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Every discipline, including theology, requires a synthetic overview of its acquisitions and open questions, a kind of'topography'to guide the new student and refresh the gaze of specialists. In his Synthèse dogmatique, Fr. Jean-Hervé Nicolas, OP (1910-2001) presents just such a map of Thomistic theology, focusing on the central topics of Dogmatic Theology: The One and Triune God, Christology, Mariology, Ecclesiology, the Sacraments, and the Last Things. Drawing on decades of research and teaching, Fr. Nicolas synthetically presents these topics from a faithfully Thomistic perspective. While broadly and genially engaging the theological literature of the 20th century, he nonetheless remains deeply indebted to the Thomistic school that would have formed him in his youth as a theologian. This provides the reader with an unparalleled theological vision, masterfully bringing forth, at once, what is new and what is classical. Catholic Theology: A Dogmatic Synthesis is being published in English as a multi-volume work. In this volume, Fr. Nicolas takes up the raison d'être for the mission of the Holy Spirit: the work of sanctification in and through the Church, the mystical body of Christ and sacrament of salvation. In the ecclesiology articulated in this volume, he presents a theology of the Church that is at once wholly Thomistic and also faithful to the great themes of the Second Vatican Council, drawing especially from the works of Journet, Congar, and Bouyer, in critical dialogue with other theologians of his day. He then presents a complete and detailed sacramental theology, both concerning the nature of the sacraments in general, as well as concerning each sacrament in particular, carefully striving to balance positive and scholastic theology. Serving as a professor for decades, including at the University of Fribourg, Fr. Nicolas was at once a profound scholar and a masterful pedagogue. Gathering the work of a lifetime into a single pedagogical narrative, Fr. Nicolas's Catholic Theology: A Dogmatic Synthesis provides a resource for students and scholars alike. In view of the hyper-specialization of theology today, this series of volumes provides readers with a synthetic and sapiential overview of the fundamentals of dogmatic theology from a robust and profound Thomistic perspective.

All over the UK, Evangelical Anglicans read and study the Bible, in churches and in homes, in groups and as individuals. They do this because they believe the Bible is God's word, a collection of texts that is authoritative, inspired, consistent, clear and sufficient. But what does this mean for the way the Bible is read? Should the Bible always be read as historically accurate? As theologically accurate? As relevant for today? In other words, how do the beliefs that such readers have about the nature of the Bible, affect the way that they interpret and the conclusions that they come to? To answer these questions, Anna Hutchinson conducted field work analysing Evangelical Anglicans as they study the Bible. Utilizing qualitative methodology, she argues that the doctrine of Scripture is often narrowly conceived amongst Evangelical Anglicans, such that its influence in interpretation is often qualified and overshadowed by various factors including beliefs about God, genre and personal experience.

How should the church relate to the world? For over seven decades, the classic categories of Christ and Culture have monopolized Christian answers to this question. Nearly everyone bought into H. Richard Niebuhr's lofty, world-transforming vision. And now that everyone's trying to make the world better, we keep clashing about how to do so. We all want God's will to be done on earth as in heaven, but deep disagreements about how to get there keep fracturing Christ's body and subverting our testimony. Jesus was right: our witness to the world depends on our unity and our love for one another. In recent years, we've been failing at both. Political partisanship and constant infighting have wounded the vulnerable and driven countless people from the pews. It's time to revisit church-world relations with fresh eyes and a stubborn commitment to God's revelation in Scripture. Offering a new typology for the twenty-first century, The Fourfold Office of Christ lucidly examines the most common ways of relating church and world. John C. Nugent employs the memorable categories of prophet, priest, king, and servant to showcase the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. He then charts a rigorously scriptural and surprisingly hopeful path forward.

This volume presents the spirituality of John Calvin in three short texts drawn from his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Many consider Calvin the most influential thinker of the sixteenth century. His ideas flowed from Geneva into northern Europe, to the English-speaking lands of Britain, and through the Puritans to North America. The prolific writings of Calvin across several genres open up many aspects of Christian living, and each one offers an entrée to his spirituality. On the sup­position that “spirituality” refers to the way people or groups lead their lives in relation to ultimacy, three texts have been chosen to form the axis for this interpretation of Calvin's contribution. These texts deal with his theological view of law, a definition of sanctification, and a short treatise on the Christian life. The portrait of Calvin's spirituality that emerges from these texts and the larger framework of his theology, his ecclesiology, and his career as church leader and civic organizer can be summarized in the following phrase: a practical spirituality of sanctification by participation in society. One cannot find all of that in these texts, but they establish a platform on which the pieces fall into place. The story of his early life and formation, along with several key ideas that characterize the man and his vision, will help to draw a sharper, more distinctive picture of at least this influential aspect of Calvin's spirituality. It is one that bears direct relevance, with appropriate adjustments, to life today.

