The late John Webster advocated both for a theological theology and a robust recovery of God's intrinsic perfection. This article examines how both occupations are related in Webster's thought by setting forth six statements summarising his doctrine of God and his theological approach to it. According to Webster, the doctrine of God is theological to the extent it upholds the principle of solus Deus in theology's formal and material consideration of God's perfection. Only thus does theology articulate the crucial distinction between and yet correspondence of God's antecedent perfection and God's intimate presence with us.

This essay examines Herman Bavinck's Stone Lectures (1908), published as Philosophy of Revelation, for indications of a noteworthy conception of the relation between ontology and revelation. One discovers in the lectures that in responding constructively to various challenges to the Christian faith, Bavinck pushes in a direction documented in recent studies of his work: toward doctrinal organicism. What emerges in terms of ontology and revelation is Bavinck's belief that Christianity is distinguished primarily by confession of a real divine relational initiative, understood in terms of the incarnation, which serves as the ontological precondition of divine revelation and thus as vindication of creaturely naming of God.

Psalm 78 is a lengthy psalm with puzzling phrasing, which presents a peculiar historiography and enigmatic entities. The article begins by highlighting the omission of Moses in the psalm's chronological review, a feature that enables a strong focus on the role of God in the people's history. From concern with the absent Moses, the article moves to examine the role of David in the psalm as a way to access the psalmist's motivations and historical-political context. By examining literary, historical and theological features of the psalm, the article explores the use of collective memory and rewritten narratives for consolidating the people's religious and political ideals.

In recent work on the doctrine of atonement there has been little positive said about the view that Christ's work is principally a moral example. This article addresses that lacuna. It sets out two versions of the moral example doctrine, which are often conflated in the literature. According to the first, Christ is merely a moral example. Such a view does not amount to a doctrine of atonement. According to the second, Christ's moral example brings about reconciliation with God through a transformative experience. This does amount to a doctrine of atonement. I raise some traditional objections to the moral example view and show that it has resources with which to withstand them. However, moral exemplarism still has difficulties dealing with a cluster of biblical motifs about atonement. In the final analysis, it is a partial but not complete account of the saving work of Christ.

This essay situates two embodied practices of palliative care, namely, the act of sitting with another in silence, and the act of gentle touch, within the broader conceptual framework of creatio ex nihilo. Centring on themes of particularity, creatureliness, and relationality, I argue that these practices, understood theologically, can be reframed as active participations in the self-giving love of God – thus setting forth a mode of loving relation with the dying person, rooted in a deep, attentive presence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pursuit of a sanctified life took a significant detour from the way in which he thought it would proceed. In seeking ‘good’ moral choices in the crucible of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer experienced a profound sense of what we now would recognise as moral injury, which proves to be a powerful and reflexive lens with which to examine his understanding of sanctification. Initially embracing pacifism as a fundamental pillar of Christian life, Bonhoeffer eventually became convinced that there are no pure or ‘right’ moral choices, only competing ‘wrong’ ones. He later wrote from prison that to be like Christ, and to come closer to holiness, was not to seek to avoid guilt, but to take on guilt for the sake of others. This recontextualisation of the idea of sanctification through the lens of Christ's substitutionary guilt suggests that for the responsible actor moral injury may be inevitable.