Theological Outlook Research Articles

The Philosophy of Antiphilosophy in Islam

In this article, I will examine Aristotle’s protreptic argument for the necessity of philosophy as it was deployed by Al-Kindi. I will show how a Muslim critic of philosophy, primarily one who is aligned with the theological outlook of Ibn Hanbal, can reasonably reject the protreptic argument as Al-Kindi presents it. The argument can, however, be reworked in a way to circumvent common criticisms of it presented by Hanbalī-style opponents of philosophy. Indeed, I will argue that, once the argument is properly clarified with reference to what constitutes ‘philosophy’, its soundness is incontrovertible. In closing, I will briefly discuss why Muslim critics of philosophy need not see the protreptic argument as threatening, as the inevitability of philosophy does not necessitate a commitment to all sorts of philosophical positions, however problematic these may be for Islamic doctrine.

The charmed circle: identity in Utopia, unethical practices, and Augustine’s two cities

This article considers Utopia’s unethical practices alongside The City of God’s understanding of the earthly polity’s relationship to eschatology. In Augustine’s view, within the earthly city every person could potentially become a friend of the heavenly city in time, and the existing political situation must always be rendered partial and incomplete against the telos of eternity. These convictions stand in conspicuous contrast with Utopia. The Utopian system is in important ways founded on institutionalized practices which not only exclude non-Utopians (or ex-Utopians), but also habituate them to vice. Examining Utopia alongside The City of God illuminates how this ethical problem in Utopia is not just a matter of individual practices or institutions, but rather derives from a more fundamental metaphysical and theological outlook. Not only is Utopia invested in a Utopian/non-Utopian distinction; more significantly, this distinction has a tacit eschatological role, since Utopian thinking implies that degradation of one’s capacity for virtue decreases one’s potential to be saved.

The Essence of My Coaching Is to Serve: Monty Williams, Faith, and Relationality

Oftentimes, an athletic coach is tasked with establishing a player–coach relationship that is built on trust, commitment, accountability, hard work, and a belief in process. More recently, however, head coach of the Phoenix Suns, Monty Williams, has garnered considerable public attention for adding faith into that equation. Though faith is primarily considered a theological outlook and expression of spiritual value, it has extended beyond religiosity into his coaching praxis and pedagogy. In the paper, I look to add the voice of Monty Williams to the rich cohort of Black people assembled by Carey Latimore in Unshakable Faith: African American Stories of Redemption, Hope, and Community, a text principally concerned with illuminating the diversity in thought and expression of faith. Additionally, I draw on theories from Black Studies, post-colonial studies, and the sociology of sport to interrogate a particular discursive formulation advanced by Williams—“[…] the essence of my coaching is to serve”. I explore the nature of a faith-based coaching philosophy in the game of basketball and how the notion of coaching as service expresses a dynamic, complex set of religious histories, but also embodies a form of relationality centered on the following question: What does it mean to navigate sociopolitical life and death in community?

Human action and social structures. A Reformed theological critique of conflict theory and micro-interactionist theory

People’s understanding of the origins of social structures and their relatedness, or lack thereof, to human actions and divine providence has a bearing on the moral significance they attach to the rules of structures. Within sociology, both structural-conflict theory and micro-interactionist theory has provided theories on the interplay between human actions and structures. Although both strands attempt to ground their ideas in empirical evidence, philosophical-anthropological views on human nature, the human will and human freedom play a major role in constructing the theories. In this article it is argued that the two theories are based on philosophical premises that create moral difficulties. Conflict theory, emphasising structures as the cause of human behaviour, risks cultivating a revolutionary moral attitude towards social structures that may end up in endless cycles of nihilist conduct. In contrast, micro-interactionism’s social constructivist explanation of the relationship between human action and structures could lead to moral relativism and apathy. This article reflects on an alternative approach. At the core of both voluntarist and revolutionary moral attitudes towards structures lies the notion that morality has no grounding in a deeper reality – they are merely social constructions. The article argues that a Reformed-Christian theory that grounds moral responsibility in what Michael Welker calls an ‘anthropology of the spirit’ may provide an alternative that avoids the moral ambiguities created by structural-conflict theory and micro-interactionist theory. This approach resists voluntarism by grounding morality in God who is the origin of being and understanding moral conduct in terms of the encounter between the divine and human spirit. It counters anarchy by promoting a spirit of moral realism and constant social renewal that takes seriously the consistent threat of the desire for power.Contribution: The specific contribution of this article consists in it bringing Reformed theology and sociology into dialogue. It identifies blind spots in conflict and micro-interactionist theories on the relationship between human agency and social structures, especially when it comes to morality. It also indicates how both theories are guided mainly by presuppositions about human nature and the human will. In response, it is attempted to provide an alternative theological outlook on the question of the relationship between human agency and social structures, which grounds morality in an anthropology of the Spirit. Until now, no such attempt has been made.