The practice of theology depends in part on asking the right questions. Not any sorts of questions, not idle questions, nor questions framed entirely by our own experience or the great issues of our times, but good theological questions focus the mind of the inquirer on the endlessly intelligible self-revelation of God to which the Sacred Scripture bears witness. Our own questions and the great questions of our times have a place, as long as they are purged of the ideological outlooks that can suppress or obscure the questions that the sacra pagina itself presses upon us. Among the essays gathered in Theology as an Ecclesial Discipline, the first set directs the reader's attention precisely to questions that trace the distinctive features of the nature of theology itself. What are the principles and scope of the field of theology as practiced by believers in an ecclesial context? Are historical-critical methods of exegesis compatible with a properly theological interpretation of the Scriptures? How can theology have a place in the academy as an intellectual discipline if the Magisterium seems to limit the scope of its inquiries? The second part considers a range of questions that preoccupy contemporary Protestant and Catholic theologians. Can the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit be replaced by more inclusive titles in doctrine and liturgy? By placing humanity at the center of theological investigation, is Christian humanism distinct from secular humanism? How can we be guilty of a sin committed by our first ancestors? Can the Christian vision of procreative human sexuality survive the cultural onslaught of the sexual revolution? The questions in the third part of this book arise from Catholic dialogue with non-Christian religions, or with other Christian communities, or with conceptions of a cosmos in ecological crisis. Is there a future for Catholic theology of religions? How can people who do not believe in Christ be saved? Is the cosmos a safe environment for human beings, or, alternatively, how can the cosmos be protected from human depredation? Can the concept of “church” stretch far enough to encompass Christian communities that see themselves as strictly local and independent bodies?

The doctrine of glorification is a biblical teaching that has been neglected within the Protestant church and, therefore, underdeveloped in our day. For whatever reason that may be, glorification is a doctrine that will affect every aspect of one's overarching theology, especially the doctrine of soteriology. What one ultimately believes about the future will significantly impact their present. This book shows that this neglect or lack of development has not always been the case within the church, especially within Reformed Protestantism. Looking at one of the most influential second-generation reformers and theologians of the English Reformation, William Perkins (1558-1602), it becomes evident that embedded within the Reformed Scholastic tradition lays a robust development and understanding of the doctrine of glorification. Perkins formulated and wrote a great deal on the final state of the believer in Christ, what his rewards are in Christ, and, ultimately, his complete and final transformation and conformity into his image. This book is a historical and systematic treatment of William Perkins's celebrated hope, eschatological glory.

This two-volume collection of essays on the Bible and social justice, liberation theology, and radical Christianity by Christopher Rowland addresses the question raised by Gustavo Gutierrez about how we can speak of God as a loving parent in a world that continues to be so inhumane. These essays by an esteemed New Testament scholar represent intellectual interests of a lifetime as he integrated exegesis of the New Testament texts in their first-century contexts and located their interpretations within the quests for meaning and significance that exist within contemporary society. These essays represent mostly the latter concern--exploring Christian Scripture, which has informed the lives of men and women down the centuries--as they interpret both contexts, and in doing so make a significant contribution to contextual theology that should be heard by the inhabitants of both contexts. The first volume of Speaking of God in an Inhumane World includes essays on liberation theology and radical Christianity; the second volume focuses primarily on radical Christianity and includes reflections on Gerrard Winstanley, William Blake, William Stringfellow, and others.

What can movements for decolonization teach Wesleyan theology? This book faces this question to show that decolonial voices are reshaping the contours of Methodist and Wesleyan traditions. Contributors to this volume include theologians, pastors, and leaders in the Global South who are leading the people called Methodists to encounter the tradition anew in the radical spirit of decolonization.

