Parts of Julian's Showings are examined for their didactic quality, and her work is briefly compared to that of Mechthild and Hildegard. The commentary of Tobin, Chervin and others is alluded to, and it is concluded that Julian is an exemplary teacher.

Given the many modern and post‐modern fashions of reasoning, this contribution is a programmatic proposal for a new kind of thinking in the field of theology. It is deliberately called a “method of concordance,” and it relies in the first place on a semantic exploration and a conceptual analysis of the term ‘concordance’ itself. Hence making an appeal to the heart, this method aims at integrating all human capacities in the never‐ending search for truth. With a view to do that, a firm confidence in the unfolding of reality and an enlargement of the concept of reason are regarded both as indispensable and wise. It is further argued that the proposal for a method of concordance can rely on efforts made in the history of thought, among others, by Anselm, Jaspers, and Baader. Next to these probably unexpected references, an appeal is also made to contemporary thinkers such as Hebblethwaite, Turner, Valadier, and Desmond. The article concludes with pointing to some methodological and epistemological consequences of a method of concordance, and thereby elucidates why speaking ‘for’ truth is to be preferred over speaking ‘about’ truth.

Ian McEwan is arguably the best living British novelist. His most successful novel, Atonement, was recently made into an internationally successful film. And indeed, through analysis of his novels, it is clear that Ian McEwan believes literature—precisely as fictive—might very well bear the task of atonement for postmodernity. His novels, though, are patently hopeless, (even as they are truly well-written). Because McEwan doesn't accept or see the causes of sin as such—formally understood as rebellion against the Creator—his diagnostic aesthetic of our postmodern malaise is incomplete and ineffectual. The literary or fictive atonement that he would achieve through his novels does not satisfy. This article aims to lay bare the philosophico-literary characteristics of Ian McEwan's later novels. The ultimate goal of this critical reading, though—tending toward an “evangelical lection”—is to transfigure McEwan's imaginative and creative virtuosity for otherwise disappointed Christian readers, precisely by envisioning his novels in the dark light of their redemptive deficit. Thus, the literary or fictive atonement that Ian McEwan's atheism cannot achieve might be saved apropos the Judeo-Christian revelation of divine atonement.

I (1) outline two accounts the Catholic Church gives of the human soul, calling them the Lateran and the Vienne doctrines, and (2) argue they are inconsistent. (3) I run over several difficulties in the more popular Lateran doctrine. (4) I look at three uses to which Catholics might want to put a theory of the soul, and question whether either of the theories on offer can meet their needs. (5) I distinguish the Biblical idea of resurrection from the Greek idea of immortality. Finally (6) I commend the Vienne doctrine as philosophy but advise supplementing it with a view of creation, salvation and sanctification as forming a continuum rather than a discontinuous series of episodes.

Since Vatican II great progress has been made towards an ecumenical understanding and appreciation of our Blessed Lady, even as there has been a certain development in Catholic understanding. This essay looks briefly at Reformation mariologies, those of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli before moving on to consider three Scots: John Knox, Edwin Muir and John Macquarrie. Arguably, John Macquarrie has shown one of the most careful retrievals of Marian theology, not least in his Principles of Christian Theology and Mary for All Christians. His final mariological sounding took him back to his Celtic roots, and is summarized here. John Macquarrie died in 2007, and this essay is dedicated to his memory.

Pope John Paul II, in Fides et ratio#108, states that there is a deep harmony between the vocation of true philosophy and the Blessed Virgin Mary. This intriguing claim, so different from the usual link of Mary with faith, is developed in this article. Drawing analogical implications from selected events in Mary's life, two questions will be asked: How do philosophers “philosophize in Mary?;” and how could this way of philosophizing help us today to renew the vocation to be a philosopher? The following authors are considered: Thomas Aquinas, Edith Stein, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, Bernard Lonergan, Josef Ratzinger, Mary Daly, Robert Sokolowski, Norris Clarke, Søren Kierkegaard, Karol Wojtyla, John Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Judy Chicago, and John Henry Newman.

This essay extends arguments that cultural psychology is useful for dialogue with Christian theology by indicating its relevance for theologies of consciousness. Donald's cultural account is outlined, followed by Davies's theological treatment of compassionate consciousness. Interactions are considered between the two approaches, which are shown to be co‐implicated in the teaching ministry of Jesus, and the subsequent development of the Christian religion, and to accompany the shift from discipleship, through apostleship, to a trans‐generational cultural‐symbolic system assisted by the development of theology. The essay concludes with reflections on the challenge to psychology of the ontological reality of being ‘in Christ’.

For reasons of academic fashion and ecclesial politics, Rahner is often dismissed as a liberal. Though elements of his thought on the church/world relationship do not date well, and others have been so thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream as to lose their interest, there is a dimension of his thought which remains important and which in fact undercuts typical divisions between liberals and their opponents.

What is the nature of Barth's development over the 1920s? Barth himself understood this period as his “apprenticeship,” and cites his 1931 book on Anselm as a significant juncture in moving beyond this stage in his thinking. Barth's emphasis upon both change and continuity lies at the heart of the discrepancy between two prominent interpreters of his theology, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Bruce McCormack. On the surface it appears as though their disagreement centers around Barth's employment of dialectic and analogy in his theology. However, our thesis is that this focus conceals the ontological strategies Barth's multifarious uses of analogy and dialectic always implied. Although McCormack is right to suggest that Balthasar's depiction of a shift from dialectic to analogy is inadequate, in the end McCormack's account of Barth's development over the 1920s conceals as much as it reveals. The following essay attempts to demonstrate the kinds of insights which can be made of the past accounts of Barth's development which focused on the transition from dialectic to analogy. Far from relegating these accounts to the sidelines, McCormack's work helps us see all the more clearly just what was at stake in figures like Balthasar's work. By looking past McCormack and Balthasar's respective periodizations of Barth's development, a clearer focus upon Barth's theological ontology can begin to take place.

