iglesia, basadas esencialmente en la lógica de la deificación, como la fundamentación ontológica de la imagen de culto asentada en la anámnesis y el testimonio presencializante del prototipo en la imagen.

This paper argues that Western theology has lost a certain intellectual unity by becoming divided between dogmatic theology (or doctrine) and moral theology (or ethics). The history of theological reflection on Mary illustrates this, because it has become confined to dogmatic theology and has hardly ever been discussed in the context of morals. However, mariology can help us to understand the doctrinal foundations that must support any adequate moral theology. By helping us to see how morals depend on dogma, mariology can help us to recover the unity of theology.

Artykuł jest próbą przedstawienia zarysu koncepcji pastoralno-duszpasterskiej Ignacego Henryka von Wessenberga, który odegrał istotną rolę w budowaniu struktur administracyjno-duszpasterskich tworzonej właśnie diecezji Konstanz. Von Wessenberg był wikariuszem generalnym i administratorem tego biskupstwa. Jego poglądy wskazywały na chęć utworzenia w Niemczech Kościoła episkopalnego, kierowanego wprawdzie przez prymasa, ale opartego na ustroju Kościołów krajowych przenikniętych ideami austriackiego oświecenia. Gruntowną reformę życia duchowego chciał on zaprowadzić przez odnowę liturgii oraz odpowiednie kształcenie kleru.Publikacja nakreśla czynniki mające wpływ najpierw na rozwój osobowości Wessenberga, a następnie na jego poglądy dotyczące Kościoła oraz duszpasterstwa. Akcentuje rolę ojca i wpływ „józefińskich” biskupów, których poglądy bardzo wyraźnie odcisnęły się w późniejszych działaniach pastoralnych Wessenberga. Następnie tekst przedstawia jego zapatrywania na dogmatykę, eklezjologię oraz opartą o nie koncepcję duszpasterstwa, która najlepiej wyraziła się w procesie formacji duchowieństwa, kleru i wiernych.

REV. ANDRZEJ PRONIEWSKI – is a priest of the Archdiocese of Bialystok and Professor and Director of the Department of Catholic Theology at the University of Bialystok; Director of the Theology Studium in Bialystok; and Editor of the Annual of Catholic Theology and Studies on Dogmatic Theology. His research focuses on dogmatic theology, hermeneutics, anthropology, the theology of suffering, the theology of Karl Rahner, the theology of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, ecology, and interreligious dialogue.

This study presents the life and work of the Belgian geologist and professor of dogmatic theology Henry de Dorlodot (1855–1929). The author of this study presents the life of this thinker and highlights his active participation in the World Darwinist Congress in Cambridge in 1909. Dorlodot published his work about the evolution of fauna and flora from the point of view of Catholic Orthodoxy in 1921. This was the reason for an investigation by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, followed by one from the Holy Office. Dorlodot did not publish this intended book about human evolution during his lifetime. After the discovery of the original manuscript, the book came out in 2009. This work contains a number of inspirational ideas. Dorlodot’s thoughts are based on the Tomistic concept of the relationship between the soul and the human body. Based on this theory, he argues that the fetus has been ensouled during the process of evolution at a certain moment in the body of the still inhuman mother, and thus the first human was born. His thesis wherein the first man was an ancestor for both, today’s humans and the Neanderthals, is also of interest. Dorlodot´s case probably entailed a breaking point, since at this time no one had been investigated by the Vatican authorities for having an open minded attitude to the evolution of the human body.

Auditus fidei is an inseparable part of the study of dogmatic theology, focused on the historical process of the transferring of the annunciation of faith. What is specifically, however, the history of this historical exploration? The present article attempts to answer this question at least partially. Its aim is to present a particular historical event in the development of so-called historical, or positive theology in the hermeneutics of mystery. Using the examples of treatises by magisters Richard and Hugh of St. Victor, the article demonstrates how these hermeneutics were cultivated in the twelfth century Parisian abbey. It focuses on exploring three parts of auditus fidei, recognized by contemporary dogmatic theology, and tries to outline its traces, the development of its concept and interrelationships between them in the teaching of these two significant representatives of the Saint-Victorian school. The research also focuses on certain concrete problems and questions connected to the main theme, discussed in the works of the Czech theologian, C. V. Pospisil.

This article re-examines the slow rhetorical quality of Jean Calvin’s political theology by drawing attention to the literary dimensions of Calvin’s theological writing. In conversation with recent...

In this essay I resource the philosophy and theology of Sergius Bulgokov, particularly his understanding of divine and human imaging, as a way of mapping human comportment towards the non-human material world in aesthetic terms. By comparing the development of his account of human action from his early Philosophy of Economy and his later dogmatic theology, I seek to render less disconcerting an ambiguity in Bulgakov’s work regarding human activity toward nature by contextualizing his early political philosophy within his later dogmatics. I argue that his later Trinitarian and Christological context more aptly suggests ways of viewing human action toward nature as aesthetic action animated by the perception of divinely created beauty. I then turn to Bulgakov’s views on iconographic art in order to show some theologically informed constraints and limits to aesthetic judgment and human creativity in the practice of iconographic writing that accord with Bulgakov’s broader theological anthropology.

