In this article I canvas the options available to a proponent of the traditional doctrine of the incarnation against a charge of incoherence. In particular, I consider the charge of incoherence due to incompatible predications both being true of the same one person, the God-man Jesus Christ. For instance, one might think that any- thing divine has to have certain attributes – perhaps omnipotence, or impassibility. But, the charge continues, nothing human can be omnipotent or impassible. And so nothing can (...) be divine and human. So Christ is not both God and man, contrary to the traditional doctrine of the incarnation. To do so, first, in Section II, I will present the problem as a deductively valid argument. I then, in that section, go on to show that the proponent of traditional Christology should grant all but one premise of the argument. In the remaining sections I will canvas possible solutions to the problem. In Section III I discuss three ways to deny Premise 3 of the forthcoming argument. These ways include a Kenotic response, qua-modification (in four versions), and finally a response that accepts the compatibility of the allegedly incompatible predicates. (shrink)

[paragraph 3 of the article] The goal of this article is to flesh out that initial understanding of incarnational immutability. The method I employ to attain this goal is to consider cases of predications from the texts of conciliar Christology. I show potential ontological truth conditions for those predications being true that do not require the truth conditions I propose for immutability to be unsatisfied. Put otherwise, I show ontological truth conditions for predications that imply Christ’s mutability and Incarnation (...) that are also consistent with the truth of “Christ is immutable.” Since the truth conditions for the incarnational texts do not require the falsity of the claim that “Christ is immutable,” the incarnational claims do not require the rejection of immutability. In other words, the Incarnation is no reason to deny divine immutability, and vice versa. (shrink)

In my chapter "Christology and Anthropology in Friedrich Schleiermacher,” I discuss Schleiermacher's understanding of both the person and work of Christ. Schleiermacher's dialogue with the orthodox Christological tradition preceding him, as well as his understanding of the work of Christ, is founded on a critical analysis of the fundamental person-forming experience of being in relation to Christ and the community founded by him. I provide an analysis of Schleiermacher's discussion of the difficulties surrounding the use of the word "nature" (...) in relation to Jesus' humanity and divinity, and then move to discuss how Schleiermacher understands both the humanity and divinity of Jesus, as well as how the two stand in relation to one another. In the original divine decree Jesus Christ is ordained as the person through which the whole human race is to be completed and perfected, and the essence of perfect human nature just is to express divine. This is the essence of Schleiermacher's solution to the Christological problem, that is, of how the divine and the human can converge in one person. I then move to discuss Schleiermacher's understanding of the work of Christ as involving two interrelated moments. The first is the awakening of the God-consciousness. The second involves the self-expression of this God-consciousness in the form of Christian love in the community of believers. As such, the principle work of Christ is the founding of the kingdom of God. (shrink)

In this paper I show that the problem of temporary intrinsics and a fundamental philosophical problem concerning the doctrine of the incarnation are isomorphic. To do so, I present the problem of temporary intrinsics, along with five responses to the problem. I then present the fundamental problem for Christology, which I call the problem of natural intrinsics. I present six responses to that problem, all but the last analogous to a response to the problem of temporary intrinsics. My goal (...) is not to argue that any individual response to either problem is correct. Instead, my goal is to present and defend an interesting and unnoticed similarity between two different problems, and to note how work on one problem can help with work on the other. -/- This is a penultimate manuscript, and not a final version, of a forthcoming article in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. As such, please do not cite this version; cite the official version, due out in OSPR VII in 2015. (shrink)

John Henry Newman's theory of heresiology evolved over the course of his life, accentuating certain Christological characteristics of heresy. He began with the study of the Arian heresy, progressing through the Sabellian and Apolloniarian, and ending with the Monophysite. The theory of heresy and orthodoxy finally developed in the Development of Doctrine reflects this struggle to find common features of orthodoxy corresponding to principles governing Christology in the early Church Fathers. As a consequence, Newman's heresiology, in its final stage, (...) holds that faith is inherently Christological, as it depends on the doctrine of the Incarnation to secure the authority of the divine voice of Christ to which one submits in faith. (shrink)

I consider the fundamental philosophical problem for Christology: how can one and the same person, the Second Person of the Trinity, be both God and man. For being God implies having certain attributes, perhaps immutability, or impassibility, whereas being human implies having apparently inconsistent attributes. This problem is especially vexing for the proponent of Conciliar Christology – the Christology taught in the Ecumenical Councils – since those councils affirm that Christ is both mutable and immutable, both passible (...) and impassible, etc. Many extant solutions to this problem approach it by claiming that the predicates are incompatible when said of the same thing without qualification, but that once the appropriate qualification is added, compatibility is achieved. I provide a different approach. Here I argued that the predicates can be understood so that they are compatible. I then work out the logical relations between the predicates, so understood, showing that no contradiction follows from understanding them in the way I suggest. After that, I consider some of the motivations we have for believing the purportedly incompatible pairs to be, in fact, incompatible, and argue that, on the view offered here, we can salvage most of our intuitions that motivate taking the predicates as incompatible. Finally, I consider three objections. (shrink)

