G.I. Gurdjieff: Some references to love

New developments in the Gurdjieff. teaching (the Work) have raised questions about the authentic line of the teaching. James Moore in his article “Moveable Feasts: The Gurdjieff Work”; (Religion Today 9 (2), 1994: 11–16) argues that, in terms of the dialectic between personal endeavour and supernal grace, Gurdjieff's teaching is based on making effort rather than receiving grace, working rather than being worked upon. The article looks at some references to love made by Gurdjieff and by some of his pupils. It suggests that, although absent from Work teaching in the Gurdjieff Society in London from the 1950s to the 1980s, grace was an element of Gurdjieff s teaching, and that new practices may serve to restore grace.     

This is Not About Sex? A Discussion of the Understanding of Love and Grace in Bernard of Clairvaux's and Martin Luther's Theologies

Abstract : This article engages the understanding of love and grace in Bernard's and Luther's theologies. Taking as a point of departure Anders Nygren's dichotomy of love in agape and eros, Wiberg Pedersen outlines some of the issues raised by Nygren's thesis. Arguing against Nygren's caricature of Bernard's theology, Wiberg Pedersen shows the similarities between Bernard's and Luther's understandings of love and grace, which lead her to hypothesize that Luther was inspired by Bernard in a theologia caritatis that is simultaneously a theologia cordis (creation and inspiration) and a theologia crucis (incarnation and justification), all led by grace.     

Imago Dei,DNA, and the Transhuman Way

Might genetic engineering or cyborgization turn mortal humans into immortal gods? How transformable are we? A proleptic model of the imago Dei signifies that a transformation is coming, that who we are as human beings is yet to be determined by our future. Of five theological models of the imago Dei—(1) rationality; (2) morality; (3) relationality; (4) prolepsis; and (5) created co-creator—the proleptic and co-creator models are particularly open to an alliance with technological transformation. However, even biological enhancement or intelligence amplification will not turn sinners into saints. Only divine grace can accomplish redemption; only divine grace can insure that we become who we truly are.     

John Plaifere (d.1632) on conditional predestination: a well-mixed version of scientia media and resistible grace

This article argues that John Plaifere's doctrine of predestination appearing in Appello Evangelium (1651) can be labelled as ‘conditional predestination’, since it embodies two Arminian features: scientia media and resistible grace. His conditional predestination needs to be considered as recognizing at least five different variations of predestination in his time. It is distinctive in English Arminianism, but not because Plaifere introduces scientia media and resistible grace or because he is unique in adopting these notions (as is not the case). Rather, Plaifere's doctrine of predestination is distinctive because it is a hybrid version embracing core tenets of Molina, Arminius, Arminianism, and the Remonstrants. Although not every English Arminian or Dutch Remonstrant had much concern for scientia media, Plaifere's conditional predestination advances resistible grace, which is substantially based on the notion of scientia media as its metaphysical foundation. In analyzing Plaifere's Appello Evangelium, one can gain a sense of the specific technical-theological components with which English Arminianism was constructed.     

Thomas Aquinas and the Potential Catholic Integration of a Dynamic Occasionalist Understanding of Grace

Starting out from John Barclay's Lutheran‐inclined, actualist reading of the in‐breaking quality of grace and the Spirit in Paul, this article asks how a Catholic theology of grace – typically more focused on identifying the relatively stable structures and effects of grace – might with integrity learn from the Barclayan‐Lutheran‐Pauline difference. By pursuing a close, four‐step reading of Thomas Aquinas' theology of grace, as that appears in the Summa Theologiæ and his lectures on the Pauline epistles, the article demonstrates that just such a Catholic appropriation of a more dynamic graced actualism is indeed possible; one which leads, with dynamic integrity, to a deepened understanding, articulation and practice of core Catholic instincts rather than to their reduction or distortion.     