ANDRZEJ PRONIEWSKI – ks. dr hab., prof. UwB; p.o. kierownik Katedry Teologii Katolickiej Uniwersytetu w Bialymstoku, rektor Archidiecezjalnego Wyzszego Seminarium Duchownego w Bialymstoku, redaktor „Rocznika Teologii Katolickiej” i „Studiow Teologii Dogmatycznej”. Dziedziny badan: hermeneutyka, antropologia, protologia, sakramentologia, eklezjologia, demonologia, teologia cierpienia, teologia rodziny, teologia K. Rahnera, teologia Ratzingera/Benedykta XVI, ekologia, dialog miedzyreligijny.

Farley draws a parallel between the philosophical anti-essentialism of queer theory and the theological anti-essentialism of apophatic theology. She argues that absolutizing interpretations of authority conspire with dogmatic theology to strip reality of its mystery and human beings of their dignity. Greater attention to anti-essentialist theology provides one strategy toward appreciation of plurality, not least queer embodiments of the human adventure.

Today, there are different understandings of the first article on the content of the Christian faith, for which an analysis from a theological perspective is necessary. This research sought to reveal the meaning of the first article on the content of the Christian faith in recent theological works that have been produced, through the use of a hermeneutic exercise, conducting a bibliometric and categorical analysis and using NVivo software to analyse the qualitative data. We concluded that the recent theological literature addresses the meaning of the first article of the Christian faith based on the existence, concept and definition of God and his attributes, as well as his power, behaviour, creation, revelation and reign. Although there is little extant material compared to other topics or areas of knowledge that can be explored using these tools, this fact is explained because, normally, theologians are not interested in publishing in high-impact journals. The way of approaching God in contemporary literature can be enriched by taking into account specific contexts, such as poverty, discrimination, suffering, violence, human trafficking, immigration and political realities, in such a way that it is not only a metaphysical reflection of God but also a historical and immanent and even an interreligious research that broadens the concept of the Christian God and answers questions that contemporary society asks in daily life.

Presbyterian theology has traditionally emphasized the majesty, holiness, and sovereignty of God and the uniqueness of God’s action in the creation, redemption, and perfection of creatures. Classical Presbyterian teaching exemplifies core themes of Reformed theology as it took shape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the primacy of divine self-disclosure; the existence, essence, and perfections of the One God; and the essential character of God as triune. These themes were deeply rooted in catholic Christian teaching, but assumed their most significant confessional form under particular influences: the legacies of Puritanism, controversy over Arminianism, and the evolution of covenant or federal theology. The history of Presbyterian theology reflects a complex set of relationships to this classical picture, variously reflective of the intellectual consequences of the Enlightenment; enduring debates about religious experience; and massive social, cultural, and political change. Contemporary Presbyterian approaches are wide-ranging; some are much more consciously connected to the tradition than others. There are, however, some persistent emphases, and questions about the local and the catholic assume new dimensions in the contexts of “world Christianity.” If the essential location of faithful Presbyterian confession is the presence of the Living God, therein lies its enduring hope.

To many of his critics, Schleiermacher’s Christology signals an explicit weakness in his theological system, as his emphasis on religious feeling and subjectivity seems to undermine any claims of the distinctive revelatory or supernatural character of Jesus Christ. This essay by contrast underscores both the originality Schleiermacher’s understanding of Christ in history and its centrality to his overall thought by attending to the subtle theme of the “supernatural-becoming-natural” in his Glaubenslehre and Christliche Sittenlehre . Here the appearance of Christ yields a transformative influence that operates within natural and historical processes, inaugurating the reign of God that does not abolish the natural world but draws creation to its completed perfection.

These are encouraging days for the discipline of systematic theology. Recent seasons have seen the publication of a number of one-volume accounts of Christian dogmatics, with parts of various multi-volume offerings also appearing with regularity. This exuberance for serious enquiry into the meaning, coherence, and implications of Christian doctrine has been present not only in those areas of theological inquiry which have consistently exhibited a long-standing passion for such endeavor; an important feature of recent trends is a passion for systematic work also becoming evident in confessional domains which on occasion in the past have treated such activity with indifference or even suspicion. The result is an increasingly rich and contoured landscape in contemporary dogmatic theology, hopefully to the benefit not only of the academic scholar but of the churches both challenged and sustained by such work.

espanolEl articulo pretende hacer una presentacion general de como santo Tomas procedia en la exegesis de los textos sagrados. Para ello, se concentra en uno de sus comentarios biblicos mas valorados, el del evangelio segun san Juan. En la interpretacion de la Escritura llevada a cabo por santo Tomas se aprecia la combinacion de una gran penetracion teologica con un incipiente desarrollo de algunas tecnicas literarias. Destaca tambien la prioridad del significado literal de la Escritura, aunque esto no lleva a santo Tomas a realizar una hermeneutica meramente naturalista de ella. Es parte del sentido literal tambien que la Escritura sea manifestacion del misterio sobrenatural de Dios. Este es el motivo por el que Dios, el autor principal de la Escritura, ha podido pretender expresar distintas verdades con un solo pasaje. EnglishThis article intends to offer a general presentation of the way in which Saint Thomas Aquinas proceeded in his exegesis of sacred texts. The author concentrates on one of Aquinas’ most estimated biblical commentaries, his Lectura on the Gospel according to St. John. Aquinas combines great theological insight with an incipient development of some literary techniques. In his hermeneutics, he emphasizes the priority of the literal sense of Scripture, although this thesis does not lead him to present a purely natural interpretation. The supernatural mystery of God belongs to the literal sense of Scripture. This is why God, as the principal author of Scripture, might have intended to express different truths even within a single passage.