This book provides a comprehensive literary and theological analysis of Gregory of Nyssa's theology of union with God, culminating in a fresh reading of his final written work, In Canticum Canticorum (c.391), a collection of fifteen allegorical homilies on the Song of Songs. Part I gives the essential background for the study of In Canticum Canticorum by analysing several of Gregory's earlier works (c.370--385), tracing the main contours of his account of the human transformation and union with God. Author Alexander Abecina explores topics such as Gregory's theology of virginity and spiritual marriage, his theology of baptism, his trinitarian theology, and his Spirit-based Christology. In Part II Abecina builds on his key findings in Part I to structure a detailed analysis of In Canticum Canticorum. Engaging with the latest contemporary scholarship on Gregory of Nyssa, the author shows how Gregory's allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs represents a corresponding account of human transformation and union with God from the perspective of subjective experience of this reality. Rather than marking a new development in Gregory's mature thought, Abecina demonstrates that the subjective experience gained from Gregory's reading of the Song of Songs recapitulates the key elements of his objective account and therefore renders coherent his earlier soteriological doctrine.

Providing an accessible one-volume guide to Christian doctrine, this is a thorough re-write of the first edition. Since the original was published, many students and teachers of doctrine, in theological colleges and beyond, have been learning to take more seriously the global context of their work, and to recognise the difference made by facets of their identities and social locations like race, class, gender, and disability. In this edition, Mike Higton seeks to do justice to this learning, and invites readers to understand doctrine as an unfinished conversation between many different voices. Fully updated for clarity and yet retaining its role as a rigorous introduction to its subject, the book includes new ‘interruptions', which introduce voices that question the book's arguments and offer new directions for readers to pursue.

“Systematic Theology is a tour de force!” —Gregg R. Allison, professor of Christian theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Trinitarian, reformational, and baptistic, Stephen Wellum's Systematic Theology models a serious evangelical engagement with the Scriptures while being grounded in church history and keenly aware of contemporary issues. Building on decades of research, Wellum formulates doctrine exegetically, covenantally, and canonically for a new generation of students, pastors, church leaders, and seasoned theologians.

Insofar as Christian theology aims to make truthful claims about the nature of reality, it is necessarily involved in the enterprise of metaphysics. Pentecostals, precisely as Christians, are thus obliged to participate. Through this study it becomes evident that pentecostals aim to participate in the metaphysical discipline in the same way they theologize - that is, informed by the norms, practices, and speech acts that constitute their spirituality. This book aims to construct a Christian metaphysics that is at once attuned to pentecostal spirituality/theology and informed by the classical tradition of Christian metaphysics. Ultimately, this work offers a constructive and critical engagement with pentecostal spirituality, and with pentecostal theology via the larger ecumenical, creedal, and dogmatic metaphysical tradition. Thus, this book is explicitly and intentionally limited to understand metaphysics in conversation with the historical Christian tradition, and to understand a pentecostal vision of it.

Samuel Pérez Millos, uno de los principales expertos en teología de América Latina, ofrece nuevas perspectivas de la teología bíblica y explora herramientas prácticas que incluyen referencias de figuras históricas importantes de la fe y del período post reforma. En esta colección de carácter divulgativo y práctico, el autor desarrolla los siguientes temas: La teología bíblica y sistemática La historia de las doctrinas fundamentales Exégesis del texto bíblico desde los idiomas originales Referencias a obras teológicas Incluye métodos de aplicación pastoral Amplias referencias bibliográficas Bibliología es el resultado de más de quinientos volúmenes de teología consultados con el objetivo de crear un compendio de teología bíblica y sistemática y la más completa creada en el idioma español.

In Beyond the Visible Church, theologian Florian Klug investigates the Abel motif hermeneutically throughout Christian church history. By showing how the biblical motif of Abel was read and used by representative theologians like Augustine, Bonaventure, Martin Luther, Yves Congar, and others of each epoch, Klug builds the story of the Church's self-conception and shows how it has evolved over time. By tracing this theological and ecclesiological history and how the motif formed theologians and the Church over time, Klug shows readers a new way to conceive and understand God's universal will for salvation.By deconstructing and reconstructing the historical occurrences of these ideas, Klug demonstrates that the Church's self-conception is not yet complete. This unique and ground-breaking study opens new ways forward for Catholic ecclesiology—hope for today's universal Church.

Der Band bietet eine elementare Einführung in die Systematische Theologie und einen Überblick über das Fach. Das Buch erschließt grundlegende theologisch-dogmatische Probleme in ihrem Zusammenhang, ohne dabei Spezialkenntnisse des Lesenden vorauszusetzen. Eine umfassende Einführung in Grundfragen und zentrale Themenstellungen der Systematischen Theologie, die zum Mit- und Andersdenken anregt.

