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The experiential bias in modern understandings of spirituality has led to readings of the pre-modern texts of Pseudo-Dionysius as referring to "negative experiences" of faith. Denys Turner, Bernard McGinn, and others have outlined the mistaken "spiritual positivism" of such readings and their contrast with the negative dialectics of the classical apophatic tradition. Indeed, the philosophical parameters of the Christian mysticism of the Dionysian tradition would deny "mystical experience" to be "experience" as such. Nevertheless, several modern theologians have attempted to integrate interpretations of the experiential in Christian mysticism into their theology. These include Sara Coakley in the idea of spiritual sense in her theology of the body, Karl Rahner in the conception of spiritual touch within his theology of grace, and Louis Dupré's view that there is religious significance in the experience of "emptiness" in modern-day atheism. I shall contrast these attempted integrations with the critique of "mystical experience" within classical understandings of apophaticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the parallel tensions between Karl Rahner's theology of grace as universally given and Hans Urs von Balthasar's emphasis on the distinct effects of encountering Jesus Christ. Topics include their differing interpretations of the Spiritual Exercises, the influence of Ignatian spirituality on their theology, and the tension between the universal and particular movements of grace in the Exercises.

This article argues that the tension identified by maximalist interpreters in Barth's theology between his concrete identification of Jesus Christ with the essence of God and affirmation of counterfactual possibilities is motivated by Barth's theology that God is the absolute person. Barth's theology of divine personhood includes an element of self‐mastery over Godself. It is demonstrated that Barth uses the concept of decision and counterfactual claims to secure God's Lordship over Godself and avoid any necessity of compulsion in God's actions. God is the absolute person, a self‐determining and self‐motivated intentional agent, which Barth utilises to secure God's irreducible, full presence in God's gracious turning towards us in revelation and reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes a model of religious experience drawing from the theology of Jesuit theologian Donald L. Gelpi on Christian conversion through God's grace. It differentiates affective, moral and intellectual conversion in addition to religious conversion and discusses the need for God's mercy to move into affective conversion. The author discusses religious and intellectual conversion through the process of transvaluation within the frame of Christian faith.

The article explores the Galilean corpus on theology's status as a science relating to inferences by Alfredo Damanti. Topics discussed are inferiority of theology to natural philosophy and mathematics, superiority of theology due to nobility of its subject matter which are salvation, ordering of things to heaven and earth and grace, polysemy of Scriptural language, distinction of faith and morals from nature, and Catholic theology's determine of the true sense of Scriptural passages.