By virtue of his insistence on the once and for all revelation of God in Jesus Christ, Karl Barth’s theology has sometimes been perceived as hostile to mysticism and contemplative spirituality. Allegedly, the significance of ongoing encounters with God is lost under the weight of the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the decisive moment of God’s dealing with humankind. A closer reading of Barth, however, reveals a different story. Interestingly, no serious survey of Barth’s thought on mysticism exists. This paper will seek to address this gap in scholarship by briefly exploring Barth’s relationship to mystical theology through engagement with his work, especially on 1) Union with God, 2) existentials of the theologians, and 3) Barth’s ecstatic socialism. Contrary to the general assumptions, Barthian theology represents an undeniably rich, and modern, mystic sensibility. Aside from challenging scholarly misrepresentations of Barth, the paper raises the question of how dogmatic theology and religious experience came to treated separately in the historical development of the church and theological scholarship.

Analytic theology (AT) is a particular approach to theology and the study of religion that engages with the tools, categories, and methodological concerns of analytic philosophy. As a named-entity, AT arrived on the academic scene with the 2009 Oxford University Press publication, Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology, edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Michael C. Rea. AT was arguably represented, prior to this publication, by the proto-analytic theologian Richard Swinburne in his noteworthy works on Christian doctrine (e.g. Providence and the Problem of Evil, Responsibility and Atonement, The Christian God, Faith and Reason, and The Resurrection of God Incarnate), as well as by other professional philosophers of religion such as Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Richard Swinburne, William Alston, Eleonore Stump, Robert and Marilyn McCord Adams, Basil Mitchell, Keith Yandell, Paul Helm, and Stephen T. Davis, among others. These philosophers were addressing such topics as the coherence of theism, the rationality of religious belief, and the contributions of such philosophical theologians of the medieval past including Thomas Aquinas or William Ockham and those from modernity including René Descartes and Jonathan Edwards. Yet, the impetus for utilizing analytic philosophy to treat these topics emerged, not from the theological side of the conversation, but from the philosophical side. Anachronistically, then, the term “analytic theology” seems to aptly describe the work of these philosophers of religion.

This article examines the role of theological education as a factor in shaping the priorities and teachings of the First Vatican Council. The contribution of the Jesuit professor of dogmatic theology at the Collegio Romano, Giovanni Perrone, was particularly important for forming the theological minds of Church leaders in the middle decades of the 19th century. Perrone’s four-year curriculum, the Praelectiones Theologicae, was organized around the principles of faith, reason, and ecclesiastical authority. These principles formed a coherent and tightly integrated constellation for those educated in Perrone’s curriculum, in which reason relied upon the formative structure of faith, and faith as an act required the authority of the Church for its exercise. Correspondingly, the unity of the Church required the authoritative dimension of faith and suitable organs for its exercise. Perrone’s curriculum was employed in many parts of Europe during the 19th century. This article examines the theology of Perrone’s ...

Summary Dogmatic theology is the easiest science concerning theology. Its character can best be described by simplicity itself since the overall goal is to reduce complexity altogether. Moreover it aims to convert the kerygma into more explanatory dogmata. Therefor dogmatic theology claims to be based on ultimate truth. It raises the question of how this can be possible in an era after Kant? How can dogmatic theology accomplish its task while at the same time doing justice to contemporary thinking? The speech, which was held in June 2014 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University at Munich, seeks to find an answer to these questions.

in his classic work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James remarked that, as a tradition, religion is always rooted in an original religious experience of an inspirational figure.1 using the words of the french theologian sabatier, James describes this as “an intercourse, a conscious and voluntary relation, entered into by a soul in distress with the mysterious power upon which it feels itself to depend, and upon which its fate is contingent.”2 James pioneered the description of religious experience in ways that revealed more than traditional metaphysics and dogmatic theology did. his research into psychic phenomena led, for example, to “the subliminal” and “a wider consciousness,” expressions that, for a long time, were used only in Jungian psychological discourse.3 recently, however, they have been taken up in crosscultural anthropological and historical research that aims to overcome the colonial opposition between so-called “shamanistic” and “monotheistic” religions. in this article, i will discuss the importance of returning to the transcultural and transhistorical aspects of religious experience—after a period of fruitful cross-cultural research—for grasping the common human potential for spirituality. i propose that we look at James’s pluralistic ontology as a means of conceptualizing the connection between the cross-cultural and transcultural understandings of religious experience. The phenomenon of the spiritual journey—a practice/experience long held to be specific to traditional (siberian)