Nature and Grace: Two Participations in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards

Christian theologians are increasingly interested in both ontological and soteriological forms of participation theology. Paul Gavrilyuk challenges scholars to be more precise in how these relate to each other. This article contributes to the need for further precision by engaging with the thought of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards employed both types of participation, but did not embed one within the other. Ontological participation, dubbed ‘common participation’, undergirds created nature and is a methexis in God for being. Soteriological participation, dubbed ‘special participation’, explains special grace and is a relational koinonia in the love between the Father and the Son. These two participations are complementary and facilitate a clear distinction between nature and grace.     

What God Cannot Do: Divine Power,the Gratuity of Grace,and Henri De Lubac

When Pius XII promulgated his encyclical Humani generis in 1950, it was widely read as censuring Henri de Lubac’s views on human nature and the desire for God. In recent years, as controversies about nature and grace have revived, this reading of Humani generis has been widely assumed by supporters and critics of de Lubac alike. Henri de Lubac, however, always insisted that the encyclical did not touch his position. This article will argue that, whatever the objectives of the encyclical’s drafters, he was correct. It will make its case by turning to an issue neglected in contemporary debates about nature and grace: divine power. It will first trace the history of Christian reflection on divine power, a story whose twists and turns have only recently been uncovered by medieval historians, and then argue that, with this history in view, interpreting the crucial line in Humani generis as excluding de Lubac’s position becomes untenable. Finally, this article will discuss the implications of this conclusion for contemporary accounts of human nature, the desire for God, and the gratuity of grace.     

Ex Nihilo or Tabula Rasa? God's Grace between Freedom and Fidelity

John Barclay’s magnum opus on grace genuinely moves the discussion forward by describing grace as unconditioned but not unconditional. This essay explores the notion of unconditioned grace as the gift given regardless of worth, disregarding any social and symbolic capital in the process. Taking Romans 9–11 as its case study, this essay argues that the deepest root of Paul’s confidence is God’s fidelity to the people God loved and chose, not God’s repeated movements of creative incongruous grace. Paul knows that in Israel’s case its symbolic capital is also spiritual in pointing towards Israel’s history with God. Far from disregarding this capital and its ethnic component, Paul professes God’s abiding faithfulness to the biological descendants of the patriarchs (Rom. 11:28). In his wrestling to hold God’s astonishing freedom and enduring fidelity together Paul sketches out his gospel of radical sin and grace, where both Jews and Gentiles are equally failing (Rom. 11:32) but met and restored precisely at the point of death and destruction.     

SONYA & RASKÓLNIKOV – TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE ORIGIN OF BARTH'S DOCTRINE OF SIN AND GRACE1

This paper examines the origin of Barth's understanding of sin and grace in his reading of Dostoevsky in 1915. It is essentially the theological portrait of Sonya & Raskólnikov (Crime & Punishment) that regrounds Barth's understanding of sin and grace in an orthodox forensic model, which in turn develops into the mature doctrine we see in Die Kirchliche Dogmatik IV. The young Barth is exposed to many influences in his move away from nineteenth‐century neo‐Protestant liberal theology (characterized by a sociological‐humanistic model of sin). Mediated by his theological colleague Eduard Thurneysen, Dostoevsky is one such influence amongst many. Barth's reading has a profound effect on him: sin becomes defined by and in relation to God –eritis sicut deus. This sublapsarian perspective can then be discerned in his seminal paper ‘Die Gerechtigkeit Gottes’, delivered within months of his reading of Crime & Punishment, particularly in the Dostoevsky motif of the Tower of Babel (this reading occurs five to seven years prior to the generally accepted period of the influence of Dostoevsky). Barth's understanding then develops through his study of Romans (Der Römerbrief ) and by rediscovering a traditional approach in the Reformed Confessions in the 1920s; however, it is his reading of Crime and Punishment that initiates this model of sin and grace.     

Engaging God's Mission and Diakonia in Life of Public Spheres: Justification and Economic Justice

Abstract : This article approaches the theology of mission from the point of view of God's mission and diakonia, seeking a missional model of the grace of justification and economic justice in an age of World Christianity. The author engages a hermeneutical‐prophetic side of evangelization—viva vox evangelii—in the public sphere, and demonstrates the intrinsic connection between missio and diakonia Dei in Jesus Christ using a trinitarian‐hermeneutical perspective. The article shows that evangelization as God's mission occupies a central place by taking into account challenges from the postcolonial emancipation in the context of Empire.     

