Scriptural testimony, as understood in Christian theology, is the primary window into the divine life that has been provided through revelation. Thus, when Jesus says that he and the Father will send the Holy Spirit as an advocate for Christians (Luke 24:49; John 14:26) and also claims that the Spirit proceeds from the Father (John 15:26) a tension emerges. This chapter seeks to investigate that tension, scripturally, historically, and theologically, before turning to some possible ways forward.

The radical salafī jihādī school – the tendency to which groups like al-Qāʿida and the Islamic State adhere – is characterized by dogmatic adherence to a doctrine of theonomy that condemns parliamentary democracy and man-made law as a form of polytheism, and the regimes based on them as apostate. While the founders of the school were undeniably influenced by Mawdūdī and Quṭb, they rearticulated the concept of ḥākimiyya as a logical corollary of Ibn Taymiyya’s monolatric doctrine of tawḥīd, and likewise found a ready-made template for the interpretation of monolatry as theonomy in the premodern salafī condemnation of taqlīd. The chapter situates these writings in the discursive context of interactions and polemics with competing schools (e.g. quietist salafīs and the Muslim Brotherhood); traces the relation between doctrinal development and major episodes such as the Islamist uprising in Syria in the early 1980s, the war in Algeria in the 1990s, and the emergence of al-Qāʿida in Afghanistan; and analyzes how the articulation of an intransigent theonomy doctrine contributed to the delineation of salafī jihadism as a distinct school.

This chapter surveys contemporary contextual Christologies that have adopted the explanatory and constitutive genres of contextual theologizing. It focuses on aspects of Māori, Pacific, Indigenous Australian, Native American, and African receptions of Christology.

The Introduction sets the stage for the detailed intellectual history of salafism to follow by introducing key analytical concepts in political theology and Axial theory. It frames modern salafī theonomy within a general understanding of the developed Abrahamic traditions as a meeting-ground for two competing conceptions of transcendence. Both the ancient Israelite and Greek Axial revolutions are described as differing responses to the model of sacral kingship characteristic of the archaic states in the region: The former assigned true kingship to God alone, who then stands in competition with mundane sovereigns and demands exclusive allegiance to Himself, while the latter, in a process starting from the Late Bronze Age collapse, dissolved issues of sovereignty and power into ontological and metaphysical formulations. These originally distinct conceptions are analyzed through their contrasting tenets in five categories, the most important of which is the distinction between ‘monolatry,’ on the one hand – the restriction of worship to one God – and conceptual monotheism, on the other. This analysis provides the basis for the typological study of Taymiyyan theology undertaken in Chapter 1, and more generally for the treatment of monolatry and theonomy in the salafī tradition throughout the book.

There is a worry that central claims pertaining to the divinity and humanity of Christ form a logically inconsistent set. This chapter briefly surveys and critically examines some of the ways of addressing the worry of inconsistencies and advocates a minimalist approach to resolving the worry.

This chapter explores how metaphysical models, particularly the compositional and transformational approaches, can help elucidate the doctrine of the Incarnation. While these models face challenges, such as the Nestorian and Attributes Problems, various solutions have been proposed to address these issues and align the models with orthodox Christology. Ultimately, metaphysical models aim to provide coherence and plausibility to the mystery of the Incarnation, contributing to the ongoing work of analytic theology in understanding this central Christian doctrine.

Modern salafī theonomy is indebted to the premodern salafī tradition inaugurated by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), and in particular to his doctrine of tawḥīd al-ulūhiyya. This doctrine states that in essence Islam is more a monolatry (Gr. monos, sole + latreia, worship) than a monotheism. The doctrine rests on a distinction between two aspects of divinity. One, termed rabb, refers to God as the sole creator and efficient cause of the universe, and the sole wielder of power in it, and thus is the aspect that expresses divine predetermination. The second aspect, termed ilāh, designates God as the sole proper object of worship, and more generally as the proper telos or final cause of all human activity. Ibn Taymiyya argued that most unbelievers acknowledge the rabb aspect of divinity, and are deemed unbelievers solely because they fail to make God their sole object of worship (ilāh). In Ibn Taymiyya’s writings the doctrine functioned primarily as intra-Muslim polemic against rationalist Ashʿarī theologians and Ṣūfī mystics, but it likewise served to condemn the Muslim cult of saints, thus laying the foundations for the rise of the Wahhābī movement in the mid-eighteenth century.

This chapter argues that many New Testament authors develop their Christologies through the use of quotations of Scripture. Images for figures in Jewish interpretation provide a rich resource for these authors as they describe the significance of the work of Jesus for the people of God. This chapter features four passages with a network of scriptural references to illustrate the breadth of Christology represented in the New Testament Epistles.

Incarnation and Atonement are two aspects of the work of Christ addressed in Christology. In the IIncarnation, God the Son assumes a human nature in order to bring about human salvation; and in Atonement he achieves this. Various accounts of atonement have developed over the centuries. This chapter considers the major historic views in the context of a broadly Chalcedonian understanding of the Incarnation.

This chapter analyzes the doctrine of ḥākimiyya in the writings of two twentieth-century thinkers, the Indo-Pakistani Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and the Egyptian Sayyid Quṭb. These authors were the first to articulate a consistent system in which the conflict between divine law and man-made law was considered the primary differentiator between faith and unbelief. Like the premodern monolatry tradition, Mawdūdī and Quṭb view monolatry (exclusivity of worship) as the essence of Islam; but they characterize exclusivity of obedience to Allāh’s legal sovereignty as the most important form of worship, thus converting the basic monolatry framework into a polemic against secularization. This theonomy doctrine was already fully elaborated in Mawdūdī’s writings in the 1930s and 1940s, which exhibit some familiarity with the premodern anti-taqlīd polemic and may have been influenced by it. Quṭb’s embrace of the doctrine in his final writings had a major impact on the emergent radical salafī tendency in the 1970s and 1980s and presaged the decisive split between these groups and the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood.

This introductory chapter describes how this Companion offers an up-to-date and accessible guide to the doctrinal sources, historical reception, and philosophical and theological investigation of Christology. Written by a broad and diverse collection of internationally renowned scholars, the volume showcases excellence in multiple scholarly methodologies, from biblical exegesis to historical investigation, from philosophical inquiry to theological reflection. In addition to methodological diversity, the volume also emphasizes christological approaches from different religious starting points, among both Christian denominations and non-Christian perspectives.

This chapter offers an overview of the fascinating and complex world of Islamic Christology by using the Qur’an and Hadith, the primary sources of Islam, as a starting point. It condenses the wealth of literature that Muslim exegetes, philosophers, and mystics have produced on the Islamic representation of Jesus and Mary, examining what they consider to be authoritative Islamicized forms of Christian beliefs.