Fue un error de Freud considerar que la religión desaparecería con el desarrollo del saber científico, sin embargo, sus propios descubrimientos, la pulsión y el inconsciente, suponen que un proceso de objetivación no se puede fundar a sí mismo. La religión forma parte de los oscuros anhelos irreductibles del sujeto de la alteración pulsional, es decir, de la angustia. El problema de la religión no es, pues, un problema gnoseológico sino ético. El intento kantiano de ligar la ley moral a la unidad de los fines fue, quizás, un intento delirante de fundar la religión, aunque estableció como principio irreversible que la ley moral es la que funda la religión y no al revés. Eso mismo puede permitir pensar al sujeto afectado por la angustia como sujeto del síntoma y, así, la religión pasaría a ser, desde esta perspectiva, un modo sintomático de sentir la culpa y la responsabilidad. La experiencia religiosa sería en suma una experiencia de tipo ético, no una teología dogmática ni una ideología teocrática. Nacería del fondo pulsional de la insatisfacción y de la angustia. Freud was wrong to think that religion would disappear with the development of scientific knowledge. However, his own discoveries, drives and the unconscious, presuppose that a process of objectivization cannot ground itself. Religion is part of those irreducible, dark desires of the subject of drive alterations, that is, of angst. Thus, the problem of religion is not an epistemological but an ethical problem. Kant's attempt to link moral law to the unity of ends was perhaps a delusional effort to ground religion, although he established the irreversible principle according to which it is moral law that grounds religion and not the other way around. This, precisely, makes it possible to think the subject affected by angst as subject of the symptom; from this perspective, religion would become a symptomatic mode of feeling guilt and responsibility. In sum, religious experience would be an ethical experience and not a dogmatic theology or a theocratic ideology. It would arise from the drive depths of dissatisfaction and angst. Freud se trompait lorsqu’il croyait que la religion disparaîtrait avec le développement du savoir scientifique. Pourtant ses propres trouvailles, la pulsion de mort et l’inconscient, supposent déjà qu’un processus d’objectivation ne peut pas se fonder soi-même. La religion fait partie des vœux obscurs et irréductibles du sujet de l’altération pulsionnelle, c’est-à-dire de l’angoisse. Le problème de la religion n’est donc pas gnoséologique mais éthique. Les efforts de Kant pour lier la loi morale à l’unité ont été probablement un essai délirant de fonder la religion, même s’il a établi que la loi morale fonde la religion et pas au contraire. Ceci peut permettre au sujet de penser –sujet pris d’angoisse en tant que sujet du symptôme–, ce qui ferait de la religion dès lors une modalité symptomatique de vivre la culpabilité et la responsabilité. L’expérience religieuse serait en somme une expérience d’ordre éthique et non pas une théologie dogmatique ou une idéologie théocratique, issue de l’arrière-plan pulsionnel de l’insatisfaction et de l’angoisse.

Both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches recognize the Sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation, Eucharist, Confession (Pokajanije), Ordination, Marriage and Holy Unction. All other acts aside from these seven are considered to be rites or sacramentals. Although such a distinction of holy actions and rites appear in both catechisms and textbooks of dogmatic theology, the history and the experience of the Church indicates that the question of distinguishing and numbering the sacraments has never been clear. As the Christian West strived to define the concept of a sacrament and its action and define their number, the “Holy Fathers of the Christian East have never interested themselves with the number of mysteries and have never attempted to number them”. They attempted to uncover the idea of the universal and diverse activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church that sanctifies man in sundry ways in various life situations. However, the culmination of all the Sacraments has always been the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is a rich treasure of holiness which unites us with God, and every sacrament is fulfilled and completed by it. The teaching on the seven sacraments borrowed from Latin scholasticism found its way into Orthodox theological textbooks. This scholastic system of the seven sacraments was accepted in Orthodox theology, however the Orthodox Church has never officially recognised any specific number of sacraments. In conclusion, it can be stated that “in Orthodoxy, among the broader and narrower concepts of “sacrament” (μυστήριον), a strict classification is not found.” Moreover, the entire life of the Church should be perceived as unity, one great mystery whose aspects are expressed in a great diversity of actions that are realized once or on several occasions throughout one’s life.

Richard Spacek (1864-1925) is primarily known as Professor of dogmatic theology and Dean of Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology in Olomouc. It is, however, less known that he began his academic career as a New Testament scholar. This article analyses his paper "The Fourth Gospel in Protestant Scholarship", published in the periodical Journal of the Catholic Clergy (Casopis katolickeho duchovenstva) in 1909. I claim that Spacek composed this text, which is a compilation of several German sources, with two intentions. First, he aimed at providing the Czech Catholic clergy with an answer to the translation of Harnack's History of Dogma. Second, he struggled to provide a solution to historical-critical questions, which would be in accord with the recent decision of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Amidst uncertainty as to the place of doctrinal theology in the academy and its role in civil public discourse, the basic question of the nature and significance of dogmatics has acquired new urgency. This article discusses how Bonhoeffer’s interpretation and use of dogmatics can inspire contemporary doctrinal theology. Four elements of Bonhoeffer’s position seem particularly promising for continuing reflection upon the hermeneutics and function of Christian doctrine: his emphasis on the contextual character of doctrine, his stress upon the responsibility of doctrine in and for the church, his criticism of systematic thinking, and his appeal to christology as a resource for widening the horizon of doctrine.