The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics by Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb

Reviewed by: The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics by Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb Amy Gilbert Richards LIPSCOMB, Benjamin J. B. The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. xxx + 326 pp. Cloth, $27.95 In The Women Are Up to Something, Lipscomb demonstrates in form and content the inextricable link between philosophical theory and personal story and character. The book tells two stories: "first, a story [End Page 148] about four women, their overlapping friendships, and their struggle to establish themselves as philosophers in an often-hostile context; second, a story about two conflicting approaches to ethics." These two stories connect through the role these women played in the development of the second of the conflicting approaches—a challenge to the mid-twentieth-century Oxbridge orthodoxy in metaethics, what Lipscomb later calls a "minority report." Chapter 1 centers on the fact–value divide. The consequence of this divide for ethics lies in its banishment of all evaluative terms from the realm of possible facts, thereby demoting them to matters of "opinion." Lipscomb here offers a genealogy of the divide. He also introduces the insight that will become the seed of the minority report: The picture of the world offered by the fact-value divide is just that, a picture. Bringing to light the deep background pictures that undergird our understanding of the world is one of the most difficult intellectual tasks. But the picture rooted in the fact–value divide includes the claim that the divide itself is simply a "fact"—not a picture at all, and therefore not contestable. Lipscomb labels this view "the Dawkins' sublime." The next three chapters continue the work of stage-setting. Chapter 2 immerses us in the Oxford of the women's undergraduate years—an Oxford temporarily but dramatically altered by World War II, where female students made up a much larger percentage of the undergraduate population than was usual, and where professors were in a new way open to mentoring women. Chapter 3 briefly recounts all four childhoods, lived in the aftermath of the first World War. Chapter 4 returns to Oxford and narrates the graduate degrees of the four women. It also offers a perceptive primer on the history of analytic ethics, culminating in the state of the field at the point when the women were on the cusp of entering it—the precise shape of the approach to ethics the women would eventually abjure. Each of the next four chapters traces the development of the mature philosophy of one of the four women—in order: Murdoch, Anscombe, Foot, and Midgley. Despite deep differences among their philosophical and theological outlooks, they all four came to defend a version of the thesis, commonplace in ancient and medieval philosophy, that there are things that are good for human beings qua human being, that our moral lives are largely a matter of seeing and responding—well or poorly—to these elements of the human good that are given as part of our nature. In other words, there are facts about values. We in crucial ways discover rather than invent morality. The last chapter serves as an epilogue to both stories: It traces the ways in which the writing and lives of these four women produced a decisive change in the landscape of Anglo-American philosophy. Lipscomb notes which strains in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy owe their existence to the minority report. Figures like Korsgaard feature as contemporary representatives of an ethics grounded in the fact–value [End Page 149] divide. Figures like MacIntyre and Hursthouse feature as inheritors of the philosophical legacy of the book's heroines. In this final chapter Lipscomb also offers brief portraits of the later life and death of each of the women in turn. At the end of the final portrait, the book rounds to a poetic close—not offering a final philosophical statement but reflecting on the fruits of friendship and the power of its legacy for those who come after. It is difficult to pin down Lipscomb's precise philosophical...

