Early Theology Research Articles

Формирование салафитского дискурса в догматических дискуссиях раннего мусульманского богословия (VII–IХ вв.)

Формирование салафитского дискурса в догматических дискуссиях раннего мусульманского богословия (VII–IХ вв.)

‘The grievances from toleration’: Scotland heading towards the Enlightenment

ABSTRACTIn this article, I analyse some pre-Humean arguments for and against tolerance by early eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers and theologians. I present these in dialogue with the Confession of Faith, which constituted the central doctrinal pillar of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Kirk viewed tolerance rather suspiciously as a danger for its unity, and if the Confession asserted liberty of conscience against the Catholics, it insisted nevertheless on rigid boundaries. This created tensions which the theologians John Simson and Archibald Campbell sought to exploit when they were attacked by Committees for Purity of Doctrine for suspicion of heresy. Simson’s and Campbell’s arguments for toleration revolved around issues of liberty of conscience, scripture interpretation and the necessity of open debate for the moral progress of mankind. George Turnbull and Francis Hutcheson, then, insisted on a moral core of religion and on limitations of the Church’s power. They showed more optimism than David Hume regarding our moral resources to overcome religion’s corruptive potential, under the condition that we are properly guided.

Liberating Discernment: Language, Concreteness, and Naming Divine Activity in History

One of the revolutionary insights of early liberation theology was that theological discernment is, above all, a concrete undertaking. Yet this insight is accompanied by a persistent conundrum that arises from the way in which naming God’s activity in history is perceived as collapsing God’s objective distance into contingent affairs. This paper contends that this conundrum results from a constricting account of theological objectivity which is problematically conceived in opposition to concretization and so obstructs an account of liberating discernment. Locating this concern within the (de)colonial history of competing theological readings of the weather, and, in addition, prompted by Alice Crary’s expansion of objectivity in ethical theory, I argue that theological objectivity must not only include but begin with theological languages of the oppressed as its essential point of departure. Recovering the insight of early liberation theologians, this paper contends that theology may speak of God objectively only as it concretely shares in the liberating life and words of the crucified peoples of history. The purpose of this argument is then to envision Christian ethics as language accountable to the apocalyptic activity of the God of the oppressed.

An Early Nominalist Critique of Platonic Realism: Ibn Ḥazm’s Metaphysics of the Created Corporeal World

AbstractThis study examines how Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456 AH/1064 CE) articulated his nominalist critique of Platonic realism in the context of a larger rejection of ontological dualism in philosophy. It draws on evidence in Al-Fiṣal fī l-Milal wa-l-Ahwāʿ wa-l-Niḥal (The Book of Opinions on Religions, Heresies, and Sects) and his Marātib al-ʿUlūm (Categories of the Sciences). In response to those who “claim to follow philosophy (falsafa),” and in dialogue with earlier theologians and philosophers such as al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1012–1013) and al-Kindī (d. 258/873), Ibn Ḥazm redefined the universal soul (al-nafs al-kulliyya) and universal intellect (al-ʿaql al-kullī) as linguistic references to the total of all particular souls and particular intellects, which he defined as corporeal accidents inhering in the body. Ibn Ḥazm’s identification of souls and intellects as corporeal was part of his larger conception of the world as discrete and finite in both space and time. The world, in other words, is measurable in numbers and therefore limited by the volume of its visible and invisible air-like corporeality to the exclusion of philosophical notions of a perfect void or prime matter. In his additional critique of contemporary Muslim epistemology and the theologians’ reliance on dialectical argumentation, Ibn Ḥazm held that a true scholar of Islam should turn to logic-oriented deductive methods and scriptural evidence together in order to ascertain the possibilities and, more importantly, the limits of human knowledge about both the corporeal created world and the ontological unknown (ghayb) of the divine realm.

ALGHAZALI DAN KESUKSESANNYA DALAM MENYEBARKAN TEOLOGI SUNNI ASY’ARI

This article aims to describe and analyze the success of Alghazali in spreading Sunni Asy’ari theology. Based on library studies, with Jurgen Habermas's communicative action theory approach, the results of the study show that Alghazali's success in spreading Sunni Asy'ari theology, both during the Abbasids and afterward, is different from the approach taken by his predecessor theologians. If earlier theologians had prioritized the dominated and indoctrinated model of power relations in spreading theology, Alghazali had a different way. Communicative patterns of action that promote skepticism or always provide space for each individual to test the validity of an accepted truth; take action and control over the situation with intuitive knowledge; and utilizing public spaces with various forms of language expression, especially through various works, so that the listener/reader can communicate actively, finally succeeded in bringing Sunni Asy'ari theology to be more known and accepted by the wider community, and made Alghazali as one of the famous figures of it.