Though the extra Calvinisticum has played an historically important role for Christology, the doctrine has been criticized not only by Lutherans and modern Christologies ‘from below’ but by some Reformed thinkers as well. This article examines the place of the extra in dogmatic thinking about the incarnation: specifically, Karl Barth's critical response to his own tradition. After examining the differences between Lutheran and Reformed construals of the relationship of the Logos asarkos to the Logos ensarkos I take up Barth's views on the extra, which over the course of his career moved from enthusiastic affirmation to a sharp critique. Finally, I suggest that Barth's mature Christology retains the best of both Protestant positions by correcting a critical inconsistency in Reformed thought. He does not reject the doctrine of the Logos asarkos, but he does suggest a way in which this is related to the life of the Logos ensarkos that marginalizes the former. Barth is right not to discard the extra, but also that it has been misused in how it is deployed in dogmatic theology.

The progress of historical science in the second half of the nineteenth century could not have but consequences on the discipline of church history. Traditionally, (Catholic) church history was conceived as an auxiliary science of theology, charged with demonstrating the truth of faith by means of historical witnesses. Bold pioneers like Ernest Renan and Louis Duchesne transferred (elements of) the methodology of historical science to the study of early Christianity. The resistance of the Magisterium and dogmatic theologians urged Catholic church historians—especially at the time of the modernist crisis—to restrain their pursuit of autonomy from dogmatic and theological directions. A case in point is that of the Louvain historians and positive theologians (Charles De Smedt, Alfred Cauchie, and Joseph Lebon) trying to reconcile the exigencies of critical historiography with the basic principles of dogmatic theology (o.a. the immutability of dogma, the infallibility of the Church, the possibility of divine supernatural intervention in human history and the unity of truth). Components of their via media come to the fore in their methodological approach of the history-of-dogma research, such as the implicit acceptance of a theology of history, the emphasis on the dogmatic authority of the Magisterium as to compensate the lack of dogmatic authority of the historical sources (especially the writings of the Church Fathers) and the elaboration of a new “positive” apologetics, based on the firm confidence in the eventual reconciliation between faith and science.

The article contains the Syriac text and the Italian translation of a work dealing with the passibility or impassibility of God. It is a treatise on philosophy, dogmatic theology and apologetics, preserved only in Syriac and attributed to St. Gregory the Healer (Thaumaturgus). The author’s argument is as follows: God freely chose to suffer (i.e. suffering human passions) in order to show man that he is superior to all kinds of passion. The Italian translation proposed here is based on the Syriac text edited by J.-B. Pitra (1883) and on the previous edition of P. de Lagarde (1858). The italian version is a very literal rendering of the Syriac text.

It will come as no surprise that theological modernism and Abraham Kuyper do not get on. Famously, Kuyper spoke of modernism as “a fata morgana in the Christian domain.” Kuyper gave the Fata Morgana speech at various occasions, and made the term “modernism” (modernisme) current at the time. The text was published in 1871. This article discusses Kuyper’s view of theological modernism, especially the 1871 address, which is his most extensive treatment and criticism of the phenomenon. I argue that the attack on modernism was done in a modern way. The argument is more philosophy of religion-style than (old-fashioned) dogmatic theology. Actually, Kuyper compared world views and argued for the superiority of his own system of thought, which was allegedly geared to reality, whereas modernism to him represented a foul compromise with the spirit of the times, based on a superficial understanding of reality. The rhetorical power of the speech lies predominantly in the suggestion that modernism (although a necessary phase in the course of history) will go down and “we” will prevail. The speech turns on the double meaning of “real” and “realism.” Although the modernists aim to comply and hence make a compromise with the predominant “realism” of the nineteenth century, they actually bypass reality: no real God, no real prayer, no real sin, and no real church.

Perhaps without intending it, Robert Doran began a conversation that contrasts the methodological procedures of Wolfhart Pannenberg with the methodology of Bernard Lonergan. This essay explores the differences further and shows how a clarification of these two distinct but helpful methodological procedures not only enhances an understanding of the mysteries of the Christian faith and aids ecumenical discussion but also yields “mutually self-mediating advantages of dialogues.”

This article examines the political ideology of the Roman Catholic Church in Nazi Germany through the writings of Karl Adam and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber. Both theologians used the dogma of th...

