Christian Thought Research Articles

Evagrius and His Legacy eds. by Joel Kalvesmaki and Robin Darling Young

Reviewed by: Evagrius and His Legacy eds. by Joel Kalvesmaki and Robin Darling Young IzsáK Zsolt BaáN O.S.B. Evagrius and His Legacy. Edited by Joel Kalvesmaki and Robin Darling Young. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2016. Pp. x, 404. $ 39.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-268-03329-3.) In recent decades, scholars have grown increasingly interested in the writings of Evagrius of Pontus and in his influence on subsequent Christian thought in east and west. The originality and complexity of his teaching continually challenge academics to understand correctly his spirituality and theology as well his manifold legacy and the reasons for his condemnation after his death. This volume is the fruit of a recent, two-year workshop organized by Dumbarton Oaks and the University of Notre Dame, and it collects studies of excellent scholars from very different areas of patristic and medieval studies, all of whom investigate Evagrian thought and its history. The indisputable merit of this book is that it presents, with impressive thoroughness, Evagrius' reception in different ages of church history and in various geographical and linguistic environments. It contains studies that fill gaps by integrating the discoveries and results of research in the last decades. The authors lead the reader along the paths of Evagrian influence in different periods of Latin, Syriac, and Byzantine theological and spiritual literature. Although the volume introduces very well various streams and tributaries of Evagrian thought that permeated the history of Christian spirituality, nevertheless [End Page 567] the headwaters themselves are less explored. The person of Evagrius and his theology are given less attention or at least appear in a unilateral light. The valuable contribution of Robin Darling Young does approach the person of Evagrius through his letters as the "workshop of his thought," offering the first deepened study of his letters in English. Other articles in the first half of the book place a great emphasis on offering a clearer view of that theological and philosophical context in which Evagrian thought can be situated: Cappadocian theology, Platonic philosophy, and fourth-century Origenism. At the same time, with the exception of the fine exegetical study of L. Dysinger, there is almost no word as well about that monastic milieu and tradition in which his writings were born. To claim that Evagrius "reflects not a later monastic setting but the setting of an ascetic Christian philosophical circle" (Introduction, p. 5) and further to claim that "the greater part of his life was spent in the company of scholars, theologians, and urbanites, and that consequently his work can be seen as part of a chain of philosophical commentary from ancient Athens and Alexandria to the fourth century" (Introduction, p. 12)—well, this not only contradicts the way Evagrius presented himself in his writings, but it also leaves out of account a whole contemporary school of interpretation of his teaching. At the round table of Evagrian studies, as presented by the editors of the book, in fact, there is missing the voice of those like G. Bunge, J. Driscoll, or A. Casiday, who see in Evagrius not primarily and simply an intellectual or a "Christian thinker," but a great monastic theologian, a disciple of the first generation of desert fathers. How this lack can limit the research can be seen, for instance, in the very original study of B. Stefaniw on Evagrian authority. The review offers a new perspective concerning the condemnation of Evagrius when it analyzes how the spiritual master and writer uses the concept of authority and how it leads to conflict with other kinds of authorities. However, this development could be much better founded if it took account of how authority was exercised in monastic communities by focusing on Scripture and spiritual progress. In the book Evagrius and His Legacy. Evagrius is presented by great scholars mainly as a great scholar: "the intellectual of the desert." But from the same book it results that when his legacy was judged in terms of speculative theology, he was found wanting, while where his thought survived was always in a monastic context. This suggestive contradiction in part calls into question the image of Evagrius that emerges in this...

No Longer Strangers or Aliens: “Otherness” as a Binding to Be Loosed in Christian Tradition