This response to the above seven articles engages with some of the significant ways in which each takes forward the theological discussion of grace. While some areas of disagreement arise, the overall sense is of a conversation that is moving beyond Paul and the Gift, using its contribution to open fresh avenues for understanding between Catholic and Protestant theologians on this deeply controversial topic, and new possibilities for conversation between biblical exegesis and theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Barclay offers a capacious and helpful framework for reflection on large swathes of the history of the theology of grace with his notion of the six ways of 'perfecting the gift'. In this article, I extend his analysis to a consideration of certain typical differences between Catholic and Protestant conceptions of grace. Where Protestant theology tends toward a juxtaposition of grace with sin, Catholic theology often considers grace in relation to nature, and each side, I suggest, has its own characteristic proclivity towards paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paul and the Gift by John Barclay advances an interpretation of Paul's theology of grace that resonates with Martin Luther's reading: God's gift is God's Son, Jesus Christ, given for and to the unworthy. To imagine Luther reading Paul and the Gift is thus to conjure images of deep and fundamental consensus. But questions remain. Is the law a cultural canon of worth that God's gift of Christ ignores, or is it, as God's law, a fixed judgement that God's grace contravenes? Does God give only 'without regard to worth' and thus with a kind of divine indifference to cultural indices of value, or does the gift of Christ contradict the conditions of its receipts and thus come in a way that is actually incongruous? With these questions, Luther might push back against Barclay. With others he would ask Barclay to go further. Is not God's incongruous grace also and characteristically creative? How is the gift of Christ that God gave present to and for recipients as the gift God now gives? In all these ways, Luther's theology of the word poses questions to or invites expansions of Barclay's theology of grace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over the "new theology" created by de Lubac's Surnaturel has given rise to numerous reflections on divine grace, in particular with Karl Rahner who has tied them to his concept of the philosophy of knowledge as it is expressed in "Spirit in the world". But for him it seems also to be tied to another important field of research: the relationship between the Church and non-Christian religions, with his famous thesis of "anonymous Christians". This article seeks to have a look at the links between the various elements of the thought of the German Jesuit, and to compare them with that of his predecessor, Henri de Lubac. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Erasmus of Rotterdam developed from a classical humanist to a Christian humanist theologian in the first two decades of the sixteenth century. In the early years of the Reformation, his theological work responded to the theological debates of the age. Although many contemporaries dismissed him as a theologian, he developed a mature theology of grace before his death in 1536 that evidenced his efforts to create space for theological compromise between Protestants and Catholics and prevent the permanent fissure of western Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the church historian Henri Crouzel observed, questions about the nature of human autonomy were central to the thought of the third-century theologian Origen of Alexandria. On this question, his influence on later generations, though complicated, would be difficult to overstate. Yet, what exactly Origen thought autonomy required has been a subject of debate. On one widespread reading, he has been taken to argue that autonomy requires that human beings have the capacity to act otherwise than they do in fact act; that is, that alternative possibilities of action are causally available to them. As Susanne Bobzien has argued, however, there is good reason to think that the view that such alternative possibilities are required for the ascription of autonomy did not explicitly emerge until Alexander of Aphrodisias, a rough contemporary of Origen's of whose thought he was likely unaware. In revisiting Origen on the notion of ‘free will’, Michael Frede, against the ‘alternative possibilities’ reading, argued that his theory of the will was largely attributable to Stoicism, and in particular to Epictetus’ theory of will as προαίρεσις. George Boys-Stones, for his part, has claimed that, while Origen's theory of the descent of the pre-existent minds is aimed at providing an account of how human beings are entirely responsible for their characters, in the embodied state we find no evidence that he understood human choice subsequent to the fall to depend upon the existence of alternative possibilities in order to be autonomous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This opening paper seeks to situate discussions about the academic status of 'softer', more practical disciplines within wider contexts. The most important and most distinctively theological of these is conditioned by the particular claims of Christian tradition about the saving revelation of a God who yet remains unseen and transcendent. Also relevant are ethical and political questions about the nature of education, and speculative questions about theoretical and practical reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through examples of grace and gift of reconciliation the meaning of grace is interpreted in relation to social and political transformation. Grace is