Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on conceiving the transcendent and immanent God

This essay explores a debate between two contemporary Orthodox theolo-gians, Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas, over how to adequately conceive the doctrine of the Trinity as an expression of the realism of divine-human communion, and hence, of the God who is transcendent and immanent. The essay critically analyzes the implications of Zizioulas's reworking of the patristic category of hypostasis . Zizioulas's theology is suggesting a paradigm shift in contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology insofar as it prioritizes hypostasis over energies for expressing the realism of divine-human communion. The implications of this study also extend to debates within contemporary trinitarian theologies over the adequacy of the concept of "person" for conceptualizing the Trinity.     

Person, Kenosis and Abuse: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Feminist Theologies in Conversation

This essay engages in the debate in feminist theology over the adequacy of the category of kenosis for interpreting women's experience. It does so by looking at a particular exchange between two British theologians, Daphne Hampson and Sarah Coakley. The paper expands on Coakley's understanding of kenosis as "power–in–vulnerability", through an analysis of the trinitarian theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Von Balthasar's trinitarian understanding of kenotic personhood is then correlated to situations of abuse in order to illustrate the adequacy of such an understanding toward accounting for the healing in abused victims. The final section will argue that feminist interests in otherness, specificity, diversity, uniqueness, relationality and embodiment require a trinitarian notion of kenosis as self–giving and receptivity.