Since at least the time of Albert Schweitzer's attempt to move justification from die Mitte to the margins, the question of the centre of Paul's theology has included a criticism of the Reformation's classification of justification as ‘the lord, ruler, and judge’ of theology. For the reformers, however, this designation is not so much a claim about the centrality of the vocabulary of justification as it is a claim about the grammar of the gospel: justification, because it is articulated as an antithesis, says both what the gospel is not and what the gospel is. With this understanding of the theological function of justification in view, the role of justification in Paul's letter to the Galatians can be reconsidered: the antithetical grammar of justification is a critical and hermeneutical criterion in Galatians, both identifying and negating the ‘other gospel’ even as it picks out and proclaims ‘the gospel of Christ’.

Modern conversations between the natural sciences and theology on the human soul have not so far engaged extensively with relevant debates in the early church. Contemporary neuroscience tends to operate within a monistic paradigm, often referred to as ‘physicalism’, that understands human mental activity entirely in naturalistic terms. While there is ongoing scientific debate about the degree to which human consciousness can be reduced entirely to biology, physicalism is often cited as making traditional religious belief in the soul obsolete, or at least modifying it significantly. The Apollinarian question of whether Jesus has a soul therefore reappears. This article considers the contemporary relevance of the Apollinarian controversy, suggesting that fourth-century insights possess key points of contact with the modern non-reductive physicalist position and thus raising important considerations for the science–theology conversation on the soul.

Studies of the Rahab story in Joshua illustrate how, as interpreters, we can read our interests and convictions into a text, allow it no room to protest that it did not have these interests or convictions, and give it no opportunity conversely to question the interests and convictions that we bring to it as interpreters. This raises the question whether we actually want to discover things from texts or whether we simply want to provide illustrations of and support for what we think already.

This article proposes that Calvin's ‘hardness of heart’ principle functions as a substantive limitation on political authority and the law, creating the legal space for meaningful moral pluralism. Calvin distinguished between the spiritual and civil uses of the law, as well as between the natural moral law and the civil law within the Mosaic law. He repeatedly used Jesus' concept of ‘hardness of heart’ to explain inadequacies within the Mosaic law and to articulate a general principle about the nature and limits of civil law. This approach has important implications for law and morality in contemporary contexts characterised by a degree of moral pluralism that Calvin scarcely could have anticipated.

Gregory Nazianzen spoke of a suffering Christ ‘who became weak for us’ in the context of an oration, On Love of the Poor, which dealt at length with the extreme suffering the lepers had endured. The outcasts of the ancient world, lepers figured prominently in Jesus’ ministry as recorded in the Gospels. By juxtaposing their human suffering with divine weakness, Gregory implied that Christ had suffered with the lepers. The comparison not only gave meaning to the human experience of suffering, it also explored the extent of Christ's suffering in the divine economy. There was no affliction too grotesque for Christ to have assumed.

Throughout his life, Gregory developed a notion of collective suffering which is relevant to understanding the magnitude of the suffering of Christ. It made the limitless suffering of humanity seem manageable and contained. It normalised the overwhelming sense of misery by expanding individual suffering into the suffering of the group, the suffering of the group into the suffering of neighbours and finally the suffering of neighbours into the collective suffering of the body of Christ. Christ then experienced the fullness of the human condition as the head of this body.

The lepers served a purpose in this vision of collective suffering. By making the lepers a synecdoche for all human suffering, Gregory allowed Christ to assume their misery without his listeners having to imagine Christ suffering every aspect of their physical and emotional distress. This transference of collective suffering to the body of Christ worked in the following way: the individual suffering of the leper flowed into the collective suffering of the group, which connected with, and was incorporated into, the collective suffering of the Christian body. The result was a relationship of mutual imitation between Christ and humanity. It implied that human beings suffered with Christ, and that Christ suffered with human beings.

By integrating literary techniques and contexts into theological analysis, this article examines the various ways in which Gregory construed the suffering of Christ.

The renaissance of virtue ethics in Christian moral discourse has led a handful of Reformed theologians to consider whether or not the Reformed tradition is compatible with classical and medieval concepts of virtue. Barthians, in particular, express doubt regarding the prospect of such a retrieval, arguing that classical notions of virtue compromise the Reformed hallmark of divine sovereignty and Luther's dictum simul justus et peccator. This essay counters that the Reformed tradition is broad enough to find more productive ways to engage virtue ethics. In particular, the Westminster Standards provide both the formal space for a significant theological exploration of human agency and the material content for the development of something like a classical virtue ethic. Barthian concerns regarding divine sovereignty and moral progress are satisfied by a demonstration that Westminster's attention to human agency is always within the context of a greater emphasis on divine agency.

T. F. Torrance is widely thought to be one of the most important recent theologians in the Anglophone world. There has been quite a lot of research done on his soteriology. This essay contributes to that discussion by assessing five soteriological themes in his thought. These comprise: his account of the vicarious humanity of Christ, the notion of incarnation as atonement, his christological understanding of the divine image, his wholly objective view of the nature of justification and his atonement mechanism. I use this analysis as a means to investigate two broader notions in his theology. These are theosis and universal salvation. In keeping with several other recent treatments of his work I conclude his theology implies a doctrine of theosis. I also argue that it implies universalism, despite his emphatic rejection of the doctrine.