understood as the unexpected kairotic moment of change, where the future opens up for new possibilities of reconciliation in situations of conflict. It is a moment you cannot plan for, but hope for to happen. Trusting in the possibility of a gracious moment can influence your work in the present. Hoping and waiting for the gracious moment of reconciliation is linked to a praxis of active nonviolence as seen in the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can we speak of sola gratia as a divine attribute so as to affirm that all that God does is grace? Traditionally, Western Christian theology has answered that question negatively, placing God's justice in opposition with God's grace and presenting a God whose love does not seem to be unconditional. This has been especially evident in the ways in which Scripture, the work of Christ, justification by faith, and the distinction between law and gospel commonly have been interpreted. By rethinking those traditional interpretations on the basis of an understanding of divine grace as unconditional love, we can indeed proclaim a God of sola gratia and a gospel capable of transforming human lives and responding effectively to the crisis of faith we face today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the second phase of the Pelagian controversy, Augustine repeatedly refers to Cyprian's little work on the Lord's Prayer to defend his perspective on grace. In this text, Augustine claims, one finds an unambiguous precedent for his controversial teaching. The following article assesses the validity and significance of Augustine's appeal to Cyprian. First, I show that this appeal offered obvious strategic advantages, which may help to explain why Augustine cited Cyprian by name more than he did any other author from the early church, excepting only the apostle Paul. I next turn to evaluate the material basis for Augustine's appeal to Cyprian, showing that Cyprian does indeed support Augustine's case against a more "Pelagian" view of grace in three major areas. Finally, I argue for the possibility that Cyprian's work influenced Augustine's mature thinking on grace. In sum, this article shows the crucial importance of Cyprian's On the Lord' s Prayer for Augustine's view of grace, which courses through the heart of his theology. Augustine is no David who takes on the "Pelagian" opposition alone. Like David, however, he does pluck a lethal set of stones from a stream that has worn them smooth. Augustine's stream flows from Cyprian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article enters into dialogue with the reviewers of three books, all of which concerned the redemptive ‘work’ of Christ ‘for us’: S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins (eds.), The Redemption (2004), G. O’Collins, Jesus Our Redeemer (2007), and G. O’Collins, Salvation forAll (2009). The aim is to carry forward debates that concern the biblical basis and theological nature of the redemption effected by Jesus Christ, interdisciplinary approaches to this mystery, the methodology and terminology to be adopted, and the salvation of unbelievers and the non-evangelized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within contemporary scholarship there has been considerable debate over the character and scope of Peter Martyr Vermigli's scholasticism, which has sought to locate his thought between the two poles of the 'via Thomae' and the 'via Gregorii.' This paper traces the Augustinian-Thomist polarity throughout Vermigli's doctrine of grace and free choice. In particular it seeks to discover Gregorian distinctives in his thought, namely, doctrinal points shared by Vermigli and Rimini, representing a development of Augustine and a departure from Aquinas. Without denying the important Thomist and Aristotelian elements of his thought, this paper concludes that renewed attention now needs to be paid to his profound debt to late-medieval Augustinian scholasticism and its global impact on his theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at showing the humor in the narratives about Isaac, not meaning that it is the only way to approach those texts. It rather singles out a perspective traditionally ignored and certainly found there: humor. Isaacs features as deciphered from the analysis of the respective passages shape his humorous profile as a less skilled, passive, incompetent patriarch: a kind of "anti-patriarch" through whom God acts and delivers his promises. This article thereby shows how God acts gracefully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay addresses the following questions: What constitute the basics of a spirituality of work? Can one draw some criteria by which to adjudicate the coherence, consistency, and adequacy of existing spiritualities of work? What can Christianity offer for developing a spirituality of work? Guided by these questions, the essay begins with identifying the interrelated variables of work itself: product, process, end user, the worker, and the workplace. Each variable has a spiritual dimension. Product points to human creativity; process to the precepts: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, and be responsible. Taken together, the end user, the worker, and the workplace point to the inter-personal dimension of work. The worker is poised toward the need for personal transcendence, as the workplace is the locus for apprehending the presence of grace in our midst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the theological implications of the philosophy of the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, focusing on his ethical investigations on Divine assistance or intervention. The legitimacy of a Kantian understanding of Grace within the philosopher's ethical system is then addressed.

For Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner, grace is a reality that can be not only professed in worship or inferred through metaphysical analysis but also experienced in the depths of consciousness. Here the author uses a Lonerganian hermeneutic to study the evolution of the theology of grace from the writings of Augustine through the Scholastic work of Aquinas to the theology of Lonergan. His analysis demonstrates that the transition to an account that expresses grace in terms of human experience represents a development in the Catholic theology of grace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on the relevance of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal to Christian theology which focuses on his Augustinianism rather than on his Jansenism. He discusses the study that aims to address the issues concerning theological structure vagueness of the mystery of God and the history of human beings. He examines Pascal's argument on God's existence and divine revelation in Christ and his stand on the range of explanation proper to theology.

The author expresses his views on the theology of grace of Saint Augustine of Hippo as a Trinitarian gift. Saint Augustine's conception of grace came from his conception of God's being while his apophaticism originated from the apophaticism adopted by Christians. The author also offers information on Saint Augustine's essay titled "On the Predestination of the Saints."

This article argues the possibility of a phenomenology of Grace on the basis of response. Its key phenomenological interlocutor is Emmanuel Levinas. The theology of grace might be said to be the fundamental theological doctrine, embracing as it does all other theologies, yet the theology of grace has been a focus of theological debate and dispute throughout history. This article suggests that Levinas' ethical metaphysics, when applied to theology, gives theology a new phenomenological voice in which the theology of grace might be articulated. It begins by arguing the significance of the ordinary and the everyday and the sincerity of intentional life in the world, and then proceeds to develop the notion of the prevenience of grace ( gratia praeveniens) in terms of Levinas notion of the posteriority of the anterior/anteriority of the posterior. Grace is known in its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching mistakes are often unwelcome intruders in our courses, and we may think they are best avoided altogether. In contrast to this perspective, this article proposes that teaching mistakes may be occasions of grace both for us and for our students. Teaching mistakes may be gifts of grace in four particular ways. Teaching about our mistakes in pedagogically intentional ways may also create a space for God's gracious activity in our lives and in those of our students. These points are illustrated by the story of the author's most powerful teaching mistake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Grace is God's favor towards us, unearned and undeserved." So says the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer's Catechism (and a long theological tradition). This statement has two possible interpretations. On the one hand, if the Catechism means to equate the terms "unearned" and "undeserved," then it blurs an important distinction. "Earned" and "deserved" are not univocal concepts. On the other hand, if the Catechism means to distinguish the terms, then it is mistaken in affirming both as features of saving grace. While creating grace (the action of God that brings us into existence as spiritual beings meant for union with God) is both unearned and undeserved, saving grace (the action of God that restores human beings from sin to actual friendship with God) is unearned but not undeserved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Douglas Burton- Christie on human restlessness and rootlessness, one by James Gould on earning and deserving grace, as well as their distinction, and one by Daniel Joslyn- Siemiatkoski on the positive theology of the Torah.

The traditional Catholic distinction of nature and grace is utilized to examine the importance of maintaining the 'supernatural' character of grace as Christian theology is increasingly concerned about the modality of divine agency beyond the church and the necessity of Christian witness in the world in all dimensions of human experience. The inseparability but distinction between grace and faith experience is employed in service of a common Catholic and Pentecostal witness to the signification of the supernaturality of grace to counter any tendency toward religious naturalism in the effort to promote Christian witness in the secular world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, a theologically thick description of opening the eucharistic table to all, is rooted in Aidan Kavanaugh's conviction that liturgical theology is primarily that "knowledge" of God generated by the encounter of Christian congregations with God in the liturgy. Thus, this work began with a working group of four Open Table Episcopal parishes reflecting together on what they have found of God, Christ, church, and grace within their practice. The vision that emerged from this reflection was centered in a complex theology of grace and response inherent in Christ's parable of the Prodigal Son. This central commitment was, moreover, structured around intuitions concerning the universal status of all persons as God's children, the relational character of grace, the communal character of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, a Christocentric ecclesiology defining the church by the commitments at its center, and a missional understanding of baptism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contra Tony Richie, J.H. King's theology of religions proper was not 'optimistic'. 'At its core', it was pessimistic because he viewed the non-Christian faiths as products of demonic inspiration. King's theology of the humanly unreached, on the other hand, was inclusively hopeful, but he did not affirm the non-Christian religions as playing any role in the unevangelized accessing the atoning grace of Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently it has been suggested that fundamental disagreements over the theology of grace had little impact upon parish life in early Stuart England. However, by considering the local circumstances and wider national repercussions of an open debate over predestination in the 1630s between two Norwich lecturers, William Bridge and John Chappell, this article will argue the contrary. It will show that the Public nature of the clash between Bridge and Chappell, examined by the church courts, ensured that predestination became a politically divisive issue within Norwich's parishes on the eve of the English Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The position of Barth and others, that the covenant with Adam is thoroughly legalistic, is based on the incorrect assumption that grace and works cannot coexist as covenant principles. However, the difficulty of seeing the harmony between these principles is real. This article reconsiders the covenant with Adam in light of the medieval concept of the two powers of God, or as we shall argue here, the two perspectives on God's power. These two perspectives, part of the original intellectual milieu in which covenant theology arose, demonstrate that the divine covenant with humanity may include aspects of both God's grace and human merit simultaneously. God's grace is apparent de potentia absoluta, from the perspective of God's absolute power, and God's justice and the possibility of Adam's merit are apparent de potentia ordinata, from the perspective of God's ordained power. Both perspectives, what God could do and what he has in fact chosen to do, are valid and necessary perspectives for understanding God's covenant dealings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henri de Lubac argues that Christians today lack an appreciation of the centrality of the Gospel to human meaning. This apologetically disastrous deficiency is related, for him, to Cajetan's “corruption” of Thomas's understanding of nature and grace. After presenting this issue, this article examines the reception of ideas akin to Cajetan's conception by Christians and popular culture, which latter has accordingly adopted an indifferentist mentality toward religion. Other impediments to thinking through the Gottesproblem today are taken up next, specifically the legacy of critical atheism and the distraction that shields persons from this problem's relevance. Distraction, although aimed at saving persons from the thought of death and from anxiety, actually produces a deadening and banalization of human hope. The hope of Gaudium et spes, which is addressed last, is not the eviscerated hope of contemporary persons. The language barrier centering on “hope” between the Council fathers and contemporary persons can only be bridged by addressing the formative causes of the hope of those indifferent to the Gospel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several verses from the Bible which shows God's grace through Jesus Christ. The first reading is from the book of Isaiah 1:10-20 wherein the throne vision brought Isaiah a profound understanding of the Lord's majesty, holiness and glory. The second reading is from Wisdom 11:22-12:2 which teaches God's mercy and from Psalm 32 which is classified as a thanksgiving psalm or a wisdom psalm and is also a penitential psalm.

