In this article I explore three ways of reflecting on faith in God's providence and correlative understandings of prayer. My study suggests a praxeological understanding of the doctrine of providence as tacit knowledge. First, I present the soteriological dialogical approach of Catherine of Siena, from her late medieval Dialogue on providence. Secondly, I analyse the quietist vitalist approach of the early modern English philosopher Anne Conway in her Principles of Philosophy. Thirdly, I reflect on the critical, non-interventionist approach of the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil. I conclude by discussing the interrelation between providence and prayer.

The essay compares the problem of history in the theological methods of the Reformed theologian Thomas Torrance and the Catholic theologian Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan works to incorporate historical science into theology, while Torrance argues for a revision of historical science. Lonergan's method is a synthesis of Catholic theology and history, but it is one constructed at the expense of eschatology and the full significance of Christ's resurrection. Torrance's method, on the contrary, includes a dogmatic understanding of history that is grounded solidly on the ‘Word-Act’ of God – the incarnation and resurrection of Christ. It gives full weight to eschatology but elides the contingencies of history.

Paul's epistemology was famously mapped onto his eschatology by J. Louis Martyn, but it must be mapped also onto his ecclesiology. For Paul, knowing is bound always and indissolubly to living with others. To understand how Paul would have us know things, then, we must focus not on knowledge as such, but on epistemic practices in ecclesial communities. Whereas the Corinthians’ use of wisdom and knowledge made for fragmentation and dissolution in the body of Christ (1 Cor 1–4; 8–10), Paul would have practices with knowledge instantiate communion and care for one another, as is proper for Christ's body. Integral to theological knowing is a sense of what and whom theology is for, a sense being critically explored in recent evaluations of theological education.

This article examines Herman Bavinck's inclusion of the body in the image of God in comparison with the positions of Reformed orthodox theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It demonstrates that while it is uncommon for earlier figures to consider the body to be properly included within the image, Bavinck's position is not unprecedented and applies lines of reasoning consistent with the tradition's anthropological convictions. First, an embodied imago Dei is advanced by sources such as the Leiden Synopsis and Petrus van Mastricht. Second, the Reformed orthodox in general adhere to the conviction that human beings are a body–soul unity, and that the image of God includes the uprightness of the whole person, positions that lead to the body being related in some way to God's image. Therefore, while Bavinck's account of an embodied image is a unique contribution, it is nonetheless in continuity with the tradition he receives.

The term ‘natural theology’ provokes a variety of reactions, spanning from whole-hearted endorsement to passionate rejection. Charged as it is with polemical and pejorative undertones, this debate begs for an intervention. If the scholarly community is to engage constructively with the concept and practice of natural theology – either by way of acceptance, rejection, or something in between – clarity in its definition and identification is imperative. The aim of this paper is to try to shed some light on three of the most common definitions of ‘natural theology’ in contemporary scholarship, to provide clarity about the ways in which they differ, and to propose some conceptual refinements in the hope that, if adopted, more fruitful discourse may take place in relation to this much-debated and interdisciplinary phrase.

Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job has been said to mark a transitional phase in the development of atonement doctrine. I argue that the Moralia cohesively portrays Christ's redemptive work as achieving something in two directions: towards God, a vicarious payment of humanity's debt of punishment; towards humanity, an efficaciously convicting and restorative example. This sustains a spirituality in which exacting and self-denying moral effort rests on freedom from judgement and on the death accomplished by the Mediator. Engaging the Moralia in this manner illuminates patristic exegetical sensibilities and proves instructive about how the fathers fit into later taxonomies of atonement models.