North-South Partnership in God’s Mission: Joining Hands in the Construction of a Reconciliation Politics

This paper asks if there any hope today, in the midst of the pulls and tugs of current globalizing and counter-globalizing forces, of differing theological outlooks and intestine tensions, that the world Church can constitute a politics of reconciliation instead of one characterized by polarized confrontation. Employing the metaphor of “hands,” it proposes some needed steps towards the realization of that hope. Hands can join in reconciliation when they are open in confession and emptied of the manipulation of money, when all hands are welcome at the table, wounded as they are, and when they are raised in communal praise and supplication.

Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation by Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021, pp. viii + 220, £65.00, hbk

Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation by Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021, pp. viii + 220, £65.00, hbk

Paul, Politics, and New Creation: Reconsidering Paul and Empire by Najeeb T. Haddad

Reviewed by: Paul, Politics, and New Creation: Reconsidering Paul and Empire by Najeeb T. Haddad Timothy Gombis najeeb t. haddad, Paul, Politics, and New Creation: Reconsidering Paul and Empire (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2021). Pp. xiii + 213. $100. This volume, a revision of the author's doctoral dissertation completed at Loyola University in Chicago (2018), critiques counterimperial interpretations of Paul. Haddad argues that Paul's theological outlook and instructions in his letters demand a more nuanced description than being either "anti" or "pro" imperial (p. 3). The first two chapters consider the state of the question and examine arguments that Paul's rhetoric was counterimperial. In a third chapter, H. explores the manner in which foreign cults existed within the Roman Empire. Haddad then describes, in chap. 4, the relationship of Paul's assemblies to associations as they existed in the ancient Greco-Roman world. His final chapter articulates the thrust of Paul's preaching, focusing on the distinction between kosmos ("cosmos") and kainē ktisis ("new creation") "and their cosmological and anthropological significance in Paul's eschatological soteriology" (p. 139). Haddad's opening chapter describes the state of play in scholarship and highlights substantive criticisms put to those who argue for a counterimperial Paul. He notes the diversity of its forms throughout various regions to support his claim that "the imperial cult was not a sort of unified doctrine across the Roman Empire" (p. 7). Further, the manner in which the emperor was regarded as a deity is ambiguous, at the very least. That the emperor was "divine" was more of an honorific title than a recognition that he held a place among the gods (p. 9). Sacrifices and prayers were not made to emperors, but rather on their behalf. H. regards this as important in order to demonstrate that it is misguided to compare as competing claims the attribution of the title divi filius to Augustus and Paul's reference to Jesus as "the Son of God." These terms function differently in Roman ideology and Pauline christology. In his second chapter, H. questions the claim that Paul's letters contain "coded speech" meant to undermine the empire by exploring "figured speech" in ancient rhetoric: "a rhetorical device that communicates a covert message" (p. 43). He notes that ancient rhetoricians commonly referred to three forms of such speech: implied meaning, deflection, and [End Page 327] saying the opposite. He reviews the circumstances in which these forms would be employed, along with how they would be created and detected, before then analyzing Pauline passages that interpreters claim to be hidden transcripts. Especially pertinent is Rom 13:1–7. Reviewing several proposals, H. finds that their claims do not hold up to close scrutiny against the conventions of ancient rhetoricians. Taking into account Paul's Jewishness, his noting that civil authorities are "servants" and not divinities is not a subversion but is consistent with how Paul's Jewish contemporaries regarded earthly rulers. And Paul was aware of Greco-Roman rhetoric, so the absence of clues indicating figured speech is notable. In treating the relationship of Roman imperial rule to the religious practices of subjugated peoples in far-flung locations, H. notes that there was little interest in converting foreigners to a Roman religion. While foreign cults within Rome itself would have invited more intense scrutiny and, occasionally, suppression, Rome was far more tolerant in the Greek east. Further, when it comes to identifying contemporaneous analogous social realities with the kinds of communities Paul saw himself creating and nurturing, H. asserts that Paul was creating something completely new (p. 129). This new reality, H. asserts in his final and concluding chapter, is the kainē ktisis, a new cosmic reality into which people are delivered by God, who rescues them from enslavement under various powers within the kosmos. According to H., this is the cosmic reality within which Paul conceives of the Roman Empire. Along with the kosmos, which is fading away in light of the dawning eschatological salvation God is bringing about in Christ, the Roman Empire will pass away and so is not a prominent target of Paul's rhetoric (p. 154). Overall, H. presents a satisfying account of how...

