When the Proslogion is read from within the context of Anselm's De Veritate it seems that Anselm's project is firmly based on theological premises. Anselm works with a two-fold conception of truth. Truth is first of all a quality inherent in the statement itself. It is the correctness (rectitudo) of the statement. Second, truth is the correspondence with the extra-linguistic reality. This second level of truth is accidental to the statement. What provides the link between extra-linguistic reality and the statement is the Word of God, which is the level of true reference, where original statements correspond to the original will of God in the creation. When Plato asks what true knowledge is in the Theatetus, the final answer seems to be that what is needed is a statement which carries its own truth as a certainty of Being and Unity within itself. However, no such statement is presented in the dialogue. The name of God in the Proslogion is such a statement which carries its own truth as a certainty of Being and Unity within itself, in that on the first level of truth (rectituto) it is impossible to deny. As the statement concerns the Being of God and cannot be denied it necessarily overflows into the second level of truth which is correspondence with extra-linguistic reality. Therefore, this article argues that Anselm develops a statement which fulfils the criterion of true knowledge presented in the Theatetus. He manages to do this from the position of faith, which includes a strict theological rationality.

This article suggests that Christian orthodoxy according to Justin's Dialogue can be understood if one considers Justin's christology as stemming not merely from an opposition to Judaism (as Boyarin argues), but rather from the recognition of inadequate soteriology according to rabbinic teachings of Justin's time. This is most clearly delineated in Trypho's response as well as Justin's emphasis on the inclusive salvific efficacy of the crucifixion. Trypho's most enduring objection is not that there is another god explicated by Justin through Logos theology, nor that the Messiah is divine. Trypho resists the Christian message because he is most troubled by Justin's assertion that this Messiah died the death cursed by the Law of Moses.

In this article, I look at the possible impact of John Chrysostom's exegetical approach upon John Calvin's biblical interpretation. I detect the traces of Chrysostom's hermeneutical approach to Paul's Letter to the Romans in John Calvin's reading of the same epistle. Why Paul's literature? Because both Chrysostom and Calvin are very fond of Paul and his thinking and consider him the major voice in the Bible. Why the Epistle to the Romans specifically? Because they both believe that this epistle is valuable for the church at all times. According to them, it is the first door to the understanding of the Good News of God's salvation as proclaimed in the Bible. I make this comparison on the basis of the following foundational thesis. If the first Protestant reformers were reliant on the church's exegetical tradition, and if they believed in the affinity of their biblical reading to a long tradition of reading conducted before them, the impact of the church fathers' exegetical methodology on the reformers' biblical interpretation should be part and parcel of any scholarship we do on the Reformation's hermeneutics.

Assurance of salvation is a matter of perennial pastoral concern and theological controversy. After the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards developed a doctrine of assurance based largely on discerning the work of the Spirit in the affections and actions of the professed believer. One might have expected from this theocentric, trinitarian and surprisingly participational theologian a robust doctrine of assurance and a joyful, other-centred spirituality. Ironically, however, profound ambiguities persisted within it which will be shown to arise from the predominantly pneumatic nature of his version of theosis, a blurring of the distinction between justification and sanctification, and the power of his predominantly psychological analogy of the Trinity. This article will therefore first present the main features of Jonathan Edwards’ doctrine of the assurance of salvation. The second section will evaluate it by outlining factors in Edwards’ theology which might have been expected to produce a high level of certainty concerning assurance, and then those which might militate against this certainty. Whilst Edwards did at times espouse the social analogy of the Trinity, his theosis is constructed predominantly within the psychological analogy. Innovatively modified though it was, because Edwards works within this framework, he overemphasises the pneumatological union of the saints with God, at the expense of the incarnational union of God with and for humanity in Christ. This results correspondingly in an inordinate reliance for assurance on the Spirit's work within the realm of human subjectivity, over against objective christological realities. In short, Edwards’ theology of assurance is, in the end, individualistic and anthropocentric.

The article investigates the encounter between Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas in Munich 2004. The event was widely regarded as a conversation about the topic ‘The Pre-Political Moral Foundations of a Liberal State’. It was praised as a dialogue between the ‘personification of the Catholic faith’ and ‘the personification of liberal, individual and secular thought’ with far-reaching consequences. A close analysis of the texts, however, shows that Ratzinger and Habermas think in quite incompatible frameworks with very different concerns. They both share a sceptical attitude towards scientific ideology and they both show a remarkable lack of cultural and political realism. Habermas assumes that civil-societal elites will transform moral concerns into political and legal power. Ratzinger hopes for a revival of natural law tradition which would overcome the ‘pathologies of reason’ and political and religious fanaticism.