No Longer Strangers or Aliens: “Otherness” as a Binding to Be Loosed in Christian Tradition Jay T. Rock (bio) “other-making”, reconciliation, memory, metanoia Differences among people are undeniable, and meeting people as yet unknown to us certainly includes the experience of their difference from us, or “otherness.” But, if differences among us are inescapable and diversity is a part of the fabric of creation, do such differences constitute an “otherness” that is an ontological category rather than simply a dimension of experience? This issue came into focus for me at a conference to which I had invited a traditional Native American healer to speak to us about the concerns and hopes of the Native community in relation to those of other faiths. Following a format that had produced titles such as “The Faces of Oppression,” this session was called “The Face of the Other.” After the introductions, Mr. Kenny Moses came up to the podium, which nearly hid his small frame. He looked out at us for a few moments, and said, “Well, I guess I’m the ‘other.’ ” We all laughed, but the point had been made: We had decided that he was “other.” “Otherness” as difference is a reality; we do encounter people and practices that are strange to us. But, however great the initial jolt, this experience of otherness is not a valid conclusion about another human being. Rather, it is a starting point for asking ourselves how we ought to behave toward people who differ from us. What is our responsibility toward them? What sort of hospitality is it appropriate to give or to receive? The experience that we call “otherness” is also a starting point for asking questions about our frame of reference. Viewed from the outside, we also are likely to be experienced as “other.” So, in using the term, are we somehow [End Page 113] claiming that our understanding of reality and our way of life are the standard in contrast to which the understandings and ways of people different from ourselves are incorrect or of less value? Moses pointed to the danger lurking in our construction of otherness. “[O]ne of the principal ways human beings choose to draw boundaries that secure their safety and identity,” said Robert Schreiter, is “by exclusion, placing beyond the boundary those who are ‘not us,’ who are ‘them.’ ” 1 To label something or someone as “other” can be the first step in making them “other.” “Other-making” is central to alienation among us as human beings, and we have developed a wide variety of ways by which to frame people conceptually and emotionally as “other.” Are we willing to examine the narratives we bring with us as we meet people of differing culture, language, and religion? This danger of “other-making” and the necessity of examining our own narratives of ourselves and the people around us are central preoccupations of at least one stream of the Christian tradition. Paul proclaimed to the church in Ephesus, struggling with a membership both Jewish and gentile in origins, “through [Christ] both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:18–20; N.R.S.V.). Recognizing and overcoming other-making is a central focus in the teaching of Jesus as well. The Christian tradition includes a strong emphasis on confronting and transforming the perception and experience of “otherness.” It recognizes and honors difference as a reality but calls on its practitioners to dissolver barriers between “us” and “them” and to move from constructions of “self” and “other” to the building of the one human community in relation to the One-all-lovingGod. In this strand of Christian thinking, the condition of being strangers and aliens is a dimension of our unreconciled state. In that state, we practice the drawing of boundaries that exclude certain groups of people. These are the aliens and strangers—the ones we make “other.” Schreiter identified seven ways of “other...

Islam and Its Law. Avoiding Distinctions

The focus of the article is on the risks of a religious predominance over secular philosophy and the eigenrationality of the legal system. This is a tendency, not a necessity, that can be attributed to Islam as opposed to Christian thinking. The latter has gradually adopted major components of the pagan Roman-Greek culture in late antiquity, philosophy and Roman law in particular. Islam has tolerated the spread of Greek philosophy in medieval ages, but its core has not been touched by this exchange. Islamic law cannot easily adapt to the historical transformation of society because its essence is enshrined in the Coran which is regarded as being the word of God himself. Islam „as such“ is not a monolithic religion, however, it allows for the rise of sectarian movements that plead for the possibility of a Coran „without interpretation“. The autonomy of law, in particular, is opposed by many groups because they fear the risks of a secularisation of culture.