There is an ongoing challenge in defining African theology because of two important reasons: the quest for a definitive African theology is a fairly recent pursuit and the vastness and diversity of the African continent. Given this, this article presents the complexity of defining African theology and its methodological approaches through a background sketch of the development of African theology. Regardless of many definitions of African theology and its purposes, the article acknowledges African Christian theology as theology that should be (...) derived from the interplay between Scripture, Christian tradition and African cosmology. In deriving theology from the aforementioned aspects, African theology should also seek to develop contextual African theologies with global relevance. In this way, African theology can claim its space in the universal church. Although we are conscious of the values and challenges associated with the task of doing African theology, we argue for its necessity. We further argue that if the centrality of Scripture is maintained in the African theological endeavour, it will cause African theologies to have some shared reference point with other Christian theologies and hence engaging globally, while contributing unique African perspectives to global theological discourse. (shrink)

Christianity as a Social Theory in terms of Body as a Political Issue.

In this paper I explain Thomas Aquinas's view that Christ is a composite person, and then I explain the role of Christ's compositeness in Thomas‘s solutions to a range of Christological problems. On the topics I will be discussing, Thomas‘s views did not change significantly over the course of his career; for the sake of simplicity, then, I will focus on texts from the Summa theologiae, citing parallels in the notes.

In recent scholarship, moral theologians and readers of Thomas Aquinas have shown increasing sensitivity to the role of the passions in the moral life. Yet these accounts have paid inadequate attention to Thomas's writings on Christ's passions as a source of moral reflection. As I argue in this essay, Thomas's writings on Christ's human affectivity should not be limited to the concerns of Christology; rather, they should be integrated into a fuller account of the human passions. One upshot of (...) this approach for Thomists is that it sharpens our vocabulary when describing human nature and the conditions for the moral life. By considering the rubrics of creation, fall, and redemption – as Thomas does – we find that our resources for analyzing the passions are greatly enriched. (shrink)

The theological teachings of John Philoponus are important for several reasons: a) to see the real achievements and influences of Aristotelian logic in regard to theology, b) to see the real consequences of not accepting hypostasis as relational and ontologically based and c) to assess the real consequences of such teachings for Triadology and Christology.

Sebastian Franck commented and translated parts of Agrippa´s De Vanitate Scientiarum, confirming that Franck knew at least some of this philosopher’s work. However, there is no detailed research on the influence Agrippa had on Franck—a gap this paper tries to fill. In a comparison of the metaphysical belief systems of both Franck and Agrippa, important parallels concerning the soul and Christology can be found. Notably, Agrippa and Franck were both believers in the Platonic doctrine of the tripartite soul. According (...) to this doctrine, the human being consists of the mind, soul, and body, the spiritual mind being the part that never dies. However, one difference between Agrippa and Franck was that Agrippa had a cosmological perspective that was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. In contrast, the Neoplatonic concept of the world soul did not make sense in Franck’s philosophical system of beliefs because Franck denies the idea that the world is conducted by rationality. His pessimistic view of the world and the human being did not blend with this idea of the world soul. There were some similarities between Franck and Agrippa, but ultimately, this investigation shows that Franck only adopted the ideas of the wise “Agrippa” that were compatible with his own philosophy, but the metaphysical concept of both philosophers was still very similar. (shrink)

The term prohairesis has a long history; its usage is crucial for the development and understanding of basic ethical and anthropological assumptions in ancient Hellenic philosophy. In this article the author analyses the most important moments for the semantic transformation of this term, with particular reference to the implications of its usage in Byzantine theological and philosophical heritage, with the ultimate expression in work of St Maximus the Confessor and his christological synthesis. The equation between the terms prohairesis and gnome (...) and their separation from the authentic human nature, as well as the usage of the term thelesis for the original „human will“, represents the thorough revision of the antique philosophical heritage which could be compared with the distinction of the terms ousia and hypostasis by Cappadocian Fathers. In this article the author will show the extent to which and the way in which Byzantine theological and philosophical thought adopted and transformed its own Hellenic heritage. (shrink)