The title of this essay is meant to be perplexing. Schleiermacher is not known for his treatment of grace, much less for a treatise on grace. Few scholars of Schleiermacher's theology have devoted attention to his doctrine of grace, with two notable exceptions. Karl Barth, in his lectures on Schleiermacher, did not hesitate to thrash his nemesis on this point, although to him it was so obvious that Schleiermacher's understanding of grace was not a Christian doctrine of grace, at least not in the Reformation sense, that he barely felt the need to argue the case. “What kind of God is this,” he asked, “What kind of grace?” Richard R. Niebuhr, in his apologia for Schleiermacher, which inspired a new age of scholarship on Schleiermacher in America, included a section entitled “Grace and Nature,” but its focus was on the Christmas Eve Dialogue, not Schleiermacher's dogmatic theology. Neither Barth nor Niebuhr took note of Schleiermacher's more formal, dogmatic treatment of grace—what I am calling Schleiermacher's “treatise on grace”; in the several decades since their influential works, very few have attempted to correct this oversight. Such neglect by specialists has no doubt contributed to a wider sense that, despite the importance of his The Christian Faith (Glaubenslehre), Schleiermacher does not merit a place alongside other theologians when it comes to the history of the Christian doctrine of grace. None of the major scholarly books on the history and development of the doctrine of grace include a chapter or section (or even reference) to Schleiermacher's treatment of grace. Schleiermacher himself almost seems to have anticipated this oversight—worse, really, than any criticism—when he asked, “Does my Glaubenslehre in any way fail to give due honor to divine grace?”

In his activity as religious teacher and counselor, Lev Tolstoi consciously stepped into the tradition of the Orthodox startsy or elders. We can see this both in the way he organized his "ministry"--publishing books of spiritual advice and receiving the faithful at Iasnaia Poliana--and in the way he was perceived and described by his contemporaries. On the one hand, this emulation is rather surprising, since Tolstoi on a number of occasions vehemently attacked the Russian Church and all it stood for. On the other, it may not be so incongruous after all: for Tolstoi, as for most Russians, Orthodoxy was the variety of Christianity they grew up with and knew, and its influence rubbed off also on its critics. Tolstoi discussed Orthodox theology and spirituality directly or indirectly in several of his post-conversion writings. This is true both of fictional works like Farber Sergii (1890-98) and Resurrection (1899), and of religious tracts like What I Believe (1884) and The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1890-93). In his famous Reply to the Holy Synod, which in 1901 had promulgated a public warning against Tolstoi's religious teaching, Tolstoi retaliated by calling the teaching of the Russian Church "in its theory, an insidious and dangerous lie, and in practical terms, a collection of the coarsest and most superstitious sorcery." (1) Indeed, Tolstoi often seemed to go out of his way to insult the religious sentiments of Russian believers, as in the famous communion scene in Resurrection. Another such case is The Investigation of Dogmatic Theology, in which he characterized the content of some of the most commonly used textbooks of Orthodox theology as "pure fantasy," "blasphemous hallucinations," "outright lies," and "pitiable and villainous distortions." (2) A modern commentator, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, concludes, not unreasonably, that in many respects The Investigatian is "a huge anti-Orthodox pamphlet." (3) This is not, however, all that can be said about Tolstoi's relationship to Orthodoxy. Rancour-Laferriere points out that in some later writings Tolstoi softens and even completely alters his stance on some of the issues addressed in The Investigation, and as I have demonstrated elsewhere, even the message of The Investigation itself is much more ambiguous than what meets the eye: in this book, Tolstoi attacks the official Orthodox teaching about the nature of God--the doctrine of His omnipresence, His omniscience, and so on--by arguing that the essence of God's being is completely unknown to us: He is nepostizhim. As it turns out, Tolstoi's argument on this point is closely akin to the so-called "negative" or apophatic theology in the Eastern tradition, a way of thinking about God that Tolstoi had in fact found in many of the Orthodox texts he had read and by which he was clearly influenced. (4) Most Western monographs on Tolstoi's religion ignore the possible influence of Orthodoxy, while some Tolstoi experts acknowledge--but in passing only--that traces of Orthodox thinking may be found in Tolstoi's teaching. (5) Thus, for instance, Robert Donahoo has remarked that Tolstoi's theology "is a strange mixture of orthodox Christianity, nineteenth-century European humanista, and Tolstoy's personal idiosyncracies," while A. N. Wilson claims that "Tolstoy is in some ways oddly a Russian Orthodox." (6) The literary scholar who most consistently has studied Tolstoi's system of thought against the background of Russian Orthodoxy is Richard F. Gustafson. In his celebrated study Leo Talstoy: Resident and Stranger (1986), Gustafson went further than most in downplaying the theological differences between Tolstoi and the Russian Orthodox Church. He claimed, for instance, that "Tolstoy's God of Life and Love is an Eastern Christian God." (7) However, even if it can be demonstrated that Tolstoi was deeply imbued with and influenced by Orthodox thinking, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he was less heterodox than he himself claimed and most of his contemporaries took for granted. …

This article follows recent scholarship in identifying a robustly pro-Nicene trinitarianism in Augustine's De Trinitate. In particular, a “Johannine logic” is identified and traced as an exegetical basis for his dogmatic articulation of the doctrine of God. This logic unfolds in the Pater–Filius relationship of the Son's begetting, incarnation, and christological forms as “servant” and “God.” Finally, the enlightening love of the Holy Spirit completes Augustine's Trinity.