This article describes and responds to criticisms of Karl Barth recently offered by John R. Betz and John Milbank concerning this set of issues in Barth's theology: nature and grace, analogy, and a natural desire for the supernatural. It attempts to defuse these complaints by giving attention to Barth's twofold determination of humanity as both creature and covenant-partner. Within this material, it is argued, Barth employs doctrines such as election, Christology and analogy in order to orient nature towards grace in such a way that something like a natural desire for the supernatural is present in his theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his article 'Liebende Selbsthingabe als anfanghafter Glaube? Überlegungen zur Heilschance für den Nichtchristen' (European Journal of Theology XVI, 2007, pp. 5-12), Gerold defends the thesis that loving self-offering could be interpreted as an incipient faith in Christ and thereby salvific. Yet such an approach to the salvation of non-Christians displays definite weaknesses: the disregard for the foundation for loving self-offering present included also in certain non-Christian positions; the danger of overlooking the eschatological separation of the saved and the lost and of narrowing the love-commandment to the horizontal relationship to one's neighbour; a lack of Scriptural evidence; a confusion of common and saving grace; a misunderstanding of the nature of the faith required for salvation. In conclusion, I raise the question of how far it is possible to accept that salvation can be without explicit faith in Christ without abandoning the ground of biblically grounded evangelical theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the work of Henry Vane the Younger which focuses on his arguments concerning the wrongdoings of the Orthodox theologians in England. The author provides a discussion on the significant role played by Vane in addressing the issue of law-grace or antinomianism during the 1630s, specifically on the theology of God's covenant of works and grace. He explores the book of Peter Bulkeley titled "The Gospel-Covenant" and Vane's "The Retired Mans Meditations" which discuss the arguments concerning God's covenant grace and salvation and the Orthodox theocratic misdeeds.