Remarkably, the theological discourse surrounding Hans Frei and postliberal theology has continued for nearly thirty years since Frei's death. This is due not only to the complex and provocative character of Frei's work, nor only to his influence upon an array of thinkers who went on to shape the theological field in their own right. It is just as indebted to the critical responses that his thinking continues to inspire. One recurrent point of criticism takes aim at Frei's use of (...) Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work for theological ends. In his recent book Liberalism versus Postliberalism: The Great Divide in Twentieth Century Theology, John Allan Knight challenges what he sees as Frei's dependence on problematic Wittgensteinian assumptions. This article raises a few concerns about Knight's charges against Frei. Specifically, I argue that Knight's account tends to conflate the work of Wittgenstein and Frei. It does this by undervaluing two determinative features of Frei's work: (1) its basic Christological orientation; and (2) its Christologically motivated use of ad hoc apologetics. I argue that the Wittgensteinian view that Knight attributes to Frei is not Frei's view at all, and is, moreover, a problematic account of Wittgenstein on its own terms. Finally, Knight's claim that Frei's work “depends upon” and “is suffused” with the understanding of Wittgenstein that Knight attributes to him is based upon an account of Frei's treatment of the sensus literalis that is not entirely accurate. Without question, Knight does remarkable service to Frei's legacy by keeping important debates over his work alive. In what follows, I propose several points where I think Knight's account might be further enriched. The result, I hope, will be a more nuanced understanding of the ways that Frei actually appropriated and deployed Wittgenstein's thought. I will contextualize my account of Frei with reference both to Wittgenstein's writings and the literature surrounding his writings. Setting forth these accounts in tandem should help make further available Wittgenstein's work for subsequent work by postliberal theologians. (shrink)

In this article I propose a new concept: The Embodied Mind of God. I also point out the benefits that can flow from using it. This concept is combination of two concepts broadly discussed in contemporary philosophy: „The Mind of God” and „The Embodied Mind”. In my opinion this new concept can be very useful in the area of Philosophical Christology, because one of the most important questions there concerns the mind of Jesus Christ - Incarnate Son of God. (...) I present my own model of Christ’s mind that is able to avoid at least part of the problems faced by christology and sheds the new light on some of epistemological issues. (shrink)

Even thirty years after Thomas Morris wrote The Logic of God Incarnate, there are some claims that Morris makes that require examination in analytic Christology. One of those claims is a concession that Morris gives to modalists near the end of the book, where he says that the two-minds view he has defended can be used to provide a consistent modalistic understanding of Jesus’s prayer life. This view, he says, blocks the inference from the fact that Jesus prays to (...) the Father to the additional claim that Jesus and the Father are numerically distinct. I argue that Oneness Pentecostals can appropriate central concepts from The Logic of God Incarnate as Morris suggests, and further that this means Oneness Pentecostals should abandon the claim that Jesus believes he just is the Father. Once Oneness Pentecostals abandon this claim, they can give a possible explanation of how it is that Jesus relates to the Father in prayer even though he just is the Father. (shrink)

This study investigates the debt owed by contemporary theological anthropology to the philosophical anthropology of the first half of the twentieth century (considered in its interest in interpersonal character of human identity). It should be recognized that there was a fairly complex relationship between them: sometimes anthropology ended up in some way forgetting theology, sometimes theology was sustained by anthropology and, often, invited to self-criticism. Analyzing «pneumatological» anthropology (and its Christological roots) elaborated by Ferdinand Ebner (1882- 1931) helps theological anthropology (...) not to forget that its method of investigation has to clarify both sides of the analogy between God and man in order to fully integrate the «expressive» meaning of both logics: theo-logic and anthropo-logic. (shrink)

Saint Irene of Lyon - from Apology to Christology -/- We can distinguish an essential contribution of Saint Irenaeus of Lyon in the process of transition from apology to dogma. He is capable to accomplish an ―theological revision of the baptismal confession‖. The Holy Father accomplish also the argumentation of a very important confession work. He was the disciple of Saint Polycarp from Smirne and also of Saint Justin the Martyr. In his doctrine we can observe some important theological (...) points: the problematic of the Incarnation, the fight against the Gnosticism, a teaching about the revelation and the Holy Scripture and also a very important Christology and anthropology. His most important work was ―Against heresies‖, meaning also ―The fight and rollover of the gnosis with lying name‖. In our research we have tried to underline the principals apologetic coordinates of Saint Irenaeus thinking, starting from his Treaty ―Against heresies‖. (shrink)

