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Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), a controversialist and prolific writer, often addressed his theological opponents with an acid-tipped pen. Early in his career, few topics received as much attention as regeneration, conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit. Campbell and his coreligionists on the frontier were hardly the only theologians who focused on these doctrines during the first half of the nineteenth century. Campbell's early polemics make it clear that he had substantially modified or rejected many of the major tenets of the Presbyterianism of his youth regarding these topics. His early writings find his literary resources arrayed against such doctrines as human inability and metaphysical regeneration that his Reformed opponents held. Campbell's biographer even tells us that Campbell's views of regeneration and conversion shifted. In this paper, I argue that one of the major factors driving Campbell's rejection of these widely held Reformed doctrines was his appropriation of the thought of John Locke and Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (SCSP). More specifically, I argue that Alexander Campbell's understanding of testimony, firmly rooted in the thought of Locke and SCSP, was the sine qua non of his conception of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

"Common grace" has played an important but disputed role in the Reformed tradition's picture of God's relationship to the creation. While providing a theological foundation for many Calvinists' cultural engagement, certain ambiguities and issues plague the concept. By comparing it to another Reformed vision of God's continuing creative relationship to the creation, namely that of David Kelsey in his book titled Eccentric Existence, and examining especially three aspects of Kelsey's vision--i.e. the distinctions between God's operations, the Trinitarian underpinnings of God's creational activity, and the proper human response to that activity--promising directions for the common grace tradition are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the spiritual case of apostle Paul and God's grace.

This essay considers Paul's first-century "fundraising missive" in 2 Corinthians 8-9, focusing on 2 Corinthians 8:8-15. In it, Paul poses three hermeneutical puzzles around grace, equity, and, participation that together establish the theological framework o f his appeal and reveal the inner dynamics of the economy of God's kingdom. The Holy Spirit invites us into participation in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which liberates us to be vulnerable enough to enter into the collective engagement that is inseparable from the common good. Within that community, the superabundance of God's grace enables us to "finish doing" what we have started (2 Cor. 8:11)-- what has been started in us--by living fully into the transformative economy of God, who promises to make all things new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the more exotic and mysterious features of Leibniz’s later philosophical writings is the harmony between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace. In this paper, I show that this harmony is not a single doctrine, but rather a compilation of two doctrines, namely (1) that the order of nature makes possible the rewards and punishments of rational souls, and (2) that the rewards and punishments of rational souls are administered naturally. I argue that the harmony is best considered as Leibniz’s distinctive collation, development, and rebranding of these doctrines, which were not themselves unique to Leibniz, nor uncommon in the seventeenth century. There follows a detailed examination of various concrete examples of the harmony in operation, from which I show that it is essentially the culmination of Leibniz’s lifelong thinking about divine justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimated local water storage change by combining space- and ground-based gravimetry in this paper. The gravity change from GRACE was first divided into local and global parts according to potential theory. We then subtracted the GRACE-derived global field from ground gravimeter results to obtain local gravity change which is directly induced by the local water storage. Finally we inferred the local water storage change. We used superconducting gravimeter (SG) data recorded from June 2008 to June 2012 at Wuhan station and GRACE satellite gravimetric data to estimate the local water storage change. To validate the inferred local water storage change, the water table records of a well which is several meters away from SG station were compared. Furthermore, the equivalent water heights from hydrological models and GRACE were used also for comparisons. The comparisons show that the results from combining SG and GRACE data are better than those from either GRACE data alone or hydrological models, which demonstrates the efficiency of the combination method to derive local water storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the method of intertextuality conceived not in a general manner, but in its application to the biblical texts. After the concept of intertextuality is defined, the way of utilizing it in the biblical studies is explained, and its main types are pointed out (citations, echoes, allusions), the paper takes the so-called formula of grace that appears in Ex 34:6-7 as an example to which the method of intertextuality has been fruitfully applied, due to its recurrent presence through the entire Old Testament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apparent acceleration in Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Antarctic ice mass time-series may reflect both ice discharge and surface mass balance contributions. However, a recent study suggests there is also contamination from errors in atmospheric pressure de-aliasing fields [European Center for Medium-RangeWeather Forecast (ECMWF) operational products] used during GRACE data processing. To further examine this question, we compare GRACE atmospheric pressure de-aliasing (GAA) fields with in situ surface pressure data from coastal and inland stations. Differences between the two are likely due to GAA errors, and provide a measure of error in GRACE solutions. Time-series of differences at individual weather stations are fit to four presumed error components: annual sinusoids, a linear trend, an acceleration term and jumps at times of known ECMWF model changes. Using data from inland stations, we estimate that atmospheric pressure error causes an acceleration error of about +7.0 Gt yr-2, which is large relative to prior GRACE estimates of Antarctic ice mass acceleration in the range of -12 to -14 Gt yr-2.We also estimate apparent acceleration rates from other barometric pressure (reanalysis) fields, including ERA-Interim, MERRA and NCEP/DOE. When integrated over East Antarctica, the four mass acceleration estimates (from GAA and the three reanalysis fields) vary considerably (by ~2-16 Gt yr-2). This shows the need for further effort to improve atmospheric mass estimates in this region of sparse in situ observations, in order to use GRACE observations to measure ice mass acceleration and related sea level change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the 2015 REA Atlanta conference theme,The Power of Imagining: The Life Giving Possibilities of Education in Faith, this article proposes a postmodern reclamation of imagination as the human bridge to sacramentally encounter the Divine. It re-examines sacramental religious education retrieving imagination from material fundamentalism, refocusing the sacraments on societal as well as personal development, and counteracting body/spirit dualism by relating sacramental graces and body energy centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its opening, language, and in particular its dysfunction, is reflexively foregrounded in Shakespeare'sTroilus and Cressida. While some critics have followed John Dryden's disparagement of the drama's language, this essay argues that the playwright knowingly constructed his play such that its linguistic disorder exhibits and embodies the endemic disorderliness and disintegration—cosmic, moral, interpersonal and subjective—that characterises its world. This interrelationship of language and ontological state can be elucidated by exploring the significance to it of the question that, by virtue of the Reformation, became an axis of early modern theology and its far-reaching upheavals—how one becomes an eternal recipient of the grace of God. Perhaps surprisingly,Troiluscontains echoes of the sixteenth-century controversies over grace. After exploring the interrelationship of language and the doctrine of divine grace, this essay considers how the absence of this grace is implicated in the ostensible semantic embranglement engendered byTroilus’language. The focus is upon the play's central scenes, and the perversion of the speech act of promise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Few issues have been as divisive for the contemporary church as the doctrine of irresistible grace. In the debates surrounding this doctrine, there has been an overwhelming tendency for theologies of grace to focus on the effects that grace has on particular human beings. Alongside this tendency, there has arisen a danger that we forget that God's grace is God's grace; that it is God's free, personal, and beneficent disposition and action. In this article, I turn to Karl Barth to consider a way forward for interpreting the irresistible nature of grace that does not focus on its effectuality but on its theocentric, participative, and covenantal character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on Saint Thomas Aquinas and his theology of grace. It mentions his incorporation of high scholastic prosodies on sanctifying grace as a supernatural habitus which enable an individual to act in a meritorious manner. It also notes the potential of the auxilium in actualizing possible habits in an actor by divine movement.