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

Die Rede von “Wiedergeburt” im Neuen Testament: Ein metapherntheoretisch orientierter Neuansatz nach 100 Jahren Forschungsgeschichte

Die Rede von “Wiedergeburt” im Neuen Testament: Ein metapherntheoretisch orientierter Neuansatz nach 100 Jahren Forschungsgeschichte

A Transcript of Submission: Jesus as Fated Victim of Divine Violence in the Old Saxon Heliand

The Heliand, written shortly after the conquest and conversion of the Saxons at the hands of Charlemagne, maintains a vexed place in the study of medieval European Christianity(ies). Some argue that the Heliand’s overarching intent was pastoral, meant to ease the fears and calm the rage of the defeated Saxons, while others posit that the Heliand reflects a “dissident gospel,” aimed at subverting the official theological outlook of the Carolingian empire. This study argues that while both theories capture something of the Heliand’s ingenious contextual impact, they underestimate one of its key themes: the role of wurd (fate) and its co-identification with the “power of God,” which drives Jesus to the cross and scaffolds his submission to the violence of the divine will. Thus, the Heliand presents compliant victimization as the proper “fate” of those who submit to God’s purposes, promising a heavenly reward and countermanding the Saxon ethos of resistance.

Revivalism, Bible Societies, and Tract Societies in the Kingdom of Hungary: A Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Cultural, and Multi-Denominational Work for Spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ

Abstract The current research paper seeks to investigate how Evangelicals and Pietist, the most fervent of Protestants sought to ‘educate’ the masses outside the educational framework of ecclesiastical and state structures within the Hungarian Kingdom. More specifically the study intends to offer a concise overview of the history of Protestants who spread the gospel through the distribution of affordable Bibles, New Testaments and Christian tracts. It shows how various denominations worked together as well as directs attention to their theological outlook which transcended ethnic boundaries. It is a well-known fact in mission and church history that such undertakings were carried out to stir revivalism. The study also throws light on how influential role the Scottish Mission as well as Archduchess Maria Dorothea played in stirring revivalism through the aforementioned means. The history of these kinds of endeavours, especially that of the most significant ones like the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society and Religious Tract Society has not been treated adequately by historians of religion and education, intellectual historians and social historians. This research output is a contribution to give an account of the multi-ethnic and transdenominational work of Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Slovaks and Romanians working for a common goal.

The Never-Chosen: Samson Occom, the New Divinity, and Indigenous Self-Determination

The Never-Chosen: Samson Occom, the New Divinity, and Indigenous Self-Determination

Hart and Sartre on God and Consciousness

ABSTRACT This article offers a comparative reading of the ontologies of David Bentley Hart and Jean-Paul Sartre as well as their respective appeals to phenomenology as a philosophical method. While it may seem odd to compare one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated atheists with one of contemporary Christianity’s most highly-acclaimed critics of atheism, this article shows that there are many surprising parallels between the ontological outlooks of Hart and Sartre, namely their conceptions of God as the unity of being and consciousness and their accounts of human consciousness as a desire to ‘become God’. By examining the similarities and differences between Sartre’s and Hart’s philosophical and theological works, this article seeks to highlight the phenomenological aspects of Hart’s theological outlook and consider how Hart’s appeal to the phenomenological analysis of intentional consciousness in his theological work can illuminate our understanding of the ongoing engagements between theology and phenomenology.

British Evangelicals and German Pietists Promoting Revival through the Work of the Bible and Tract Societies in Hungary

This article demonstrates how British evangelicals, German pietists, and Hungarian Protestants sought to ‘educate’ the masses outside the educational framework of ecclesiastical and state structures within the Hungarian Kingdom in the nineteenth century. More specifically the study intends to offer a concise overview of the history of Protestants who spread the gospel through the distribution of affordable Bibles, New Testaments and Christian tracts. It shows how various denominations worked together and directs attention to their theological outlook which transcended ethnic boundaries. It is a well-known fact in mission and church history that such undertakings were carried out to stir revivalism. The study also throws light on the influential role the Scottish Mission, as well as Archduchess Maria Dorothea, played in stirring revivalism through the aforementioned means. The history of these endeavours, especially those of the British and Foreign Bible Society and Religious Tract Society, has not been treated adequately by intellectual historians, social historians or historians of religion and education. This account adds to scholarly understanding of the multi-ethnic and trans-denominational work of international Protestantism in Central Europe.