Prospects for a Sapiential Theology: Bonaventure on Theological Wisdom

Prospects for a Sapiential Theology:Bonaventure on Theological Wisdom Gregory F. LaNave Is theology a science, or a wisdom? Theologians formed in any Scholastic tradition readily recognize the vital importance of understanding that theology is a science. The topic received such attention well into the twentieth century that it provoked something of a reaction, with theologians insisting that there were other things to be said about theology as well.1 Such a dynamic was anticipated by the thirteenth-century university masters. Alexander of Hales, for example, begins his Summa of theology by asking "whether the doctrine of theology is scientia." He concludes that, whatever one may say about the scientific aspects of this doctrina, it is far more appropriately called "wisdom," sapientia. Is theology, then, a science, or a wisdom?2 The two need not be [End Page 1037] opposed. But if the desire—whether it originates among the thirteenth-century masters or twenty-first-century theologians—to describe theology in terms of wisdom is to bear fruit, one will have to have a precise understanding of what wisdom is. The purpose of this article is to enter into the subject by laying out the thought of one extraordinary exemplar of sapiential theology, St. Bonaventure. It is notable that he is committed to the scientific character of theology. He is perhaps the first theologian to appeal to the Aristotelian notion of subalternation to validate a true science of theology.3 It is equally obvious, though, that his vision of the theologian's activity does not end in a purely intellectual mastery of the things of faith. To give just one example, at the end of the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, having gone through an extraordinarily dense argument about the variety of ways in which the Christian mind may be raised to God, Bonaventure states that the completion of this journey lies in a transitus, a passing over in which the mind is utterly quieted and intellection gives way to the ardor of love.4 We will not understand his theology if we try [End Page 1038] to deny or minimize its scientific character, but the perfection of theology lies not in a purely scientific project. An adequate account of Bonaventure's understanding of theology in light of wisdom must contain four elements. First is the simple identification of theology as wisdom, which I will accomplish with reference to seminal texts on the nature of theology. Second is a more refined identification of theological wisdom in light of Bonaventure's whole doctrine of wisdom. This will require appeal to two famous texts in which he speaks of four types of wisdom and the isolation of that type that is most strictly speaking theological. Third is the incorporation of this wisdom into the ordinary working of theology: the relationship between the wisdom of theology and the science of theology. Here, our attention will turn to various forms of theological argument, especially the form that Bonaventure calls the argument ex pietate. I will focus on two texts, one that indicates the distinctive quality of this kind of reasoning and a second that gives an example of such reasoning. Fourth is the relationship that theology has to other kinds of knowledge. The question of the "autonomy" of Bonaventure's philosophy was one of the great topics of twentieth-century Bonaventure studies. Yet, without directly engaging that vast literature, it is possible, and helpful, to distinguish between the ways in which theology may be said to have a purely extrinsic relationship to other sciences and the ways in which its relationship is intrinsic. In sum, the prospects for a sapiential theology in Bonaventurean terms should deal with theological wisdom (1) in itself (a combination of the first two points mentioned above), (2) in relation to theological science, and (3) in relation to nontheological knowledge.5 Theology as Wisdom That Bonaventure regards theology as a matter of both science and wisdom is undoubted: [End Page 1039] Sacred Scripture or theology is a science that imparts to us wayfarers as much knowledge of the First Principle as we need to be saved. Now God is not only the principle and effective exemplar of all things in...