Reduplicative approaches to the incarnation attempt to avoid the charge of incoherence by employing a qua-operator that operates on an entire assertion. The main objection to this approach is that it still yields a contradiction. Recently, two new reduplicative approaches have been offered that purport to avoid contradiction, one that offers a novel analysis of negative predications and the other which prevents conjoining divine and human predicates into a meaningful sentence. In this paper, I argue that these newer approaches either (...) fail to provide a distinctive solution or do not show whether the model is genuinely possible. (shrink)

(a chapter in Laruelle and Non-Philosophy, ed. John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith) Orthodox reverence of transcendental constructs such as 'dialectical materialism' and the inability to reduce them to chôra - mere transcendental material instead of finished conceptual wholes - is what disables the completion of the project of stepping out of philosophy which Marxism initially set for itself (in the Theses on Feuerbach). In order to radicalise its position, argues Laruelle, and place itself outside philosophy, Marxism has to take (...) a step outside itself by virtue of admitting its own transcendental, i.e., philosophical character. It has to adopt the stance of the 'non-' that is situated in the Real that clones itself through concepts. In order to preserve its grain of 'thinking affected by immanence', 18 Marxism ought to become non-Marxism, argues Laruelle. (shrink)

According to Christian doctrine as formulated by the Council of Chalcedon (451), Christ is one person (one supposit, one hypostasis) existing in two natures (two essences), human and divine. The human and divine natures are not merged into a third nature, nor are they separated from one another in such a way that the divine nature goes with one person, namely, the Word of God, and the human nature with another person, namely, Jesus of Nazareth. The two natures belong to (...) just one person, and the one person has two distinct natures. Chalcedon‟s justly-famous formula brought the debate into sharper focus and ruled out certain options, but of course it did not bring the arguments to a complete end. More councils,more debates, and more questions were to follow, although the range of disagreement tended to narrow. In the medieval Latin West, Peter Lombard (†1160) identified in book III of the Sententiae three “opinions” on the topic, but by the middle of the thirteenth century, it was widely agreed that only one of them was orthodox teaching. This relative unity of thought provided the space within which more detailed issues could be debated, and one of the most interesting of these concerned existence (esse): how many existences are there in Christ? Since Christ is only one person, it might seem that he has only one existence. On the other hand, he has two natures, so perhaps instead he has more than one existence. In this one paper, my goal is rather modest. I discuss only a few of the relevant authors, and I focus primarily on which questions they were asking. I proceed as follows. I first look at Thomas Aquinas, whose remarks on these topics had such a large influence on the debate later in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Crucial will be certain distinctions that Thomas makes, distinctions we can see as disambiguating the question we began with, namely, „How many existences are there in Christ?‟. After that I will look at how one of those distinctions makes its appearance in the writings of two post-Thomistic authors, Giles of Rome and Godfrey of Fontaines. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide an account of the ontological status of Christ’s dead body, which remained in the tomb during the three days after his crucifixion. Our account holds that Christ’s dead body – during the time between his death and resurrection – was prime matter without a substantial form. We defend this account by showing how it is metaphysically possible for prime matter to exist in actuality without substantial forms. Our argument turns on the truth of two theses: (...) God is able to produce all acts of secondary causes without those secondary causes, and Substantial forms are secondary causes of the actuality of prime matter. We argue that the metaphysical possibility of matter without form is perfectly consistent with holding both there is only one substantial form in a material substance and that prime matter is pure potentiality. Moreover, we argue that the metaphysical possibility of matter without form does little-to-no damage to our natural understanding of material substances. (shrink)

This paper introduces the special issue on the Concept of God of the Journal of Applied Logics (College Publications). The issue contains the following articles: Logic and the Concept of God, by Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre; Mathematical Models in Theology. A Buber-inspired Model of God and its Application to “Shema Israel”, by Stanisław Krajewski; Gödel’s God-like Essence, by Talia Leven; A Logical Solution to the Paradox of the Stone, by Héctor Hernández Ortiz and Victor Cantero; No New Solutions to (...) the Logical Problem of the Trinity, by Beau Branson; What Means ‘Tri-’ in ‘Trinity’ ? An Eastern Patristic Approach to the ‘Quasi-Ordinals’, by Basil Lourié; The Éminence Grise of Christology: Porphyry’s Logical Teaching as a Cornerstone of Argumentation in Christological Debates of the Fifth and Sixth Centruies, by Anna Zhyrkova; The Problem of Universals in Late Patristic Theology, by Dirk Krasmüller; Intuitionist Reasoning in the Tri-unitrian Theology of Nicolas of Cues, by Antonino Drago. (shrink)

