Union and Communion: Calvin's Theology of Word and Sacrament

Some scholars consider Calvin's teaching on the sacraments to be an integral part of his theology. Others have challenged the Reformer's consistency in this area, regarding Calvin's eucharistic teaching in particular as a 'foreign, uncongenial element' in his work. My argument in this article is that Calvin's eucharistic teaching, particularly in its 'more nearly patristic' emphases, is neither inimical nor secondary to his system but is in fact an essential and promising outworking of his theology. As with other perspectives, Calvin's understanding of Word and sacrament generates a particular kind of ecclesiology with emphases that remain ecumenically significant and vital for the life and mission of the church.     

A Mirror for God and for Us: Christology and Exegesis in Calvin's Doctrine of Election

Although John Calvin's doctrine of election is often criticized, it remains seriously under-described in both content and form. By attending to one strand of its content (Christ and election), and one persistently unappreciated aspect of its form (exegesis), this article attempts a substantial construal of the doctrine in Calvin's theology. It aims to show that, for Calvin, Christ is the subject of election in that he is its author, and Christ is the object of election in that he mediates both election itself and the salvation which flows from election. The focus on Calvin's exegesis of election and Christology establishes contact points with some important theological concerns: Karl Barth's reading of Calvin; election and the extra Calvinisticum ; and 'christocentrism' in Calvin's theology.     

Creative Reappropriation: Barth's Use of Calvin in the Münster Ethics (1928/29)

This article demonstrates Calvin's impact upon Barth's ethics through a close reading of Barth's MÏnster lectures on ethics. Already in these early lectures Barth insisted on the coherence of dogmatic and ethical reflection, and developed the basic structure and some characteristic themes of his mature ethical reflection in the Church Dogmatics . By showing the ways in which Barth was influenced by Calvin in these formative first ethics lectures the case is made that a thorough understanding of Calvin's theology is necessary for a correct appreciation of Barth's ethics and of his theology as a whole.     

CALVINIST RESOURCES FOR CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICAL LIFE: A Critique of Michael Walzer's Revolution of the Saints

Inheriting the religious prejudices of the Enlightenment, many supporters of liberal democracy consider John Calvin's theology contrary to the norms and virtues necessary for productive public discourse in a religiously and culturally diverse society. In Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics , Michael Walzer makes a similar assumption, arguing that, despite its contribution to political modernization, the inherent fideism, absolutism, and intolerance of Calvinism constitutes a threat to public discourse in liberal society. In this paper, I contend that the prevailing understanding of Calvin's theology is incorrect. In actuality he is a nuanced natural law thinker, whose complex understanding of human nature and the state encourages the subtle balance of virtues that contemporary political life requires.     

Imputation as Attribution: Union with Christ, Reification and Justification as Declarative Word

Calvin's integration of the christological features of the eucharistic controversy with soteriological questions in his refutation of Andreas Osiander marks a critical development in Reformed theology. In this article, that development is extended further in reconsideration of the nature of imputation as a linguistic action. It is argued that imputation is a soteriological corollary of the christological idea of attribution. Imputation thus conceived clarifies not only how it is located within the doctrine of union with Christ, but how that union and imputation provide clarity in ongoing discussions about reification of sin and righteousness as well as the nature of justification as a declarative word.     

Between the Rock and a Hard Place: In Support of (something like) a Reformed View of the Eucharist

In this article, Calvin's eucharistic theology is re-read in the light of Aquinas, Augustine, Irenaeus, Luther, Jean-Luc Marion, Graham Ward and Catherine Pickstock. It is found to have great strengths, sucessfully avoiding both static ideas of Christ's presence and individual nominalism, while allowing a prominent place for the Holy Spirit and room for the believer's faith. Calvin took account of the doctrine of the Ascension quite differently from Luther by stressing Christ's bodily absence from this world. The article argues that this dialectic of presence and absence would gain from giving it a temporal dimension, giving more weight to eschatology.     