Did the Johannine Community Exist?

This article challenges the historical existence of the ‘Johannine community’ – a hypothesized group of ancient churches sharing a distinctive theological outlook. Scholars posit such a community to explain the similarities of John to 1, 2 and 3 John as well as the epistles’ witness to a network of churches. Against this view, this article calls attention to evidence of literary contact between the four texts and the presence of dubious authorial claims in each. Taken together, these features cast John, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John as unreliable bases for historical reconstruction, whose implied audiences and situations are probably fabrications. The article proceeds to develop a new history of the Johannine texts. Those texts represent a chain of literary forgeries, in which authors of different extractions cast and recast a single invented character – an eyewitness to Jesus’ life – as the mouthpiece of different theological viewpoints.

Regional Influences on the Sermons of Venantius Fortunatus

The two sermons of the sixth-century poet Venantius Fortunatus, the Expositio symboli and the Expositio orationis dominicae, deserve more attention than they have received. Where did Fortunatus obtain this knowledge of theology? What do his theological emphases in these sermons say about where he obtained it? Finally, what does his theological outlook say about his identity as an Italian émigré in Merovingian Gaul at the end of his life? Based on the internal evidence of his poetic and prose works, Fortunatus shows influences on his theological outlook that derive initially from Ravenna, where he also received his liberal education, and later on Gaul itself. Despite the suggestions of some, Aquileia is most probably not a source of his theology. The sources he used in these sermons were widely available throughout the Latin West. His focus in the Expositio symboli on the cross demonstrates the influence of the presence of the relic of the True Cross in Poitiers, and the strong Augustinianism present in his Expositio orationis dominicae reflects his training in Rome-influenced Ravenna. By the end of his life, when he became bishop of Poitiers, he showed a confidence in his own judgment that demonstrates his integration into Gallic society.

Do as I Say, Not as They Do: Social Construction in the Epistle of Barnabas Through Canonical Interpretation and Ritual

AbstractScholars have not yet expounded on the importance and rationale of a key metaphor found in the Epistle of Barnabas: the circumcision of hearing (Barn. 9.1–3). In part, that is because the significance of this metaphor does not directly contribute to the theological outlook or background of Barnabas, which are topics that have largely preoccupied Barnabas scholarship. Yet, not only is this metaphor significant, but its significance lies in its social and communal implications. To explore these implications, I draw upon interdisciplinary research on canon and ritual. Research in these areas has independently demonstrated that canon and ritual are fundamental elements of any group, and I employ theoretical tools from these research areas to explain how Barnabas attempts to create and/or sustain his group by offering a new canon (or canonical interpretation) that could only be understood through the circumcision of hearing. Owing to the theoretical richness of canon and ritual, my study can also serve as a methodological template to examine the dynamics of other communal groups.

Cone’s Binary View of Africanness and Christianity Through the Eyes of his African American Critics

Unlike some of his American colleagues, James Cone tended to distance Black Theology from Africanness in general and African Traditional Religions in particular. Throughout his life this tendency has evolved, but never disappeared altogether. This article sets out to achieve three goals. First, I give a historical account of Cone’s relationship with Africa, particularly with African religiosity, focusing on the criticism he received from his colleagues in the U.S. (notably Gayraud Wilmore, Cecil Cone and Charles Long). Second, I analyse the tension between the Christian and the African in Cone’s theological outlook by probing his notion of indigenization/Africanization among others. Third, I seek to interpret Cone’s binary view of Christianity and Africanness in the light of his chief locus of enunciation, namely Western Christianity (albeit contested). My attempt here is to lay foundations for an engagement with Cone’s attitude toward Africanness from the current South African (decolonial) perspective by considering it, first, within its original African American context.