According to Christian belief, Jesus Christ is a divine person who became “incarnate,” i.e., who became human. A key event in the second act of the drama of creation and redemption, the incarnation could not have failed to interest Aquinas, and he discusses it in a number of places. A proper understanding of what he thought about it is thus part of any complete understanding of his work. It is, furthermore, a window into his ideas on a variety of other (...) topics: God, human nature, language, substance, and so on. Finally, it forces us to come to grips with what is at stake in acknowledging that Aquinas was not only a philosopher but a theologian as well. (shrink)

The traditional doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that God became man. But was it necessary that God become the particular man He in fact became? Could some man or woman other than the man born in Bethlehem roughly two thousand years ago have been assumed by the Son to effect our salvation? This essay addresses such questions from the perspective of one embracing Molina's picture of divine providence. After showing how Molina thought his theory of middle knowledge helps alleviate a (...) traditional Christological puzzle, the essay turns to the aforementioned questions concerning God's incarnational alternatives and suggests some fairly radical answers. Finally, the essay presents two substantial objections to these radical answers and argues that these objections fail. (shrink)

contents: -/- 1. the Romantic fragment 2. life would want to die, a little 3. pain itself is the meaning, in Nietzsche 4. martyrs do not underrate the body 5. inwardly, an Actor prepares 5b. brother, bro: it's only you that overhears you 5c. J is like Hamlet / Herzog / Holden Caulfield / Raskolnikov 5d. they take him to a basement and they feed him METH 6. a surface is revealed / the depths are all inferred 6b. my Self (...) is all depth: a long internal vertical 6c. Joyce knows not the inside of ideas 6d. perception of depth is maladaptive 7. by knowing Death, humans are the Woken Ones 8. all as straw, or graphomania 8b. i tend to write thru / tho unless i'm imitating English 9. Finnegans Wake as Literature's endgame 10. Hard Realism: Hemingway, Knausgård 11. the cause of pain, in Buddhism 11b. duḥkha is uh-hukha: the gut's double throb. (shrink)

This is a review which contextualizes this book within Christian hermeneutics.

This terse analysis of Christianity may help to provide a basis for understanding its true meaning and application. The authentic and foundational texts of 1 Corinthians 2:16, and Philippians 2:5 as well as Biblical Christian marriages are used here as exemplars that illustrate the definitive elements of the phenomena and its practice.

Perhaps owing to frictions between his Christological worldview and the dominant secularism of contemporary French thought as taken up in the U.S., and persistent worries about a seeming solipsism in his phenomenology, Michel Henry's innovative contributions to aesthetics have received unfortunately little attention in English. The present investigation addresses both issues simultaneously with a new interpretation of his recently-translated 1996 interview, “Art and Phenomenology.” Inspired by this special issue’s theme, “French Thought in Dialogue,” it emphasizes four levels of dialogue in (...) the interview, as follows: (1) the interview as such, with Brohm; (2) its titular dialogue between art and phenomenology; (3) what I term a “trans-religious” dialogue between Christianity’s Jesus and Nietzsche’s Dionysus; and (4) a related dialogue between painting (Henry’s favored genre) and dance that is “Dionysian” (in Nietzsche’s sense). It concludes with new phenomenological accounts of a literal and a figurative dance, namely the social Latin dance called bachata, and an improvised musical dialogue with the mockingbirds of my hometown. In sum, thanks to Henry’s engagement with various forms of dialogue, including with Brohm, the arts, paganism, and dance, one can find room in his transcendental subjectivity of Life for others, dancingly transcending even humanity. (shrink)

A nested mode ontology allows one to make sense of apparently contradictory Christological claims such as that Christ knows everything and there are some things Christ does not know.

Giving justice to Maximus any philosophy wich does not include mysticism will be false as philosophy. Our metaphysics must be mystical in order to be rational. In Maximus’ doctrine, then, Christ comes not to destroy but to fulfill the metaphysics of mystery elaborated by the philosophers. For him there can be no separation between philosophy and theology, or between natural and revealed theology. Thereby, Christology and liturgical mysticism are not additional to a neoplatonic, aristotelian, and other methaphysics. Maximus concern (...) was to continue, not the philosophical tradition of the Aristotelian commentators, but the theological one of the Fathers. He was not an Aristotelian commentator himself. The union and distinction are basic logical concepts in Maximus’ thinking, but the Chalcedonian logic is the application of these concepts. Only in this way one can talk about Christianization of aristotelian logic. St. Maximus the Confessor synthesized Aristotelianism influences with those of Platonism in order to exceed the daring speculations of cosmology origeniene. He had an extraordinary ability to combine metaphysical requirements with the effort of defining the faith dogma, and the monastic experiences with the depth thinking, succeeding to propose a new conception in which converge all cultural and religious influences. This study is analyzing the relationship between logoi and energeia (the intentional or “logical” energeia and the ontology of divine energy as ontological “logic”) within the maximian cosmology, by referring to the palamite theology. The concept of logoi for St. Maximus play a role similar in many respects to that of energy (energeiai) in Cappadocian Fathers, but the functional similarity it should not lead to the identification rationales with the energies. (shrink)