Calvin's Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ's Human Nature

Abstract:  Discussion regarding the type of human nature assumed by the second person of the Trinity has intensified recently. Judgements regarding dogmatic coherence have not been as forthcoming. John Calvin's Christology is presented here as a helpful context within which the fallenness position may be advanced. Calvin's doctrine of original sin allows for fallen nature to be considered distinct from guilt. Calvin's doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum also allows for the predication of fallenness to Christ's human nature without necessitating the contamination of the divine nature.     

Calvin's View of Natural Knowledge of God

For Calvin, the relation between God's revelation in the sensus divinitatis and God's revelation in his works is not reducible to the distinction between internal and external revelation. Adams' contextual interpretation of Calvin's treatment of the natural knowledge of God in the Institutes illumines some the subtle complexity of Calvin's argument – an argument which is informed both philosophically and biblically. Both Calvin's positive evaluation of natural revelation and his pessimistic stance vis-à-vis the ability of humanity to appropriate it emerge from Adams' analysis.     

'Deny Yourself and Take up Your Cross': John Calvin on the Christian Life

John Calvin's vision of the Christian life is guided by the fundamental insight that what distorts our lives more than anything else is our blind self-love. This self-love is the reason why we love to hear things that flatter us, and hate to hear things that truly reveal who we are. Our self-love also provides the driving engine behind our pride, ambition and arrogance, whereby we seek the meaning of our lives in power, wealth and honor, so that we may despise those we consider to be inferior to us. If we are to be transformed more and more into the image and likeness of God, so that we may at the end be united with God in eternal life, we must eradicate this blind self-love from our hearts. Although there is much in Calvin's vision of the Christian life that may strike us as odd or even as alien, it is hard to disagree with his insight that blind self-love is the primary reason our lives do not express the image and likeness of God.     

Chalcedonian Christology and beyond: Luther's understanding of the Communicatio Idiomatum

Luther, Zwingli and Calvin are in full accord with the Chalcedonian definition of Christ as one person in two natures, which are united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly and inseparably. The main point of disagreement among them concerns the usage of the so-called communicatio idiomatum . Luther refers to this mainly in his disputes with other theologians such as Nestorius and Zwingli, whereas when he engages in constructive theology or in biblical interpretation, it seems that he does not use it. He could use it because he found it to be in harmony with his own Christological thinking which, he believed, was rooted in the Bible. The doctrine is, for him, an ontological deduction from the cross and the incarnation. The primary purpose of this article is to see how Luther understood the Christological predication, and only in a limited scope bring him in conversation with Zwingli's and Calvin's understanding. Although the traditional interpretation, that the properties of Christ's two natures are communicated to the concretum of his person, predominates in Luther's thought, he went beyond it, affirming a real communication between the two natures. The logic of his usage of the doctrine of the communication of properties enables Luther to move beyond Chalcedonian understanding of Christology, and also sets him apart from the Reformed tradition. Special attention will be given to Luther's usage of the doctrine in relation to the passibility motif, demonstrating that the human idiomatum of suffering and dying belong to God's very being.     

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY? THEOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITY

To suppose the possibility of dialogue between theology and science is to suppose that theology is an intellectually worthy partner to engage in dialogue with science. The status of theology as a discipline, however, remains contested, one sign of which is the absence of theology from the university. I argue that a healthy theology‐science dialogue would benefit from the presence of theology as an academic discipline in the university. Theology and theologians would benefit from the much closer contact with university disciplines, including the sciences. The university and the sciences would benefit from the presence of theology, providing a department of ultimate concern, where big questions may be asked and ideologies critiqued. A university theology would need to meet standards of academic integrity.     

Badiou,Keyser, and the Theo-mathematics of the Infinite

Abstract

This paper discusses Alain Badiou's dissolution of theology in light of his equation of ontology and mathematics and his separation of the infinite from the one. I argue, however, that Badiou leaves open a place for theology, and I exploit this for theology by drawing on the work of the American mathematician Cassius Jackson Keyser. Keyser suggests a more positive relationship between mathematics, ontology, and theology, and his claim that theology is the science of idealization allows us to begin to think about how one might go about doing philosophical theology after Badiou.     

Theology: Reduction or Autonomy?