Damascius and al-Naẓẓām on the Atomic Leap

AbstractLike Damascius’ ἅλµατα or leaps, al-Naẓẓām’s (died ca. 849 CE) doctrine of the leap (Arabic ṭafra) seems to be an attempt to respond to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion. After a survey of these paradoxes and Aristotle’s responses to them, I discuss some points of resemblance between the physical doctrines of Damascius and al-Naẓẓām. To explain them, I adopt Richard Sorabji’s suggestion of an historical influence by Damascius on al-Naẓẓām. After surveying objections to Sorabji’s thesis, I make use of new paleographical discoveries to suggest that after Justinian’s closure of the Platonic School of Athens, the last Neoplatonic philosophers may have taken the library of the School of Athens—including the ancestors of the core manuscripts of the Collection Philosophique—to the court of Ḫosrow I Anūšīrwān at Ctesiphon ca. 531 CE, where some texts that were the models of this Collection—which includes works by Damascius—may have been translated into Persian. This provides a new possible avenue by which al-Naẓẓām and other early Islamic theologians may have had access to some elements of late Greek philosophy even before the beginnings of the great translation movement sponsored by al-Maʿmūn (r. 813-833 CE).

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology, by Paul Cefalu

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology, by Paul Cefalu

Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology by Gerald P. Boersma

Reviewed by: Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology by Gerald P. Boersma Michael P. Foley Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology by Gerald P. Boersma (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), xiv + 318 pp. In Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, the protagonist perseveres in his faith despite his many failings because of one "convincing mystery—that we were made in God's image." "He would sit in the confessional," Greene writes, "and hear the complicated dirty little ingenuities which God's image had thought out." The whisky priest could not help but see God in the policeman, the maniac, and the sinner in flagrante delicto. The average Christian takes for granted that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, but as Gerald P. Boersma illustrates in his new monograph Augustine's Early Theology of Image, this teaching was anything but self-explanatory. Early Latin pro-Nicene theologians were eager to defend the doctrine that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and to do so they interpreted the Scriptural references to "image" as signifying total equality. According to this tack, when Paul states that Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), the Apostle is affirming the equality of Father and Son sharing one divine substance. But this equation of image and equality, which defends the Son's divinity, also makes it difficult to affirm man's humanity, for asserting that man is or has the imago Dei becomes tantamount to claiming that he is equal to God. At best, humans are only made in or toward (ad secundum) the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26) but are not themselves an image of the divine. Further complicating this anthropology is the question of whether this image in which man is made is an image of God, of Christ, or of the entire Trinity and to what degree, if any, the human body bears the divine image. To show how pro-Nicene Latin theology navigated these waters, Boersma carefully and sympathetically traces the development of image theology in the writings of Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, and Marius Victorinus. His perceptive explication of these authors often challenges commonly held readings, like the assumption that Ambrose's rhetoric of "fleeing the body" implies a rejection of the corporeal. And his explanation of Marius Victorinus's philosophy is the best of its kind that I have read. [End Page 1287] But Boersma's real quest—and the subject of the second half of the book—is to explore image theology in the early writings of Augustine of Hippo. Even prior to his priestly ordination, Boersma maintains, Augustine had developed a theology of image that overcame the shortcomings of his predecessors. Specifically, Boersma contends that through a resourceful application of Platonic participatory ontology, Augustine was able to affirm that two images participating in the same original were not necessarily equal and that the Second Person of the Trinity and humanity are therefore both authentic images of God albeit in different ways. Further, although the imago Dei remains firmly fixed in the higher rational faculties of the human soul, the body may be said to participate in the divine image insofar as it reflects or bears witness to it. (This participation is particularly evident when the body is well governed by the soul in leading a virtuous and faithful life.) Boersma even argues that although Augustine was not operating out of an Aristotelian theory of hylomorphism, he was nonetheless able to avoid dualistic thinking and to affirm, in a way that other Church Fathers were not, the "integrated nature of the body-soul composite" (223). In addition to a nuanced examination of Plotinus, Boersma's study of Augustine's early thought focuses on the four Cassiciacum dialogues (particularly the Contra academicos and Soliloquia), the Diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus and De quantitate animae, and the De vera religione. The study concludes with an epilogue in which Boersma traces a significant continuity between Augustine's early theology and the De Trinitate regarding the imago...