Reclamant l’inscription explicite dans le credo de la divinite de l’Esprit en depit de son caractere non scripturaire, Gregoire de Nazianze (330-390) se heurta au reproche d’« innovation », categorie dont la charge de sens heresiologique genait la resolution des problemes theologiques divisant les chretiens. Cet article examine les occurrences de la notion chez Gregoire et montre comment, perpetuant l’esprit de Nicee, dont le « consubstantiel » avait constitue « l’acte de naissance » d’une dogmatique emancipee de la Lettre, il justifie au contraire l’innovation dogmatique. Il entend la tradition baptismale recue du Christ comme une theologie trinitaire implicite que l’Eglise a mission de defendre en l’explicitant et la proclamant par des formulations dogmatiques claires. Il legitime par ailleurs ces innovations dogmatiques en les inscrivant dans l’economie divine de la Revelation, plus precisement dans son troisieme temps historial, celui de l’Esprit, inspirateur d’une exegese spirituelle qui accomplit en...

Karl Barth's interpreters often characterize him as a ‘christocentric’ theologian. This term, however, is subject to a variety of interpretations, ranging from the totalitarian and isolationist critiques of the ‘christomonist’ objection to the indeterminate and decentred approaches offered by various postmodern readings. The disparity between these two approaches suggests a level of ambiguity in the term that hinders its usefulness unless carefully qualified. Indeed, ‘centric’ terminology itself remains rather ambiguous until the substantive formal and material considerations that lie behind any given form of centricity are addressed. This article proposes to alleviate the ambiguity that has thus clouded the use of ‘christocentric’ as a description of Barth's theology by offering five formal and material qualifications; Barth's christocentricity must be understood in terms of (1) a veiling and unveiling of knowledge in Christ, (2) a methodological orientation, (3) a particular christology, (4) a trinitarian focus and (5) an affirmation of creaturely reality. Using these criteria, the article also argues that both the christomonistic and postmodern interpretations break down at certain points because they fail to appreciate fully these qualifications and thus the particular nature of Barth's christocentrism.

When approaching the doctrine of sin there are two standpoints from which one may proceed: the first begins with the individual experience of sin and highlights the unsettling reality of a guilty conscience. Here the conception of Julius Miiller (1801-1878) can be seen as an example for this approach. The other approach begins with the self-revelation of God; this revelation is understood to account for the radical nature of sin, for without this revelation the full understanding of sin would be inaccessible to the individual consciousness. Here the conception of Karl Barth (1886-1968) can be seen as an example for this approach. On closer examination it appears that both conceptions assert an elementary concern of the doctrine of sin, which cannot be recovered by the other conception. Furthermore, when held in isolation from one another, both dispositions appear to be deficient for they depend on a complementary endorsement; however, they cannot integrate this complementary endorsement into their own scheme. The irreducible contrast between the doctrines of Miiller and Barth thus implies the need of a »double accountings in dogmatics.

The Dogmatic Theology of the nineteenth-century divine William Shedd has received little attention in the literature. Yet it contains a number of theologically interesting arguments. This article sets forth what Shedd has to say on the doctrine of the theanthropic person of Christ. I show that his doctrine of the person of Christ represents one important Chalcedonian stream of Christology, which, in Shedd's estimation, is intimately connected to two overarching themes in his dogmatics, namely, traducianism and Augustinian realism. His commitment to these two doctrines in his theological anthropology has important and unexpected implications for his Christology. Although the conclusion is that Shedd's doctrine of the person of Christ suffers from several serious problems, it represents an important contribution to systematic theology, which has more than historical interest.

April 2005 I a famous though possibly mythological moment in the history of theology, Albert the Great, preaching at the funeral of Thomas Aquinas in 1274, is supposed to have declared that all theology henceforth would be nothing but a footnote to his student’s massive body of work. In the 1960s Vatican II is still urging that dogmatic theology be “exercised under the tutelage of St. Thomas.”1 In so many ways, therefore, Albert was right: all theology after Aquinas would be inspired by him. In another sense Albert was wrong, and especially wrong when we consider today that theology is not so much a content to be understood as a process to be entered into, a conversation in which Christians engage not only with the content of Scripture and tradition but also with the context in which they live.2 No one can write a universal theology, not even Thomas Aquinas. As Dominican theologian Thomas O’Meara puts it so well: “Aquinas’ thinking offers insights and principles but it does not give final systems or universal conclusions. . . . The future of his thought lies with us.”3 There is and there must be real theology done after Aquinas, even though it will always be with his inspiration. Successors like Luther, Calvin, Las Casas, Barth, Gutierrez, and Ruether have contributed more than their share from perspectives that Aquinas could never have imagined. Theology continues today to be much more than a footnote to the past, no matter how brilliant and normative that past has been.

Protestant theology at the beginning of the twentieth century, as represented by such influential figures as Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, Franz Over-beck, and later Rudolf Bultmann, asked what was no longer believable in the Gospel talk of heaven given the modern frame of reference. A century later the opposite question invites at least equal attention: what is no longer believable in the modern frame of reference given the Gospel talk of heaven? Calvin’s references to the real (or true) presence of Christ's heavenly life as "virtus" invite a conversation with computer talk of virtuality that illumines by contrast the current task of dogmatic theology in addressing what is heard today in the Gospel message as "the real world".