This article demonstrates that an economic context is essential to the metaphor that Anselm of Canterbury and Peter Abelard used in their arguments against a ransom theory of atonement. Contrary to typical analyses, which suggest their metaphor makes a point about obedience or honour that slaves or servants owe to a master or king, this metaphor in fact suggests relations between the lord of a manor and his servi – serfs bound to the land, perpetually indebted to the lord and effectively considered his property. Should servi attempt to desert their lord, he had the right simply to reclaim them wherever they went. Insofar as this right voided the servus’ choice to leave their lord, the metaphorical framework of manorial economy ruled out the ‘rights of the devil’ in a way previous debt-slavery and military frameworks for ransom theory (in themselves) did not.

Contrary to what might be expected from such a thinker, Jonathan Edwards was restrained in conversation with the Reformed debate about the order of the divine decrees, known as the infralapsarian/supralapsarian debate. I will address Edwards's caution regarding this particular debate: first, by tracing the contours of the broader Reformed debate on the divine decrees and its evolution from engagement of Arminian theology to that of theodicy; second, by noting where Edwards does not speak to this debate and exegeting the few passages where he does take it up; third, by analysing the particular questions that Edwards addresses when he does engage the debate; fourth, by pointing to constructive lessons gained by understanding why a careful thinker might be atypically silent. I will demonstrate that Edwards engaged the lapsarian debate insofar as was necessary to rebuke the Arminian denial of unconditional election, yet he refused to engage the debate as a means of articulating a theodicy. In both his engagement and disengagement, Edwards refused to answer the debate on its standard terms and offers an example of carefully crafting doctrine according to theological and contextual concerns.

Can a biblical text be idolatrous? Ezekiel's God has always been theologically awkward and difficult to handle. For early Jewish and Christian readers of the book the most troublesome (and indeed dangerous) parts of the text were the prophet's initial vision of the divine glory and its subsequent reappearances. Voltaire was perplexed and revolted by God's command that Ezekiel eat bread cooked with dung.1 For some twentieth-century Protestant commentators, Ezekiel's God is altogether too concerned with ritual at the expense of ethics.2 But for contemporary readers it is the unrelenting harshness, violence and especially masculinity of Ezekiel's Yhwh which proves most problematic. My aim in this article is to examine some of the theological implications of this divine awkwardness. In what follows I will attempt three things. First, I will offer a brief examination of the problems Ezekiel's God poses and a few recent Christian responses. Second, I will outline Roland Boer's proposal that Ezekiel 20 (along with 16 and 23) tends towards a kind of ‘anti-Yahwism’ or ‘protest atheism’: a vision of God so appalling as to be impossible to accept. Finally, I will explore the value for theological interpretation of taking seriously such an apparently unpromising conclusion, and suggest that the apophatic tradition may provide resources for embracing such radical negativity within scripture.

The names of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rudolf Bultmann have frequently and inevitably been associated in theological debate since the Second World War. On a popular level in the English-speaking world, it was perhaps J. A. T. Robinson's Honest to God (1963) which most notably placed Bonhoeffer alongside Bultmann, along with Tillich, as close allies in the search for a fresh and viable understanding of God.

It is usual to regard Kierkegaard as the father of the con-temporary existentialist movement and to say that he is the first of a long line of existentialists. Thus Ruggiero says of existentialism:

Its origins are very distant and very near, very distant in the solitary torment of one religious soul, the Danish writer, Søren Kierkegaard, in whom the passionate reaction against Hegelianism assumed, round about a century ago, contorted and passionate forms which were yet not without greatness and authentic power.

It is no simple matter to deal with this subject. In the first place, it is not a favourite theme of Reformed theology. In addition, there are a thousand variations of the ordination liturgy, whose comparative study is still in its infancy. Finally, a kind of mutation was produced during the eighteenth century which compromised the ‘catholic’ aspect of the Reformed Church and which made of her a Church of ‘protestant’ type (to use a term which must be precisely defined).

Not far below the surface of most modern theological dispute lies the question of the interrelationship of theology and culture. How shall those who take their intellectual orientation from the Christian Gospel understand their position in relation to the intellectual currents that represent the spirit of the age? Should the stance be that of Tertullian, Eusebius, or Augustine; Kierkegaard, Barth, or Tillich; or of some variation and combination of these and others? One of the many ramifications of this complex area of inquiry concerns the relationship of the Christian community to the institutions of the society and the world in which it carries on its life, as is well illustrated by recent controversy over the aims and methods of the W.C.C. Programme to Combat Racism. Here, of course, are obvious, if highly complex, moral and practical issues. But underlying them is a further theoretical and theological question: What is Christianity? In this paper, I should like to suggest that both the theological and the ethical problems can be illuminated by an examination of the interrelationship between conceptions of the person of Christ and the church's understanding of its relation to earthly rulers.

What is the purpose of a doctrine of the immanent Trinity? Broadly speaking it aims to recognize, uphold and respect God's freedom. Without theoretical and practical awareness of this freedom all theological statements about the significance of created existence become ambiguous and constitute merely human attempts to give meaning to creation using theological categories.