A Harvey Cox Reader ed. by Robert Ellsberg

Reviewed by: A Harvey Cox Reader ed. by Robert Ellsberg Mara Willard A Harvey Cox Reader. Edited by Robert Ellsberg. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016. 264pp. $30.00. Reverend Dr. Cox has led an amazing life by any of the measures that mean the most to him. To read The Harvey Cox Reader is to travel through key terrains of post-war American theology, sociology, and politics that Cox has inhabited. In this collection of largely occasional essays, Harvey Cox speaks in a conversational tone conditioned by curiosity in and warmth for the Christian tradition. “I love to preach and do so whenever I am invited, often in my own Baptist congregation here in Cambridge,” he says in the book’s introduction (xvii), perfectly preparing us for a companionable, distinctively American Christian guide through the signs of the late-modern times. The Reader opens with our author’s religious and intellectual autobiography. From his 1973 essay on the power of formation in a town “amply blessed with churches . . . More churches than filling stations, more churches than saloons, more churches than restaurants” (4), the collection proceeds roughly chronologically. Cox went on to war-crushed East Berlin, serving as a young American Baptist minister. There he connected strongly with his lifelong theological and political hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ministering on both sides of the wall, Cox sought to awaken Bonhoeffer’s vision for a “religionless Christianity.” Cox’s breakthrough book The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (1965) properly fills a significant portion of this collection, given its still-astonishing scope of readers. Cox became an almost overnight giant, shaping America’s thinking about religion and modernity. Written when he was just 35 years old, The Secular City is Cox’s explication of the power of Christianity to shape even ostensibly post-religious culture. He also proffers theological charges for how distinctively modern Christians might live out God’s commands for work in the world. Rowan Williams hailed this a “groundbreaking work,” among the “undoubted classics of the great upheaval in religious thinking that took place in the sixties.” [End Page 97] Yet reviewing the other essays that comprise the The Harvey Cox Reader, the singularity of Cox as a man of a passing historical epoch stands out more particularly than the acumen of any particular piece of writing. As a world-renouned Christian thinker, Cox became both theologically and politically aligned and personally friendly with other great progressive Christian leaders and thinkers. He lived in Peru with Gustavo Gutiérrez and walked for civil rights with Martin Luther King in the 1963 March on Washington. As his academic career matured, Cox became intrigued by religious epiphenomena in their variety. In “Turning East” (on America Muslims, Zen Buddhists, and Sikhs) and “Fire from Heaven” (on American Pentecostalists), Cox walks his readers into religious worlds that are new to him. He is eager to share the beauty and possibilities that he discovers. Cox speaks from his open, confident, joyful alignment with the progressive strains of American Protestant Christianity. This “continued to constitute what theologians call the ‘master narrative’ that gives my life coherence,” he says. “They have stayed with me not just as ideas and values but as a cluster of deep and ineradicable affective traces: feelings of joy, terror, awe, history, and well-being” (242). Today, one senses the rarity of freedom from second-order estrangment, particularly among scholars of religion. Even the essays such as “The Future of our Faith,” and “Why I Am Still a Christian” that close the Reader have a conspicuously twenty-first century flavor. While Cox’s tone is always inviting, the reader cannot forget that she travels under the auspices of a man enthusiastically ordained and sustained by his religious community and professionally accustomed to Harvard students writing down his words. This is not a shortcoming of The Harvey Cox Reader so much as a reality of the authorial voice. At times, Cox reaches for more credit than his readers may want to grant him. For instance, when quoting from The Secular City, he states in retrospect that “in this paragraph I was actually proposing a new agenda for the next stage of theology, one...

The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar by Andrew Meszaros

Reviewed by: The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar by Andrew Meszaros Elizabeth H. Farnsworth (bio) The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar. By Andrew Meszaros. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pages: xiii + 268. Cloth, $99. Paper, n/a ISBN: 9780198786344. Andrew Meszaros observes in the introduction to his, The Prophetic Church, that "one quintessential marker of modernity is undoubtedly historical consciousness" (10). This rise in historical consciousness prompts the question amongst Christian theologians as how to "theologically account for, and therefore make credible, doctrines whose content is allegedly revealed (coming from God) and therefore absolute and immutable, but whose existence and form rely on historical and human contingencies?" (12) No other Christian thinker rivals Newman's influence in how we conceptualize this tension between tradition as developing in time and the eternality of the revelation itself. The influence of Newman's theory of doctrinal development began during his lifetime,1 was amplified during the first half of the twentieth century,2 and continues to influence our contemporary discussion concerning revelation and its transmission in history, which is in many respects still considering the tension between corporeality and immutability as it relates to Christian doctrine.3 [End Page 83] Utilizing both historical and thematic methodologies, Meszaros sees a way to account for doctrinal propositions as both "products of history and effective instruments of God's revelation" (240). Pulling from theological giants, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Yves Congar (1904-1995), Meszaros proposes an Incarnational lens through which to understand the nature of doctrine and its reception. Namely, the idea that God reveals divine reality in a way that human language can mediate, albeit imperfectly Quoting Congar, Meszaros observes that "[h]istory, for Congar, is not synonymous with a theological problem to be 'solved,' as it were. It is, rather, an intrinsic dimension of what it means to be human" (127). Ultimately Meszaros argues that the economy of doctrine "give(s) doctrine a real role in the plan of salvation" (240), in which the Incarnation is the "key to giving a theological account of the historical conditions of doctrine" (240). The progression of Meszaros's argument is centered upon two challenges that modernity poses to Catholic theology, described in Chapter One as, 1) "the discovery of the subj ect or the analysis of what the subj ect brings to knowledge and to the world," and 2) "the discovery of history, change, or development" (18). Chapters Two through Five examine the nature of and connection between the "subject" and "history." Chapter Two looks specifically at how Newman's attention to the subject and history informs Congar's theory of doctrinal development. Here, Meszaros observes that "Congar definitely sees Newman's epistemic reflections on the subject as the basis for how the ecclesial subject penetrates the deposit [of faith]" (95). Chapter Three builds upon the notion of the Church's "mind" or "conscience" as the subject, which describes the active nature of the ecclesial subject and examines the intrinsic causes of development. Chapter Four investigates the relationship between the subject and history as it sets the stage for examining extrinsic,4 or historical, causes of tradition. Chapter five examines how history, or extrinsic causes, bear upon the Church's doctrine. In Chapter Six, Meszaros proposes a theory of doctrinal development, based firmly on ideas found in Newman and Congar, in which certain key principles are maintained: "the unity and finality of revelation based on, and culminating in, the coming of Jesus Christ; the homogeneity of revelation based on the Truth that is God who neither deceives nor is deceived; and the communicability and knowability of revelation implied in the very notion of revelation" (198). Meszaros's work functions at the intersection of several interrelated subfields within Newman studies, particularly 1) the historical and theological reception of Newman's thought concerning the doctrine of revelation and 2) an application of Newman's thought into a contemporary understanding of revelation, which is built upon the notion of an active ecclesial subject. [End Page 84] This book, which originated as Meszaros's doctoral thesis for the Catholic University of Louvain...