Many believe that at the end of her life Mary was assumed bodily ‘into heaven’ where she remains exalted by her divine son. This claim, magisterially entitled The Doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, strikes some as absurd. Even many traditional Christians are opposed to, or have doubts about this aspect of Catholic doctrine (as they do of its non–defined equivalent among the Eastern Orthodox marked by the feast of the koimesis (dormition) of the Theotokos[the one who ‘gave birth to’ God]). Typically critics regard the doctrine as being at best a sentimental piety and at worst a neo–Pagan accretion entirely lacking in support from any appropriate quarter. Others go further, however; suggesting that it is not simply without biblical or other evidential warrant but is in some way incoherent. Here I explore some of the sources of difficulties that confront any attempt to present and defend the doctrine. Ancient and mediaeval accounts often relate narratives of Mary’s final days. Significantly, however, they also reason that given Mary’s unique status the Assumption must have happened because it should have done. I consider this style of deductive theology before examining certain historical presentations, in which I argue that there may be material evidence of the tradition as far back as the end of the persecution of Diocletian around the time of the Edict of Milan. Thereafter I take up the philosophical problems, exploring various possibilities and suggesting that acknowledging Aquinas’s insistence on the impoverished nature of disembodied human souls, and their need of resurrected embodiment is consistent with Mary’s unique role that the mode of her present existence is of a different order to that of other separated subjects.

The essay explores the inner logic that connects Jenson's view of the work of Christ, the person of Christ, and the doctrine of God. More specifically, it examines his understanding of the cross, the incarnation, and the trinity. Despite clear intentions to the contrary, Jenson lands outside the bounds of established ecumenical consensus. His view of the cross tends toward Socinus, of the incarnation toward Arius, and of the trinity toward Hegel in ways that seem subordinationist and tritheistic. One possible reason for this outcome is a rationalistic mindset that displays a low tolerance for paradox in dogmatic theology.

Langdon Gilkey's On Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas's 2001 Gifford Lectures With the Grain of the Universe are two very different accounts of Reinhold Niebuhr's theology and its relevance today. Gilkey's book is a sympathetic exposition of Niebuhr's theology of human nature, human society and the meaning of human history. Hauerwas's critical treatment of Niebuhr is an essential part of his overarching argument about the state of theology today. The polemic is in the outline. Hauerwas takes up Niebuhr's public theology after his account of William James' pragmatic philosophy and before his treatment of Karl Barth's dogmatic theology. So situated between James and Barth, the reader is expected to determine whether Niebuhr is nearest the pole of pragmatic philosophy or of dogmatic theology. Hauerwas's thesis is that, if you scratch deep enough beneath Niebuhr's apparent neoorthodoxy, practices of prayer and preaching, and his bold use of a religious vocabulary, you find a Jamesian pragmatist. Hauerwas gives a new twist to the ongoing debate between liberal and postliberal theology over who is the rightful bearer of Niebuhr's legacy. Hauerwas is a postliberal who vehemently argues that Niebuhr belongs to liberalism and that his pragmatic public theology has outstripped its usefulness. For Gilkey, Niebuhr is nothing less than a modern day St. Augustine who found a way to decisively shape the politics of his time by translating biblical categories into the language of secular culture. Niebuhr's theology was pioneering and should now be seen as a paradigmatic demonstration of how serious theological thinking engages and transforms the social and political realms. Hauerwas too compares Niebuhr to Augustine to illustrate why Niebuhr's project had to fail. Niebuhr's problem was that he was not Augustinian enough. Augustine did not translate Christian truths into the language of his culture. He rather saw that the story of Roman culture had come to an end and that he lived in a

Com a chegada da Companhia de Jesus a Portugal, em 1540, passam a ser criados pela Coroa os colégios jesuíticos. O Colégio de Santo Antão, em Lisboa, foi a primeira instituição educacional dos jesuítas, criado em 1553. Propomos uma discussão dos principais objetivos, das características e das dificuldades da ordem religiosa jesuítica no território português, bem como uma apresentação de uma das aulas mais importantes desse Colégio: a ‘Aula da Esfera’. Os padres consideravam fundamental o ensino naquele Colégio de questões relacionadas à matemática e à astronomia, pois, por meio dessas disciplinas, abordavam a teoria e a prática de itens e de conceitos, como o telescópio, os logaritmos, as equações, a geometria, entre outras. As grades curriculares desse centro de ensino incluíam, além das Ciências e Matemática, disciplinas como: Latim, Gramática, Humanidades, Retórica e introduções à Teologia Moral, à Teologia Dogmática e à Filosofia, consideradas únicas ao ensino no contexto português. Estudar o Colégio de Santo Antão ajuda-nos também a compreender como eram consideradas essas inovações no ensino, no caso jesuítico, na conjuntura temporal de Portugal no século XVI. Entendemos que o Colégio, principalmente pelas inovações, foi essencial para o desenvolvimento da ciência portuguesa.

With the emergence of a third 'quest for the historical Jesus', the relationship between history and theology once again comes to the fore. On one end of the spectrum are those who deny any theological significance to critical historiography. On the other end are those who insist that what is said about Jesus theologically cannot contradict what is known about him historically. The present essay explores why some form of the second position is inevitable given both the historical character of divine revelation and the ultimate unity of faith and reason.