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]

The author presents his views on the spiritual gifts mentioned in the Paul's ministry lists and its evidences found in the history of the Christian church. It informs that the Apostolic Fathers (AFs) have mentioned about the history of spiritual gifts in Apostles, where the gifts are treated as the God's grace for building the church. The article refers and demonstrates the AFs thoughts on the spiritual gifts and their representation in the theology.

The article presents a brief explanation on the book "Advice to Young Converts," by American theologian Jonathan Edwards, focusing on his advice to inquisitor Deborah Hatheway on how to achieve grace and admonition of the Lord. Topics discussed include the consistency of Edwards's sermons and other religious writings, his advocacy for young converts to seek for God's grace, and importance of prayer.

The article discusses the theological and biblical basis for refugee crisis. It states that churches need to understand of God's perspective on sufferings of the refugees and his grace and concern to enable them to cope from the consequences of their own sin. Several topics are discussed including discrimination and dehumanization of refugees in the society, ways to restore dignity of displaced people, and depiction of several incidents on attitude of Jesus towards the vulnerable in the Bible.

An essay is presented discussing the need for clergies to emphasize the means of grace in their preaching and ministering.

In this paper I argue from a number of positions that are, while not uncontested, at least common among analytic philosophers of religion for the possibility, and indeed the plausibility, of a doctrine of limbo. The account of limbo that I advocate is substantially different than the element of Catholic speculative theology that goes by the same name. According to that doctrine, the limbus infantium is a place or state of perfect natural happiness for those who, prior to the age of reason, die without baptism. Given the possibility of 'baptism by desire', the need for limbo, as I shall develop it, is not based on whether or not an agent has received the sacrament of baptism. Instead limbo is, I argue, a place where individuals who have not had sufficient opportunity to be reconciled to God in the present life will be given the opportunity to do so in the next life. Limbo, so understood, is a place which allows for the post-mortem healing and growth of individuals so that they are able to choose either for or against God in the way required for redemption in this life. On this view, limbo is not a place of 'second-chances', but rather a place of first-chances for those who were denied them in their terrestrial life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and integrates several strands of thought represented in recent contributions that the author has tried to make to the secularization-sacralization debate. That debate is both ecclesial and theological, and the two contexts are related. The theological debate will not be resolved short of discovering the key to discerning grace everywhere. Resolution of the ecclesial debate will take much longer, if not in the sensus fidelium at least in magisterial attitudes. This paper proposes a central element in the relevant discernment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The movie The Third Miracle invites theological reflection on miracles, sainthood, and faith. A movie filled with Lutheran themes of unmerited grace and blessings of the ordinary life, the story line follows a Catholic priest tasked with exploring the authenticity of reported miracles associated with a lay woman and a bleeding statue. Faith and miracles are shown in their ordinariness, easily missed without the eye of faith, and sainthood is juxtaposed with the expected and unexpected vis‐à‐vis motherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions and Challenges Within the Christian community there are many who are skeptical about expanding our understanding of God's grace. Some are convinced that the expansion of God's grace is [...]

The article discusses the topic of being well and the challenge from the from the point of view of the Bible. The article also discusses the virtue of humanness from the testimony of the scriptures and the way showed by the Jesus Christ, including the understanding of the disciple Apostle of the Jesus Christ about the grace of the God.

Moral theology belongs, as a theological study, to the systematical sciences group. Its object of study is the life into Christ or the deified life through grace. Because the reason of the Christian life, as life into Christ, is the achievement of the Holy Ghost, the Moral Theology is in a mandatory way a discipline with philokalic content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses exegesis of biblical reading Psalm 90:1-6 in the New Testament which assures that the grace of God in Christ spans generations and centuries.

The article discusses the immense effect of God's grace on people. Topics covered include the struggle of people who uphold Lutherian teachings to promote the reform theology. Also mentioned is the focus of the theology on the understanding of God's forgiveness and mercy as well as knowing the righteousness by faith.

Talking about a gracious God in a meaningful way calls for a recognition of one's experience. Discovering a gracious God changed Luther's way of doing theology, and demonstrates how Luther's theology was shaped by his experience. Feminist theologians have made a conscious appeal to women's experience, particularly their experience of violence within a patriarchal social structure. This particular experience has to shape how we talk about a gracious God to victims/survivors of violence against women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luther develops his idea of the grace of God in tandem with his idea of economy, and a society characterized by ethical and social values such as love of neighbor and caring for the weak and poor. Hence, the reformer's search for a gracious God is developed along with his criticism of the current indulgence doctrine and the emerging oeconomia moderna. Thus, building on a simul gratia et oeconomia, Luther's reformation theology can be perceived as the intersection of an economy of grace and a horizontal social economy (works of love) in quotidian life that together constitute human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of grace to the proud proclamation of the Reformation. Topics covered include the increasing focus of Lutherans on the Reformation that will be held in 2017. Also mentioned are the different interpretations of the experience of grace that could be experienced with the different associations in the Catholic Church.

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]

Lutheran theology does not have a monopoly on grace. 'Grace alone' statements do not suffice in unfolding what 'all' grace is and does. In comparison to Catholic tradition, the Lutheran imagination of grace appears abstract and excludes experience. Feminist theology, in conversation with the tradition, promises to expand Lutheran hermeneutics and epistemology, starting with grace. In the footsteps of Tuomo Mannermaa, returning to Luther's transformative experience of grace, new avenues open up for reforming Lutheran grace-language. With Luther, a holistic approach to grace can be developed, one that includes Mary the mother of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) has sometimes been categorized, somewhat anachronistically, as a semi-Pelagian-that is, one who believes that although divine help is necessary for salvation, the initium fidei, the first step toward faith, must come from us. Careful attention to his language reveals that his view does not fall anywhere on the traditional map of positions, whether Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, or Augustinian. Yet it is deeply and thoroughly biblical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the theological implications of the reception given by theologian Philip the Chancellor on the aspects of will such as natural and deliberative willing which was distinguished by Syrian monk John Damascene. Topics discussed include the distinction between natural and free desires from philosopher Thomas Aquinas, the use of potency for obedience concept, and the human actions based on God's grace.