Incongruous and Creative Grace: Reading Paul and the Gift with Martin Luther

Paul and the Gift by John Barclay advances an interpretation of Paul’s theology of grace that resonates with Martin Luther’s reading: God’s gift is God’s Son, Jesus Christ, given for and to the unworthy. To imagine Luther reading Paul and the Gift is thus to conjure images of deep and fundamental consensus. But questions remain. Is the law a cultural canon of worth that God’s gift of Christ ignores, or is it, as God’s law, a fixed judgement that God’s grace contravenes? Does God give only ‘without regard to worth’ and thus with a kind of divine indifference to cultural indices of value, or does the gift of Christ contradict the conditions of its receipts and thus come in a way that is actually incongruous? With these questions, Luther might push back against Barclay. With others he would ask Barclay to go further. Is not God’s incongruous grace also and characteristically creative? How is the gift of Christ that God gave present to and for recipients as the gift God now gives? In all these ways, Luther’s theology of the word poses questions to or invites expansions of Barclay’s theology of grace.     

Ekstasis as (Beyond?) Jouissance: Sex,Queerness, and Apophaticism in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition

Ekstasis (ecstasy) is central to Eastern Orthodox theology, an encounter that sets the self on the way towards knowledge of and union with God. Ekstasis is fundamentally apophatic — achieved through the eschewal of cognitive knowledge, and experiential — precipitated by practices that foster self-renunciation and transcendence. This article examines how this notion of ecstasy, as narrated in the Orthodox theology of Staniloae and Lossky, can aid, and be aided by, queer theoretical claims regarding sex. Through examining Lacan's notion of jouissance and Bersani's utilization of it, as well as Williams's analysis of sex as “the body's grace,” this article explores how sex, particularly orgasm, can function as a spiritual resource, as a site of and practice towards ecstasy. This article concludes with a brief examination of the ethical implications of this frame.     

CONSTRUCTING A THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION: BUILDING ON JOHN HAUGHT

The construction of a distinctively Christian “theology of evolution” or “theistic evolution” requires the incorporation of the science of evolutionary biology while building a more comprehensive worldview within which all things are understood in relation to our creating and redeeming God. In the form of theses, this article brings four support pillars to the constructive work: (1) orienting evolutionary history to the God of grace; (2) affirming purpose for nature even if we cannot see purpose in nature; (3) employing the theology of the cross to discern divine compassion in the natural world; and (4) relying on the divine promise of new creation. Among other things, John Haught's blueprint has located the pedestals on which these pillars will stand. For this groundwork, Haught deserves thanks.     

Economy and Grace: A Defense of Human Capital

Luther develops his idea of the grace of God in tandem with his idea of economy, and a society characterized by ethical and social values such as love of neighbor and caring for the weak and poor. Hence, the reformer's search for a gracious God is developed along with his criticism of the current indulgence doctrine and the emerging oeconomia moderna. Thus, building on a simul gratia et oeconomia, Luther's reformation theology can be perceived as the intersection of an economy of grace and a horizontal social economy (works of love) in quotidian life that together constitute human capital.     

Climbing the Alchemical Mountain

Using Thomas Vaughan's allegory of the mountain as a backdrop and drawing insights from the myth of Demeter and Persephone, this article elaborates on the challenging and paradoxical path toward individuation, which, in this case, is metaphorically expressed as climbing a mountain. Although, at first, it is often assumed that individuation is a straightforward process of moving forward and upward, this article demonstrates that this is not the case. Rather, individuation is a complex endeavor that initially takes one down instead of up. In other words, to climb the mountain is to encounter the prima materia, to come face to face with one's shadow, and to take the many unforeseen detours away from the ego's fixed goals. In the end, what is discovered is that one never attains the mystery (or reaches the top) by strength and will alone, but rather by divine grace, which the alchemical literature describes as the aqua permanens, the “stream of living water from the summit of the mountain.”