A modified version of Michael Gorman's comments on Peter King’s paper at the 2004 Henle Conference. Above all, an account of Augustine’s purposes in discussing Neoplatonism in Confessions VII, showing why Augustine does not tell us certain things we wish he would. In my commentary I will address the following topics: (i) what it means to speak of the philosophically interesting points in Augustine; (ii) whether Confessions VII is really about the Trinity; (iii) Augustine‘s intentions in Confessions VII; (iv) King‘s (...) hypostatic interpretation‖;(v) Christology. (shrink)

François Laruelle's system of non-standard philosophy and its univocal radical immanence is highly indebted to Henry's non-representationalism. Admittedly, in contrast to Laruelle's "heretical" Christology, Henry's theological-realist determination is astricted by the idealist paralogisms of a cogitativist Ego, which transpires most markedly in Henry's account of Faith-after all, Henry is a Jesuit phenomenologist following in the tradition of Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chretien. Nonetheless, Henry's work on immanence, deanthropocentrized and universalized as generic, takes us much further than both Spinoza's speculative (...) immanence, which is diluted by the necessitarian world of negative determination, and Deleuzian immanence, which is characterized by multiplicitous difference. In The Michel Henry Reader, editors Scott Davidson and Frédéric Seyler weave together a comprehensive anthology of essays that survey Henry's phenomenology of life, stitching together an oeuvre than spans Marxist political philosophy, phenomenology of language, subjectivity and aesthetics, and ethics qua religion. Rather than analyzing specific objects and phenomena, phenomenology is tasked with disclosing the structural manifestation and conditioned appearance of objects. Drawing primarily from Husserl and, consequently, Heidegger, Henry examines a kind of "pure phenomenology" that, contra intentionality and the inert world of visible objects, examines affectivity's "radical invisibility". Whereas Husserl and Heidegger's analyses emphasize the self-transcending nature of appearances, for Henry appearance is never independent or self-reliant but, instead, genitive and denotative. (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper we argue that Robert Kane’s theory of free will cannot accommodate the possibility of a sinless individual who faces morally significant choices because a sinless agent cannot voluntarily accord value to an immoral desire, and we argue that Kane’s theory requires this. Since the Jesus of the historic Christian tradition is held to be sinless, we think Christians should reject Kane’s theory because it seems irreconcilable with historic Christian Christology. We consider two objections to our (...) argument and argue that both fail. (shrink)

As Augustine himself testifies, he did not know Origen’s work so well. However, this does not mean that he was not acquainted with his key soteriological hypotheses, especially his teachings on apocatastasis. Although Augustine’s doctrine of predestination has completely opposite consequences in comparison to Origen’s teaching about apocatastasis, we believe that these teachings share the common ontological basis, which is the subject of this study. While Origen’s Christology is often called into question, Augustine’s Christology is considered correct. However, (...) with both authors we find a certain marginalisation of Christology in the field of ontologically understood soteriology. Theological insights of these two authors influenced to a significant extent the development of theology of both the East and West, making their works significant up until today, both from the aspect of Christian self-understanding and from the aspect of ecumenical dialogue. (shrink)

In my review I shall look upon the theology of the Incarnation. The “mystery of Christ”, in the words of Polycarp, that created the centre and “stood at the very heart of the St. Maximus’ synthesis.” Maximus’ stands within the Cyrillian-Chalcedonian situation.’ This situation is eminent by three main properties. First is the acceptance of the Theopaschite form of St. Cyril. Second is that there was no contradiction into St. Cyril and the Council of Chalcedon. Third and finally is the (...) term of a consistent terminology into Triadology and Christology that is relevant to both. We shall see later in this paper, the Chalcedonian theme of “precision” and “tautology,” with respect to Christ’s natures, similarly role in Maximus’ vision of the divine incarnation of the logoi or power with respect to each other and the divine essence. It is within this deduction that Maximum “was competent of establishing the orthodox solution of the Monothelite question.” I will outline the metaphysics of Monenergism, its three folds dialectic, Maximum break up of this dialectic, and conclude with Maximu’s overall matrix for a coherent doctrine of predestination absorb under Christology and Eschatology. (shrink)