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology by Paul Cefalu

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology by Paul Cefalu

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern Literature and Theology by Paul Cefalu

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern Literature and Theology by Paul Cefalu

Captain Alfred Dreyfus: A case study in the group dynamics of scapegoating

This article explores the metaphor of the scapegoat by offering a case study taken from the history of France at the turn of the 20th-century. The case is presented of a French army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, whose wrongful conviction for treason created an international sensation and tore French society apart. The author outlines the general features of the scapegoating dynamic and applies them to the Dreyfus case. He sets out the flow of events from Dreyfus’s first trial through to the official declaration of his innocence a century after his conviction, illustrating the tenacity of the scapegoating dynamic when an entire nation is caught up in the process. The view is put forward that it was the dramatic intervention by the novelist Emile Zola in the Dreyfus case which arrested the scapegoating process. The author asks what the implications of this might be for group analysis. At the centre of the Dreyfus case was the fact of his Jewishness. The author depicts anti-Semitism as a deeply rooted set of assumptions based on myths about the Jews. He touches on the origins of these myths in early monotheistic theology and in the political ideology of the Far Left and the Far Right. An explanation is offered for the persistence of these myths in our culture, which may extend to our understanding of myths surrounding other peoples and societies. The author concludes with some reflections on the recurring nature of the scapegoat phenomenon.

‘Whatever became of that earlier time of grace?’ Luther, Bonhoeffer and the quincentennial

The quincentenary of the Protestant Reformations creates a challenge. With reference to Protestant churches in South Africa, the ambiguity inherent in this challenge is considered in the first part of the essay. In the second part, Martin Luther’s famous discovery is investigated in light of his earlier theology leading up to 31 October 1517. It is argued that Luther’s earlier theology is characterised by a hermeneutic rediscovery. In the third part, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology is brought into conversation with Luther. It is asked how Bonhoeffer received Luther’s theology – more specifically, how he re-appropriated the hermeneutic inherent in Luther’s earlier theology. In the final part, it is asked what the theological hermeneutic inherent in Luther’s earlier theology – re-appropriated by Bonhoeffer – can mean for South African churches commemorating the Protestant Reformations.

Appropriating Apocalypse in Bonaventure's Breviloquium

Appropriating Apocalypse in Bonaventure's Breviloquium Justin S. Coyle (bio) This essay argues that in his Breviloquium Bonaventure expands the doctrine of trinitarian appropriation beyond its fixed scholastic frame; that he applies this expanded grammar of appropriation across the text both synchronically and diachronically, or formally in its literary structure and narratively throughout its account of salvation history; and that Bonaventure does so, or at least there are good reasons for so thinking, in response to the Joachite controversy that embattled the Franciscan Order of his time, to whose benefit he composed the Breviloquium.1 This is, then, an essay whose central task it is to investigate how a highly technical idiom of the scholastic mastertext features within Bonaventure's particular iteration. The results are striking. There is scarcely a depth in the Breviloquium that trinitarian appropriation does not reach.2 I write with an eye to certain question marks drawn by Bonaventure scholarship. First among these questions concerns the deeply trinitarian character of Bonaventure's thought. It's a feature many think sufficiently obvious to be regarded as a truism.3 But it's axiomatically true, too, as [End Page 99] nearly every scholastic thought, that the universal exists only in the particular. So determining whether the truism about Bonaventure's trinitarianism be true entails narrow attention to the particular. If it's true, that is, that the architecture of Bonaventure's theology is "thoroughly trinitarian,"4 it will be true somewhere. I show the doctrine of the Trinity as the Breviloquium construes it to be pervasive—indeed, to be the doctrine upon which all others hang—and that this depends in large part upon trinitarian appropriation.5 A second and "as yet unresolved" question asks after the specter of Joachim of Fiore in Bonaventure's thought,6 especially his early theology.7 Was even the early Bonaventure "a Joachite malgré lui"?8 How? I cannot accommodate that line of inquiry in full. What follows meets the question of Bonaventurean apocalyptic within the Breviloquium only where [End Page 100] it touches the doctrine of appropriation. There are interesting reasons for thinking these convergences are many, though, as the final section shows. The Grammar of Appropriation The proximate context for Bonaventure's theory of appropriation in the Breviloquium is a discussion of the Trinity.9 Though in truth "the First Principle—God, three and one"10 offers the subject matter for the entire text, only the first part of seven treats the Trinity proper. Within that part Bonaventure gathers his trinitarian theology under three headings. The first concerns the plurality of persons, the next the plurality of manifestations, and the last the plurality of appropriations.11 Bonaventure's notes under the first offer a tight prospectus of the Trinity ad intra. He ornaments it in scholastic patois concerning first the "right understanding" of the Trinity and next its "right expression." The second heading breaks the seal of the Trinity ad extra. There Bonaventure first describes the plurality of divine manifestation, or how God variously indwells, appears, descends, and sends/is sent.12 Last, fixed hard between the divine manifestations and his doctrine of creation, comes trinitarian appropriation. Appropriation for the scholastics names a highly idiosyncratic way of speaking about the Trinity, which is to say a grammar. And constitutive of every grammar is a syntax and a lexicon. The lexicon provides the non-negotiable terms of art by means of which appropriation happens, and the syntax provides the rules of combination in terms of which the lexicon is deployed. This section shows that Bonaventure adopts the syntax of appropriation, broadens its lexicon, and finally expands its grammatical application. The Breviloquium assumes a syntax of appropriation that it never fully describes.13 Still, it offers some hints: [End Page 101] Regarding the plurality of appropriations, Holy Scripture teaches us to hold the following: that even though all the essential attributes apply equally and without distinction to all the persons, yet oneness (unitas) is appropriated (appropriari) to the Father, truth (veritas) to the Son, and goodness (bonitas) to the Holy Spirit… Now, these are said to be appropriated, not because they are proper (propria) <to these persons>, since they are always common...