Christian Apokatastasis and Zoroastrian Frashegird

The theory of universal restoration (apokatastasis), the eventual eviction of evil and the purification, conversion and salvation of all rational creatures, was prominent in early Christian thinkers and present in more Patristic theologians than is commonly assumed. But, besides having philosophical, Biblical, and Jewish roots, may it have stemmed from another religion? The only suitable candidate would be Zoroastrianism. An analysis of the available sources concerning Zoroastrian eschatology shows that it is improbable that this may have influenced the Christian apokatastasis doctrine. At least, it is impossible to prove anything like this, mainly for chronological reasons. Fruitful interactions may, however, have occurred at the time of Bardaisan. This essays shows the importance of comparative religio-historical studies, and the reconceptualizing of theological doctrines into social discourse, for research into early Christianity.

Византийский неоплатонизм и западная средневековая мистика: реминисценции христологии Максима Исповедника в учении Бернарда Клервоского

The article considers the correlation between the Christological doctrine of Maximus the Confessor and mystical teachings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Analyzed the ideological parallels provisions on synergies divine and human will, sequence degrees of freedom and Christian love in the teachings Christian thinkers.

The Relationship between Natural and Statutory Law in Ancient and Medieval Concepts

The article discusses the shaping of the relation between natural and statutory law in the philosophical, political and legal concepts from the Antiquity until the Middle Ages. Firstly, the author analyzes the views of a sophist – Aristotle, and Stoics – Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Thomas Aquinas in order to identify on their basis the main principles concerning the matter at hand. His research permitted him to conclude that during the mentioned period the prevailing conviction was that statutory law (positive law) should not violate natural law (and sometimes simultaneously God`s law) because the latter was perceived as a higher legal order. Statutory law that conflicted with the higher law was usually considered invalid and – as such – not creating the obligation of obedience. It was also considered unjust. For Christian thinkers God himself was the creator of principles of justice; therefore that law which came directly from him was put at the top of the legal structure. Natural law was seen as mirroring this law of God. In turn, statutory law was supposed to reflect the rules of natural law.

"Scholasticism Is a Daughter of Judaism": The Discovery of Jewish Influence on Medieval Christian Thought.

This article retells the surprising discovery of a considerable Jewish influence on Christian scholasticism in the Middle Ages. While most students of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas knew that both had read Jewish philosophy, only the rediscovery of especially Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed by Jewish philosophers in the nineteenth century showed the whole extent of the scholastics' dependence on Jewish predecessors - especially where they do not refer to them specifically. This Jewish discovery naturally faced Catholic resistance, if not denial, and turns thus into an interesting chapter in the history of theological ideas.