Issues of the nature and task of theology remain important to the science-theology dialogue. This paper lays out a framework for understanding the nature of theology in relation to the other sciences. In particular, I argue that the primary question remains one of autonomy and reduction. If theology is a genuine academic discipline, then it should be an autonomous field with its own subject matter and norms. Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that theology is the science of God, but I suggest that theology be more broadly understood as the science of meaning. If we recognize this, the modes of interaction between theology and the other sciences becomes clearer.     

Psychological-type theory and Christian theology: a conflict between implicit and explicit religions?

This study analyses the relationship between psychological-type theory and Christian theology through the lens of implicit religion, drawing on the conceptualisation of implicit religion proposed by Edward Bailey, on the methodology for identifying implicit religion proposed by Tatjana Schnell, and on an heuristic framework derived from systematic theology. The case is argued that psychological-type theory can be conceptualised as implicit religion and implicit theology in a way that enables dialogue (and conflict) between psychological-type theory and Christian theology to be reconceptualised within the established field of the theology of religions.     

Theology and Politics in Contemporary Greece

This article examines the interaction between theology and politics in the case of the “theology of the 1960s,” a theological renewal movement that emerged in Greece in the 1960s, accompanied by the call for a “return to the Fathers.” The first part of the paper seeks to describe the position of the theology of the 1960s toward politics, while the second considered the position of politics after 1974 toward the theology of the 1960s. It concludes that there was a partial instrumentalization of the theology of the 1960s for tactical political ends. This was a missed opportunity leading to politics becoming devoid of all spiritual content, while theology lost its feedback from social experience and its penetration into society. The article concludes by making several suggestions for the tasks that lie ahead, including the need to cultivate a critical history of the political intervention and the social role of Orthodox theology, and to expand the issues that concern Orthodox theology, such as anthropology or cosmology, to embrace questions of the role of the meaning of history and progressive change in human society.     

KARL BARTH AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

It is commonly held that Karl Barth emphatically rejected the usefulness of philosophy for theology. In this essay I explore the implications of Barth's theological epistemology for the relationship and proper boundaries between philosophy and theology, given its origin in Barth's theology of revelation. I seek to clarify Barth's position with respect to philosophy by distinguishing the contingency of its offence from any necessary incompatibility. Barth does not reject philosophy per se, but the way in which philosophy is typically conducted. This is made explicit through an analysis of Barth's censure of the uncritical acceptance in theology of modernist philosophical presuppositions. I nuance Barth's response to a collection of philosophical assumptions that are rarely distinguished in theological literature. Finally, I highlight a representative instance of Barth's reflections on philosophy in relationship to theology, to demonstrate that the criterion for evaluating the usefulness of philosophical assumptions and methods in the service of theology is the same criterion by which theology is itself evaluated.     

After justification: Toward a Dalit public Lutheran theology

The aim of this article is to construct a “Dalit public Lutheran theology” as an “after‐justification” conversation, which drafts an agenda for the future of Lutheran theology in the twenty‐first century. In moving toward that construction, I first briefly explain Dalit theology, public theology, and Lutheran theology and shall discuss the rationale for a Dalit public Lutheran theology. From there I propose that Lutheran theology needs to take a contextual, post‐colonial and subaltern turn. Then I discuss the contours of Dalit public Lutheran theology by discussing one of the pivotal doctrine of Luther, “justification by grace through faith,” by engaging in a Dalit public discourse and propose “hospitality by love” as what comes after justification. Finally, I bring out the relevance of such a theology for our present‐day context. The method I employ in this article is subaltern methodology, which is to “read from below” or “read against the grain.” “After justification” is understood as “beyond” the understanding of doctrine of justification, as a forward‐looking public theological understanding of justification, where it finds fecundity and validity.     

Faith and Praxis in Theology

In this article the author examines the relationship between faith and praxis in theology. The contemporary trends that make this relationship crucial for theology are noted, and its implications for Christian witness are explored through a brief analysis of several “liberation theologies.” The development of the relationship between faith and praxis is traced in Latin American liberation theology, African Christian theology, Asian Christian theology, feminist theology in the United States, and Black theology in the United States. Finally, some observations are given regarding the kind of faith and praxis that is demanded of Christians who would give authentic witness today.