Gerald P. Boersma, Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology

Gerald P. Boersma, Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology

Gerald P. Boersma , Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. xv + 318. $74.00/£47.99.

Gerald P. Boersma , Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. xv + 318. $74.00/£47.99. - Volume 70 Issue 4

Book Review: A Fresh Exploration of Augustine’s Theology of Image: Gerald P. Boersma, Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology

Book Review: A Fresh Exploration of Augustine’s Theology of Image: Gerald P. Boersma, <i>Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology</i>

Philip Melanchthon’s Early Theology of Preaching: Theologizing the Word of God in His Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531)

This paper focuses on how Philip Melanchthon organized his theology of preaching in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the very first defense of the early church reformers’ approach to doctrine against formal papal criticism as drafted in the Confutation of the Augsburg Confession by Johann Eck, who had been commissioned by emperor Charles V to provide a papal romanist refutation of the reformist Augsburg Confession. The article is going to demonstrate that Melanchthon’s theology of preaching insists on the proclamation of God’s Word as Christ, Gospel, and repentance, an indication that his homiletical theory encompasses key dogmas like christology, revelation, and soteriology, all fundamental tenets which not only define the core of Protestant theology and practice but also provide listeners with the possibility of a changed life experience based on Christ’s work as savior. The main contribution of this paper resides in the fact that on the one hand, it attempts to clarify Melanchthon’s theological position not as a Protestant writing against Catholics but rather as reformist challenging his papal peers within the Catholic church, while on the other hand, it identifies various aspects of his early thought as presented in the Apology—Christ, Gospel, repentance—and places them together systematically into a building block which constitutes his early theology of preaching as dogmatically founded on as well as anchored in christology, revelation, and soteriology.

ピーター・L・バーガーの初期神学 : 社会学者の「宗教」、信仰者の「宗教」

ピーター・L・バーガーの初期神学 : 社会学者の「宗教」、信仰者の「宗教」

Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro‐Nicene Theology by Gerald P. Boersma, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016, pp. xv + 318, £47.99, hbk

New BlackfriarsVolume 98, Issue 1076 p. 486-488 Review AUGUSTINE'S EARLY THEOLOGY OF IMAGE: A STUDY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRO-NICENE THEOLOGY by Gerald P. Boersma, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016, pp. xv + 318, £47.99, hbk FRANCIS SELMAN, FRANCIS SELMANSearch for more papers by this author FRANCIS SELMAN, FRANCIS SELMANSearch for more papers by this author First published: 09 June 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12290Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume98, Issue1076July 2017Pages 486-488 RelatedInformation

Gerald P. Boersma, Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xiv + 318pp. £47.99/$74.00

International Journal of Systematic TheologyVolume 19, Issue 3 p. 351-353 Review Gerald P. Boersma, Augustine's Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xiv + 318pp. £47.99/$74.00 David Vincent Meconi SJ, David Vincent Meconi SJ Jesuit Hall at Saint Louis UniversitySearch for more papers by this author David Vincent Meconi SJ, David Vincent Meconi SJ Jesuit Hall at Saint Louis UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 July 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12225Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume19, Issue3July 2017Pages 351-353 RelatedInformation