A Social History of Christian Thought on Abortion: Ambiguity vs. Certainty in Moral Debate

AbstractThe authority of Christian thought is based in scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, with the Bible and church history as the major sources. The abortion debate in the USA has been closely tied to claims that rely on Christian authority. However, Christians have never held uniform views about abortion. The almost complete silence on abortion in the Bible and by the two most important Christian theologians—St. Augustine in the 5th century and St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century—undermine sweeping claims about a definitive Christian position. Dogmatism and ethical certainty on abortion were rare in the past and only became dominant themes in the 19th century. This article examines both intellectual debates in the Church and social conditions that influenced thinking on sexuality, the role of women, and the internal politics of the Catholic Church. In the 19th century, the mostly Protestant medical profession played a pivotal role, not only by creating anti‐abortion politics on a national scale, but by taking the place of the patriarchal family in supervising the behavior of women. Protestant churches in the 20th century became politicized and divided into liberal and conservative factions, in part over questions of contraception and abortion. Evangelical Protestants were not deeply troubled by the prospect of liberal abortion laws until they became politicized for extraneous reasons. Christian attitudes on abortion continue to form a maze, never a straight line, just as in the past.

Marsilius of Inghen, Quaestiones super quattuor libros Sententiarum, vol. 3, Super primum, Quaestiones 22–37, ed. Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen and Markus Erne. (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 173.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014. Pp. xi, 454. $219. ISBN: 978-9004272422.

Marsilius of Inghen, <i>Quaestiones super quattuor libros Sententiarum</i>, vol. 3, <i>Super primum, Quaestiones 22–37</i>, ed. Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen and Markus Erne. (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 173.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014. Pp. xi, 454. $219. ISBN: 978-9004272422.

The Problemata of Tatian: Recovering the Fragments of a Second-Century Christian Intellectual

Tatian the ‘Assyrian’, student of Justin Martyr and teacher in Rome in the latter half of the second century, was recognized by later Christians such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius as one of the most educated Christian thinkers of his day. However, a survey of ancient sources and modern scholarship on this figure reveals a number of competing ‘Tatians’ who are not easily reconcilable with one another: Tatian the Marcionite, the Valentinian, the Encratite, the proto-Monarchian, the rhetorician, the gospel editor, and the founder of a school that decisively shaped Syriac Christianity and later Antiochene theology. The present article examines each of these representations in turn in order to highlight a series of unsolved problems related to Tatian and his legacy which require further research, while also suggesting that the inconsistencies in our sources might be the result of Tatian’s own failure to formulate a coherent and compelling intellectual system that could command the allegiance of many followers.

Spotkanie starożytnego chrześcijaństwa z filozofią grecką (w czasach Justyna Męczennika i Klemensa Aleksandryjskiego)

For followers of religions which take solid cultural form of coherent doctrinalsystems, the fact that other comparable religious systems exist may posea difficult theoretical and existential problem that needs to be addressed ata number of levels, including the one of human existential experience. This isthe problem that was faced by the original followers of the Christian religionin relation to the Greek spiritual culture, and ancient Greek philosophy inparticular, at the time when it boldly explored spiritual areas closely connectedto Christianity. The problem became particularly significant in the secondcentury CE. It was tackled by early Christian thinkers that were educated inGreek philosophy themselves and used its ideas to solve the above-mentionedproblem.

An Adamic incarnational Christological framework as a theological approach for African contextual ministry

Many African Christian thinkers and writers are responding to the foreignness of Christ in African Christianity by treating Christ under the traditional African ancestral category. However, it is our contention that the designation of the ancestral category to Christ has a tendency of diminishing the actuality of Christ as God incarnate and encouraging syncretism in African Christianity. Given this, this paper proposes and formulates an Adamic incarnational Christological model as an alternative response to the foreignness of Christ in African Christianity. In employing the anhypostastic and enhypostastic principles, we demonstrate that Jesus Christ is not a foreigner to African Christians, since the human nature he assumed in the incarnation is a general human nature which embraces all humankind. In establishing the Adam-Christ relationship in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, we advance Adam as a biblical-theological category in enhancing the relevance of Christ to Africans. It is from this perspective that our Adamic incarnational Christological model proposes that in the incarnation, God in Christ fully identified with all mankind as the New Adam, acting from the ontological depth of his divine-human existence to save African Christians from sin and all its consequences, including death and opposing spiritual forces. Thus, our own model underscores the relevance of Christ to African Christians by emphasizing Christs complete solidarity with all humanity as the New Adam.