The essay argues that a Catholic tradition of natural law and its conception of human rights depend on the continuing life of institutions that stand apart from and sustain standards of justice independent from the modern state and its corresponding economy. Christians contribute to a defense of human rights precisely as members of their Churches, through their social and institutional presence across the globe. Catholic social thought deals with matters of human rights from within a tradition of natural law that assumes a common human end, a common good. This ecclesiological tradition of the human good is precisely what Catholics have to offer in a context of pluralism. The Church has a task of sustaining institutions where its practical rationality about human goods offers a practical alternative in a world where the self-interest of states and purely economic interests win the day.

Karl Rahner's theology is essentially spiritual and pastoral. His theology arose from his experience as a Jesuit, living at the heart of the traumas of twentieth-century Europe and, at the same time, interpreting the new academic insights in Church history and the early Fathers, scholasticism and modern philosophy, within the framework of the Church's traditional teaching.

Any killing of the innocent intrinsic to nuclear deterrence strategy (admitted as unavoidable by Michael Quinlan), is often excused as a side effect, not directly intended, of any proposed use of nuclear weapons. As such, he claimed, it can be ‘morally tolerable’. Quite apart from the systematic ambiguity of this phrase, I argue the claim itself is fallacious, depending as it does on the right choice of description of the proposed action. The appropriate description of any action, and hence of any command, to use a nuclear bomb will unavoidably entail intentionally killing innocents along with combatants. I argue thus by analysing the implications of an example of ‘double effect’ suggested by Michael Quinlan himself. If I am right, the injustice of deterrence strategy is stupendous.

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, Jürgen Moltmann, and Thomas Torrance. Finally, a sketch describing another possible‐world incarnation that builds upon the Scotistic hypothesis is provided.

Mark Nelson thinks that Bertrand Russell's well-known criticisms of St. Thomas Aquinas turn on Russell's acceptance of a highly implausible epistemic principle (DAM), and that my previous objection to this claim depends upon the attribution to Russell of an even more implausible Insincerity Objection. While I agree that Russell's criticisms do not turn on the Insincerity Objection, I argue that my previous rejection of the attribution of (DAM) to Russell is well-justified: there is a plausible reading of Russell that requires neither (DAM) nor the Insincerity Objection.

Arguably one of the most well received of the documents of Vatican II, this article considers the gestation of Dei Verbum and whether it remains key to Catholic thinking on revelation, exegesis, hermeneutics and the use of the Bible in the Church.

Insofar as Dei Verbum enabled Catholicism to rediscover its own sacramental paradigm of revelation, it can be said to have effected a decisive move away from a propositional view which risks reducing the drama of salvation to a combination of bullet points and performance indicators. Moreover, Catholic biblical theology has enjoyed a welcome renaissance in these subsequent decades and scripture now plays a more obvious part in liturgy and piety.

Though there are lacunae (e.g. anthropology, ecology), and though some of the exegetical tensions have been by-passed by postmodern hermeneutics, perhaps the more interesting questions that remain will centre not on the scriptures but on a renewed understanding of the nature of tradition and the creativity of its relationship with the magisterium.

Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologiae to provide Dominican friars with solid theological instruction in moral theology and pastoral care on the firm foundation of scripture. Despite an increasing awareness among scholars of the importance of Thomas' scriptural commentaries to his thought, few have attempted to interpret his theology and philosophy in light of his scriptural commentaries and the mendicant context of the 13th century. This paper offers a reading of Thomas' theology of providence and divine government both as a mendicant friar and Master of the Sacred Page in order to understand some of the implications of the doctrine of providence for distributive justice in ecclesial practice today.

Desire is examined here with a view to informing a theological response to capitalism. The notion of mimetic desire offered by René Girard is used as a starting point, Girard's ideas being brought into critical engagement with, first, other intersubjective accounts, namely those offered by Alexandre Kojève and by psychoanalysis in its Freudian and Lacanian variants; and then the account of desire as productive becoming offered by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in which the link to capitalism is explicit. It is suggested that both mimetic desire and its productive counterpart can be understood as asserting the priority of desire itself over both subject and object. The possibilities for framing a coherent theological account of desire which is both mimetic and productive are then assessed with reference to Bernard of Clairvaux, Aquinas and Augustine, noting that accepting a metaphysics of participation makes plausible a productive desire which is nonetheless coded as a mimesis of the divine precedent. Such a conclusion brings into relief the inevitable difficulty of reconciling Christian and capitalist economies of desire.

The crucial role of the French Jesuit theologate in exile at Ore Place, Hastings (1906–26) in the development of la nouvelle théologie has been greatly overlooked in favour of Lyons and Fourvière. In fact, Ore Place played a key early role in the ressourcement of twentieth century French Catholic theology through constituting a unified and sympathetic scholarly community during an era of theological and political turmoil. One of the theologate's best-known students was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1908–12), while other teachers and students included Pierre Charles, Joseph Huby, Henri de Lubac, Ferdinand Prat, Pierre Rousselot, and Auguste Valensin. Within this congenial scholarly community, Teilhard developed some key theological foundations of his thought on topics including grace and nature (miracles, anthropology, and evolution) and christology, and was ordained. The full importance of theological formation at Ore Place for the thought of Teilhard and other French Jesuits of his generation has rarely been recognized.