Adopting modal logic the doctrine of the primacy of Christ is defined and defended in relation to the Thomistic – Scotistic debates over the primary and efficient causes of the incarnation. This leads to a defence of the Scotistic thesis and a reserved affirmation for the Scotistic hypothesis that there would have been an incarnation irrespective of the fall. This hypothesis is tested by reference to the work of four recent theologians, Thomas Weinandy O.F.M. cap., Karl Barth, J¨urgen Moltmann, and (...) Thomas Torrance. Finally, a sketch describ-ng another possible-world incarnation that builds upon the Scotistic hypothesis is provided. (shrink)

Die Sebastian Franck-Forschung hat sich bisher recht ausführlich mit den Themen "Sebastian Franck als Historiker" oder "Sebastian Franck als Kritiker der Theologie" beschäftigt. Weniger Aufmerksamkeit bekam bisher der Gnostizismus im Denken des radikalen Reformers. Seit der Jahrtausendwende ist allerdings ein stärkeres Interesse an einer bestimmten Strömung des Gnostizismus zu erkennen, nämlich der Hermetik. Es gab einige Arbeiten, die den Einfluss von Hermes Trismegistos bzw. der hermetischen Schriften auf Franck aufzeigen konnten. Dieser Aufsatz geht der Frage des Einflusses des christlichen Gnostizismus (...) auf die Metaphysik von Franck nach. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass speziell Basilides und Valentinus einen starken Einfluss auf Franck hatten, der bisher nicht gesehen wurde. Eine große Bedeutung kommt dabei der gnostischen Soteriologie zu. Genauso wie Basilides und Valentinus nimmt Franck die platonische Dreiteilung der Seele in Geist, Seele und Körper an. Der Geist ist göttlich und ist weder entstanden noch kann er vergehen. Diesen Geist oder Christus findet man im Inneren von allen Kreaturen. Durch die Erkenntnis des Geistes oder Christus im Menschen, (=Gnosis) kann sich der Mensch von der Welt befreien. Ebenfalls christlich-gnostisch inspiriert ist der Gottesbegriff und die Lehre von Christus. Franck´s Christologie ist stark von der Nous-Christologie von Basilides beeinflußt, wobei er nicht exakt dem gleichen Doketismus folgt wie Basilides. Dass die Welt vom Demiurgen und nicht von Gott erschaffen wurde, wie Valentinus glaubt, sagt Franck nicht explizit. Franck glaubt aber der Teufel (Demiurg oder böser Engel) habe den Tod und damit die Seele erschaffen, während der unsterbliche Geist des Menschen nicht erschaffen wurde. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Incarnation of the Son of God, understood in a traditionally orthodox way, is incompatible with an atemporalist concept of God. First, I explain what I mean by atemporalism, namely the idea that God exists outside time. I also show the main corollaries of that doctrine, most notably that all of God’s life occurs eternally simultaneously. Second, based on New Testament teaching and widely accepted creeds, I spell out philosophically what I mean by the (...) Incarnation. In short, I take it to be the doctrine that the Second Person of the Trinity at some point in time took on a human body as part of a fully human nature. I then proceed to my central argument, which derives a contradiction from the definitions of the Incarnation and of atemporalism, respectively. In the last section, I shall treat some possible objections to my argument and show that they do not solve the problem satisfactorily. (shrink)

Dominus Vobiscum is undoubtedly one of Peter Damian’s most original works, and has experienced a renewed interest thanks to the re-emergence of the ecclesiology of communion around Vatican II, but in-depth studies of the work as a whole are missing and its sources seem quite limited. In this analysis of the text and its argumentative structure, the conceptual development is built on the dialectic of contrasts, starting from the binomial of “solitudo pluralis” and “multitudo singularis”, typical of the hermit. The (...) theme is unfolded in its pneumatological, Christological and ecclesiological aspects. A formal analysis seems to demonstrate that the theses presented by Peter Damian are mainly the result of the power of rhetoric, which he undoubtedly mastered. (shrink)

