LUTHER AND DIONYSIUS: BEYOND MERE NEGATIONS

This article argues that common ground may be found between Dionysius and Luther if one goes beyond the customary “mystical” framework for analyzing Dionysius’ work and views Luther (despite his dismissal of Dionysius as an impostor) as standing in a long line of interpreters who had sought to give Dionysian ideas a more explicitly Christological focus. Specifically, I argue, the similarities lie in Luther's conceptualization of God's hidden presence and the reformer's strongly ontological doctrine of justification. The latter has a procession‐return structure within which the status of the justified person, qua justified, is expressed in terms reminiscent of the Dionysian analogia.     

THEOLOGICAL ETHICS, THE CHURCHES, AND GLOBAL POLITICS

Several discourses about theology, church, and politics are occurring among Christian theologians in the United States. One influential strand centers on the communitarian theology of Stanley Hauerwas, who calls on Christians to witness faithfully against liberalism in general and war in particular. Jeffrey Stout, in his widely discussed Democracy and Tradition (2004), responds that religious people ought precisely to endorse those democratic and liberal American traditions that join religious and secular counterparts to battle injustice. Hauerwas, Stout, and many of their interlocutors envision liberal U.S. culture as the context of Christian social ethics. The ensuing debate rarely incorporates Catholic scholars, feminist scholars, scholars of color, or international and liberationist voices. Their inclusion could enhance an understanding of the role of the church in society, and support a common morality in the face of global pluralism. More importantly, it could broaden the scope of discourse on religion and politics to envision global Christian social ethics.     

TRANSHUMANISM,THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY,AND MODERN BIOLOGICAL TAXONOMY

I examine the ways in which the theological and philosophical debate surrounding transhumanism might profit by a detailed engagement with contemporary biology, in particular with the mainline accounts of species and speciation. After a short introduction, I provide a very brief primer on species concepts and speciation in contemporary biological taxonomy. Then in a third section (titled “Implications for Technological Alteration of Species”) I draw out some implications for the prospects of our being able intentionally to intervene in human evolution for the production of new species out of Homo sapiens. In a fourth section (titled “How Does the Biological Conception of Homo sapiens Relate to a Philosophical (or Theological) Account of Human Nature? And Where Does This Leave Transhumanism?”) I bring in the debate over the proper relationship between biological and theological conceptions of human nature, laying out the major options available (in light of Ian Barbour's fourfold categorization schema) and considering their possible implications for our understanding of transhumanism. In a fifth section (titled “Potential Applications to Specific Subdisciplines of Theology”) several concrete examples are drawn out pertaining to particular subdisciplines within theology (hamartiology, soteriology, and eschatology). I conclude by briefly laying out some suggestions for future work, focusing on tasks that theologians specifically ought to pursue.     

SOCIOBIOLOGY AND ITS THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Abstract. The broad character of the arguments used by sociobiologists is assessed, particularly in relation to criticisms coming from anthropology. The implications of sociobiology for theology are developed with respect to the general impact of evolutionary ideas, the reductionist assumptions of sociobiologists, whether or not "survival" can be a value, and more holistic accounts of the physical and biological grounding of the mental and spiritual lives of human beings.     

TIME AND ETERNITY: HYMNIC,BIBLICAL, SCIENTIFIC,AND THEOLOGICAL VIEWS

The book Time and Eternity, the English version of Zeit und Ewigkeit, by Antje Jackelén, contains scientific and theological treatments of these two topics, starting with the usage of such ideas in German, Swedish, and English hymns. This essay describes her work and explains how the scientific ideas provide a coherent framework for understanding the place of time.