: Important aspects of contemporary life—from increasing dependence on technology to climate change, from changing views of human nature to global interactions among varied cultures and religions—demand that theologians consider the best understandings of the world that the sciences can offer. To help support a fully relational trinitarian concept of God, namely, one that offers a richer interpretation of God's relationship with the world, theology needs truth about the world, humans, and our place in relation to the rest of nature. Lutheran theological foci have a built-in thirst that only dialogue with science can quench. Too narrow an approach to anthropology and justification by faith focuses on God's activity on behalf of humans as if apart from nature. We need a more comprehensive vision of God's activity in creation, redemption and sanctification by grace. To explicate this, we turn to Luther's emphasis on God's incarnation in human flesh and blood—thus also in the cells, molecules, and subatomic activity of the world; the communication of attributes; and the indwelling Christ. For a deeper understanding of God as triune and of redemption, we need a renewed emphasis on the connection between creation, incarnation and redemption, and between nature and grace. An increased knowledge of science contributes to a healthier approach to the church's mission by giving a theological basis for ethical action in relation to the (natural) world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this work is to study seventeenth century New Spain, especially those aspects related to thought and freedom, creativity and Jesuit spirituality, purification of reason that entails the education of intelligence. The practice of freedom and an asceticism of subjectivity, accustoms to the idea that freedom and intelligence overlap, transferring them by excess of sense to the "spiritual senses." To let itself be stripped of the original sense, practice freedom and creativity, "transpose" a hidden sense, showing and hiding at the same time the latent sense in the manifest sense, representing not the reality that we see but the one that we do not see, the unity in otherness, the unity in movement towards the infinite through the finite, the invisible through the visible, is the baroque enterprise of the Jesuit Company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shares the principal emphases to date in an attempt to begin a contemporary systematic theology and invites the collaboration of others in the development of that theology. Lonergan's understanding of systematics as the imperfect and analogical understanding of the mysteries of faith is adopted from the outset, but so is his insistence (1) that a contemporary systematic theology must be grounded in interiorly and religiously differentiated consciousness and (2) that such a theology will be a theology of history. The dogmatic-theological context of such a development is found in a hypothesis that links the four relations in the Trinity to four distinct created supernatural participations and imitations. A brief outline of the author's work on the theology of history is presented, and then central elements in the 'four-point hypothesis' are discussed, especially the relation between sanctifying grace and charity. The paper concludes with a suggestion regarding the theological importance of the mimetic theory of René Girard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issues surrounding divine grace and the play of opposites. The author took issue on the misleading presentation of Christian theology that no orthodox theologian considered that demonic plagiarism were necessarily demonic. Moreover, he discussed Ippolito Desideri's, a Jesuit missionary in Tibet, teachings and the theology of divine grace in the Society of Jesus.

This essay challenges the criticism usually levelled at the early Fathers prior to Augustine for not articulating a view of justification by faith that corresponded with Pauline Christianity as reflected in the formulas of the sixteenth-century reformers. Not only is such a view anachronistic and tends to assume that there was (or is) a uniform definition of justification, but there is evidence that Latin theology before Augustine promulgated the tenets of unmerited grace and the necessity of righteousness that come only through justifying faith. In particular, the Matthew commentary of Hilary of Poitiers explicitly formulates a biblical theology of 'fides sola iustificat', and probably contributed to a revival of interest in the Pauline Epistles by the end of the fourth and early fifth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the theological significance of the conversion in "Paradise Lost." Aim of "Paradise Lost"; Details of "Paradise Lost's" portrayal of the conversion of Adam and Eve within the context of post-Reformation theological controversies concerning grace, conversion and freedom; Concept of prevenient grace in the seventeenth century; Conversion of human beings in "Paradise Lost."

This paper examines Vincent of Lérin's teaching about grace as expressed in his Christology. Vincent, who has regularly been assumed to have opposed Augustine's doctrine on grace, advanced his own teaching most clearly in a little known work, the Excerpta. The excerpts in question were significantly taken from Augustine's writings, among them the Antipelagian treatises circulated in Gaul. Exc. shows Vincent to have been a discriminating student of Augustinian theology who embraced predestination as a way of describing grace at work in Jesus Christ. A comparison of Vincent's teaching with Augustine's and with John Cassian's (their contemporary, who like Vincent has often stood accused of 'Semipelagianism') demonstrates that the three of them asserted Christ as the exemplar of grace in confrontation with Pelagianism. On this basis, the paper suggests that further re-evaluation of how Augustine's works were received by his contemporaries in Gaul is seriously needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Langdon Gilkey died on November 19, 2004. This“Theology Update” reviews his career and examines elements in his systematic theology such as:(1) fallenness in human nature;(2) the transcendence and graciousness of God:(3) the Neo-Orthodox agenda;(4) creation and the dialogue with science; and(4) inter-religious dialogue. Gilkey's theological method of responding to human experience with the Christian message through a process of interpreting symbols is critically evaluated. This article is published simultaneously inDialogandTheology and Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]