That a certain principle pervades the whole of the Dionysian corpus has been commonly acknowledged by readers of the works of this intriguing author. The principle is that of participation, which frames the structure of Dionysian thinking in all its aspects, the Christological, the liturgical and ecclesiological as well as the ontological. Most schol- arly studies of this Christian, nonetheless Neoplatonic, figure mostly recognize the participatory character of his thinking. In his participatory metaphysical system there is a feature that seems (...) to be crucial. Except for some sporadic remarks – few in relation to the huge number of relevant studies – and in spite of the influence exercised on the thought of Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas, this feature has not received the attention that its centrality merits. I refer to the concept of aptitude (ἐπιτηδειότης). In the present study I explore aptitude as a critical component of the Dionysian devel- opment of participation, with a view to the Neoplatonic background of the concept, especially as established by Plotinus and Proclus. My aim is to argue for a novelty consisting in the fact that the Areopagite regards aptitude as a fundamental element that sets forth the receptive capacity of beings as the regulatory principle for participation in the life of the divinity. -/- +++ -/- This paper expands over certain ideas presented in a short communication, during the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2015. It explores the concept of aptitude (ἐπιτηδειότης) as a critical component of the Dionysian development of participation, with a view to the Neoplatonic background of the concept, especially as established by Plotinus and Proclus. The aim of the study is to argue for a novelty consisting in the fact that the Areopagite regards aptitude as a fundamental element that sets forth the respective capacity of beings as the regulatory principle for participation in the life of divinity. (shrink)

Classical Trinitarians claim that Jesus—the Son of God—is truly God and that there is only one God and the Father is God, the Spirit is God, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct. However, if the identity statement that ‘the Son is God’ is understood in the sense of numerical identity, logical incoherence seems immanent. Yet, if the identity statement is understood according to an ‘is’ of predication then it lacks accuracy and permits polytheism. Therefore, we argue that there (...) is another sense of ‘is’ needed in trinitarian discourse that will allow the Christian to avoid logical incoherence while still fully affirming all that is meant to be affirmed in the confession ‘Jesus is God.’ We suggest a sense of ‘is’ that meets this need. (shrink)

According to authoritative Christian teaching, Jesus Christ is a single person existing in two natures, divinity and humanity. In attempting to understand this claim, the high-scholastic theologians often asked whether there was more than one existence in Christ. John Duns Scotus answers the question with a clear and strongly-formulated yes, and Thomists have sometimes suspected that his answer leads in a heretical direction. But before we can ask whether Scotus‘s answer is acceptable or not, we have to come to a (...) clear understanding of what his answer is. And before we can ask what his answer is, we have to come to a clear understanding of what question or questions he is trying to answer. In this paper I begin by explaining that the question about Christ‘s existence is ambiguous, i.e., that there are actually two questions hidden behind one formulation. Next I look at Scotus‘s writings on the topic in order to determine which question he is really trying to answer, and I argue that he is trying to answer both of them, even though he does not make this clear. Third, I provide an initial look at the answers that he gives. Fourth, I explain why these answers might seem problematic, especially from a Thomistic perspective. Fifth, I explain Scotus‘s answers in more detail and show that they are not problematic in the way that some Thomists have held. Indeed, at least some of Scotus‘s ideas are the very same ideas that Thomas spells out in one of his works. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An apparent objection against my theory of instantiation as partial identity is that identity is necessary, yet instantiation is often contingent. To rebut the objection, I show how it can make sense that identity is contingent. I begin by showing how it can make sense that identity is temporary. I rely heavily on Andre Gallois’s formal theory of occasional identity, but argue that there is a gap in his explanation of how his formalisms make sense that needs to be (...) filled by appeal to my theory of Aspects. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Thomas P. Flint has posited that God the Son could become incarnate in any human person as long as certain conditions are met (Flint 2001a, 2001b). In a recent paper, he has argued that all saved human persons will one day become incarnated by the Son (Flint 2011). Flint claims that this is motivated by a combination of Molinism and orthodox Christology. I shall argue that this is unmotivated because it is condemned by orthodox (...) Christology. Flint has unknowingly articulated a version of the heresy called Origenism that is condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council. After arguing that Flint’s account is unmotivated because it is condemned, I shall offer some reflections and prolegomena on the relationship between contemporary analytic theology and the ecumenical creeds. (shrink)

This is my introduction as editor to The Cambridge Companion to Schleiermacher.

The religious feeling represents the first step in the process of knowing God. In our study we have tried to analyze apologetically the human predisposition to the divine reality. Our main interest was to demonstrate the necessities of the religious human being in their process of self- discovery. In this regard, the feeling of religious belonging is very important. Therefore, the moral law is the starting point in the divine knowledge of the human consciousness. In the process of revelation God (...) gives the Old Testament to the Jewish people. Furthermore, when the Logos has come in the world the divine knowledge started to be more straightforward and the religious feeling acquired a Christological dimension. Finally, the religious feeling demonstrates a beautiful process of an ontological discovery in Christ of all human race. In conclusion, our study is an apologetic debate about how to reestablish the conceptual harmony between theology, philosophy, culture and science in the process of knowing God. (shrink)