Liberalism, Post‐liberalism and the Fact‐Value Divide

AbstractJewish and Christian thought of the modern and contemporary period is frequently described as either liberal or post‐liberal. In lieu of this widely accepted categorization, this essay narrates developments in modern and contemporary Jewish and Christian thought in wake of the impact of the fact‐value dichotomy on theological and ethical discourse. This essay demonstrates the negative ramifications of this logical distinction on Jewish and Christian thought and shows how these negative repercussions can stimulate an immanent critique of this logic and a new paradigm in Jewish and Christian thinking.

Self-knowledge and character formation: Teaching to students’ weaknesses

This article considers David Brooks’ recent New York Times bestseller, The Road to Character, in light of Christian thinkers on the connection between virtue and suffering, specifically Dante and St John of the Cross. By putting Brooks in conversation with the Christian tradition, I show how his ideas, specifically his assertion that the mark of character is the willingness to encounter one’s weaknesses, can be used by teachers concerned with cultivating virtue and character in their students. I argue that teaching to students’ weaknesses, not only their strengths, is a significant way educators can cultivate virtue by helping students to understand their limitations. Students’ growth in knowing their limitations and weaknesses is a kind of self-knowledge that points them inward ultimately to help them look beyond themselves and toward lives of service.

Editors’ Note

In the Summer of 2015 Sotiris Mitralexis and Andrew T. J. Kaethler organized a conference held in Delphi, Greece, titled “Ontology and History: A Challenging and Auspicious Dialogue for Philosophy and Theology.” The conference brought together over sixty scholars from various parts of the globe, representing Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism—truly an ecumenical affair. The topic of the conference, which is well represented in this volume of Forum Philosophicum, was purposefully broad because it is a question that remains open and which sits at the centre of the Christian philosophical and theological tradition. Joseph Ratzinger posited in several works that the interplay between salvation history and ontology is the most pressing concern for modern theology. In Introduction to Christianity—a modest title for a robust piece of theology—Ratzinger notes that early in the Christian tradition a division arose between theological metaphysics and theology of history, each seen as two different things; “people indulge either in ontological speculation or anti-philosophical theology of salvation history, thus losing in a really tragic way the original unity of Christian thought. At the start Christian thinking is neither merely ‘soteriological’ nor merely ‘metaphysical’ but molded by the unity of history and being. Here lies an important task for modern theological work, which is torn once again by this dilemma.”

The Platonist Christianity of Marius Victorinus

Marius Victorinus is the first representative of Platonist Christianity in the Latin church whose works display knowledge of Plotinus and Porphyry. Scholarship prior to the work of Pierre Hadot in the mid-twentieth century tended to treat him as an isolated figure, ignored by later Latin Christians who knew better how to moderate their Platonist borrowings. Scholars since then have been more willing to see Victorinus as earnest Christian who let himself be guided by the community standards of the church as laid out in the biblical canon and creedal definitions. Recent work on Victorinus’ sources has shown him to be more eclectic in his use of philosophical sources than previously thought and for that reason more creative in formulating his Platonist–Christian synthesis. After reviewing important lines of development in scholarship on Victorinus, this article focuses on his Platonist-inspired teaching about the soul as expressed in the three genres of his Christian works: theological treatises, hymns, and scriptural commentaries. The consistent “insider” stance of Victorinus in all of these different genres of theological writings suggests that the extremely Platonist character of his theology, when considered in light of other early Christian thinkers, is a difference of degree and not kind.

On Imitating the Regimen of Immortality or Facing the Diet of Mortal Reality: A Brief History of Abstinence from Flesh-Eating in Christianity

Abstract Abstinence from meat has been a subject of much controversy and friction from the dawn of Christian history. Relatively widespread in the early Church, it was praised when it formed part of a temporary ascetic fasting regimen, but condemned if it amounted to a permanent rejection of animal flesh, as it would be associated with heretical ideas found in various dissident groups, gnostic sects, and pagan philosophical schools. Nevertheless, several patristic authors put forth a number of compelling arguments in defense of a meatless diet, all of which would be revisited by future generations of Christian thinkers. Laying the emphasis upon the ethical incentives for abstaining from animal flesh, as well as upon enduring ambivalent attitudes toward vegetarian dietary practices, this article offers a brief overview of abstinence from meat throughout Christian history.