A Theology of Divine Vulnerability: The Silence that Gives Light understands confidence in the idea of God to rest largely on three claims. The first is that God is responsible in some quite fundamental way for the existence of the universe—for the fact that there is anything at all. The second is that God's own existence, and essential goodness, are not vitiated by the presence of evil in the world. And the third is that God knows we are here and shares fully, somehow, in the joys and pains of transient life. Peter Hooton considers these claims on the whole sympathetically. He prefers—to traditional Christian views of God's omnipotence—a more nuanced understanding of God's power and draws on a rich plurality of voices to describe God as much more loving than wrathful, as persuasive rather than coercive, as more passible than impassible, and the Christian's relationship with God as essentially a compassionate participation in the reality signified by the crucified and risen Christ.

Confidence in Life offers a theologically-robust evaluation of the good of procreation, which emerges out of both careful interactions with contemporary analytic philosophy and a reconstructed reading of Karl Barth's doctrine of (pro)creation. While analytic moral philosophy has rarely been brought into close proximity to Barth's work, the conjunction underscores the deep difficulty of accounting for procreation's value within non-theological frameworks, and helps clarify what is distinctive and valuable about Barth's own moral reasoning on this subject. Though primarily staged as an intervention in Protestant moral theology, Confidence in Life's rehabilitation of the Virgin Mary's role in Barth's thought has promise for an ecumenical retrieval of the good of procreating within the economy of redemption-and its retrieval of honour as an indispensable aspect of Barth's theology will be of interest to Barth scholars and moral theologians alike.

Christian thinking about the theology of creation has received new impetus in recent decades. This is due to, among other things, a more holistic approach to Holy Scripture, fresh insights from the history of Christian doctrine, the stimulus afforded by contemporary philosophies, and the desire to praise and thank God the Creator for the gift of creation. This little volume opens up all of those areas in an informed yet accessible way.

In our world, there's a lack of clear middle ground. It's a divided place, with political affiliations drawing lines between the left and the right. Being in the middle is challenging; our allegiances are pulled in different directions, making it isolating and overwhelming to navigate life's complexities. But we live from the middle--between birth and death, between events, important dates, and between stability and change. In this uncertain space, we face existential questions about identity, the meaning of life, our purpose, and our place in the world. This is the domain of theology. Traditionally, theology attempts to answer these questions from the top down, declaring dogmas as absolute truths to remove the uncertainties. However, unexamined answers can become oppressive, stifling vitality, and can even become tyrannical--answers of the left or the right. This book suggests a different approach: doing theology from the inside out and from the bottom up, starting with sacred questions instead of rehearsed answers. We don't expect that the answers we come to will be final. However, we expect to find God in the middle. Theology is the practice of the presence of God, where we integrate our love and knowledge of God to live wisely in a divided world.

This lively collection of interdisciplinary essays engages the theology of Craig Keen. Keen's work responds to the violence of metaphysics through a still and considered focus on divesting oneself of power. Acutely aware of the problems of modern theology, Keen does not set out to solve every puzzle, but instead responds to difficult questions with hope and prayer. For Keen, theology is never to be the acquisition of knowledge, but the giving of love. He writes in such a way as to create space for voices of difference and dissent. The essays included in this volume do not just interpret, explain, or critique Keen's thought, but they seek to accompany him in attentiveness to difference and pain. As such, they engage with the same concerns as Keen: the violence of concepts, the suffering of individuals, the divestment of power, and the embodiment of prayer and doxology.

Have you ever wondered how to maintain an understanding of monotheism in light of the Christian understanding of the triune Godhead? Have you ever wondered about the identity of'YHWH'in the Old Testament? Have you identified YHWH as the first person of the Trinity as many in the Christian tradition have? If so, this book is for you. Many of the early Trinitarian heresies stemmed from a misunderstanding of YHWH in the Old Testament, especially identifying YHWH as one person and not multiple persons. This book addresses issues relating to the identity of YHWH in the Old Testament and makes the bold claim that YHWH is multiple persons in the OT and therefore, Father is YHWH, Jesus is YHWH, and the Holy Spirit is YHWH. This conclusion is based on sound exegesis of OT/NT passages, the early Christian understanding of God in the Old Testament, and the New Testament's identification of Jesus in the identity of YHWH. If identified thus, a Christian reading of the entirety of Scripture will take on new meaning, resulting in a robust Trinitarian interpretation of Scripture.