Paul's epistemology was famously mapped onto his eschatology by J. Louis Martyn, but it must be mapped also onto his ecclesiology. For Paul, knowing is bound always and indissolubly to living with others. To understand how Paul would have us know things, then, we must focus not on knowledge as such, but on epistemic practices in ecclesial communities. Whereas the Corinthians’ use of wisdom and knowledge made for fragmentation and dissolution in the body of Christ (1 Cor 1–4; 8–10), Paul would have practices with knowledge instantiate communion and care for one another, as is proper for Christ's body. Integral to theological knowing is a sense of what and whom theology is for, a sense being critically explored in recent evaluations of theological education.

Because it is manifest that ‘the world’, traditionally said to be God’s good creation, is shot through with profound ‘wrongs’, the question arises about the sense in which the physical creation is good in and of itself, for its own sake. This essay first briefly argues that theological strategies attempting to ground creation’s goodness in either God’s relating to reconcile sinful humankind or in God’s relating in eschatological blessing are inadequate, and then urges that it can be adequately grounded in a doctrine of creation that shifts focus from offering a causal explanation of the existence of ‘the world’ to description of what it is to be ‘creature’, backed by an exegetical shift in how the text that traditionally warrants doctrines of creation, Genesis 1:1-2:25, is read. That shift entails acknowledgement of two theological aporias, one of which it is important to stress is theologically insoluble, while the other is soluble.

Recent work in Protestant soteriology and eschatology has sought to recover and exposit the strands (or doctrines) of theosis present in figures such as Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin and John Wesley, among others. Yet, such ventures can risk unmooring doctrinal convictions from their embeddedness within a larger nexus of theological judgments and concerns. This essay provides a modest contribution to Protestant engagement with the doctrine of theosis, with the help of seventeenth-century Reformed theologian Petrus van Mastricht. In it, I argue that van Mastricht’s ‘upstream’ commitments to Christology and the incommunicability of divine perfections inform his rejection of deification. The essay concludes by highlighting the promise and perils of van Mastricht’s account of the real nature of the unio mystica.

This article offers a hermeneutical account of ambiguity using Luke and Acts as an extended case study. After discussing the difficulties in identifying purposeful ambiguity in biblical texts, verbal ambiguity is distinguished from ambiguity beyond the sentence level, such as ambiguities of plot or character. Instead of approaching ambiguity primarily as a failure of language or a problem to be solved, this article offers a framework for thinking about ambiguity as an invitation to read a text from multiple angles. The discussion is illustrated throughout with a series of examples taken from Luke and Acts. I close with reflections on how this approach to ambiguity is helpful when reading scripture against different cultural contexts and in the study of New Testament Christology.

What can we learn from Augustine’s preaching about the nature and purpose of preaching? In this paper, I will argue that in his preaching Augustine presents to his audience a theology of words and the Word that achieves what it declares; that is to say, rather than a mere doctrinal curiosity, Augustine’s preached theology of words and the Word accomplishes a homiletical goal that transcends the transmission of an idea and, instead, guides the faithful listener’s heart towards the eternal Word of God through the temporal words of the preacher and the written words of scripture. To put it another way, Augustine’s theology of words and the Word is both a theological claim and a practical pastoral tool.

Thomas Aquinas argues that ‘Old Law’, comprised of the precepts found in the Hebrew Bible, should be divided into three types: moral, ceremonial and judicial. His system is meant to be instructive for Christian ethics, distinguishing between eternally, universally binding precepts relevant to Christians and other irrelevant or even forbidden ones. But Aquinas derives this threefold division from a mistranslated Vulgate passage from Deuteronomy where a singular noun, mitzvah, is translated as a plural noun: praecepta. Based on the original Hebrew, the verse actually supports a twofold division, not a threefold one. Aquinas’ system also runs into issues when it comes to sorting the precepts. To fix the sorting, retain the instructive benefit, and shed the biblical tension, we ought to keep Aquinas’ understanding of ‘moral law’, but discard the judicial and ceremonial categories in favour of one ‘cultural law’ category, in line with the popular Jewish philosophical division between chukim and mishpatim.

This article begins by critiquing Kathryn Tanner’s Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism on two fronts. It suggests that her presentation of ‘Financially Dominated Capitalism’ (FDC) is problematically one-dimensional, and it takes issue with her theological construal of time. The article then argues for an alternative temporal vision which both makes better sense of Christian experience and finds resonance with economic policy proposals that undercut FDC.

This paper considers Hans Boersma’s analysis of Bonaventure’s account of the beatific vision in his book Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition. Boersma disputes Bonaventure’s claim in his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum that mystical union with God in this life takes place via the will and not the intellect, arguing that union with God must always produce union of the intellect and will. However, Boersma’s consideration of the Itinerarium fails to take into account Bonaventure’s other works, particularly his Commentary on the Gospel of John, in which he states that the beatific vision does unify the intellect and will, but that sin’s effect on the faculties makes the intellect unable to experience union with God in this life. This closer look at Bonaventure’s thought shows that Boersma needs a stronger account of the intellect and will to critique Bonaventure effectively.

Theodore Hiebert’s interpretation of Genesis 11:1-9 as a story of the origins of cultural difference resulted in several responses which critiqued his reading and reasserted the traditional reading of the passage as a story of human pride and divine punishment. In the following article, I combine two threads of Hiebert’s interpretation and his respondents: language and background understanding. Specifically, I compare two views of language on offer in the modern world, illustrate how they may shape the interpretation of Genesis 11:1-9 and argue that the minority view provides a framework which better makes sense of the passage.

This paper broaches ‘natural theology’ in terms of the conceptual systems through which revelation is understood, as opposed to questions regarding the sources of revelation. I do so by analysing Barth’s rejection of natural theology in terms of what it can mean to treat a logic of prior possibility as determining what revelation’s conditions of possibility must be. I begin by reading Emil Brunner’s ‘Nature and Grace’ alongside Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on mathematical necessity in order to show that Brunner’s thinking of possibility subordinates the necessities of revelation to what Wittgenstein calls ‘the logical machine’. I then argue that Barth’s rejection of natural theology involves rejecting the workings of this machine and so rejecting the axiomatic force of prior possibility for theology. I conclude by tracing two consequences of this rejection, one related to creativity, the other to political crisis.

‘Death in the monastery’ refers to liminal and temporal themes of dying in the poetry of an anonymous Carthusian monk-poet in the period 1964–2024. This article explores these topics in three subsections. The first section deals with texts where the monk-poet reflects on moments when he has witnessed the dying of a fellow monk. The second set of texts focuses on memories written about recently deceased members of the Carthusian monastic community. The third section consists of the Carthusian author’s reflections that arise from the physical proximity of the graveyard at the centre square of the monastery. The article concludes with some remarks on the liminal and temporal perspectives on dying in a monastery. Time spent with God in a cloister, while frequently witnessing the deaths of other members of the monastic community, prepares for a transition where death is followed by resurrection.

If a strong working concept of the Spirit–Word relationship and the means of grace is lacking in many contemporary churches, part of the solution may be a fresh analysis and articulation of those themes. An adequate doctrine of the means of grace will reflect the complexity of the Holy Spirit's partnership with the Word, highlight the Word of God as the one essential means of grace, and throw as much light as possible on why the Word is the Spirit's necessary and perfectly suited instrument for applying redemptive grace in human lives.

Scholars studying cosmic conflict in the book of Revelation primarily focus on chapters 12–14, while the letters to the seven churches are often overlooked. In this article I demonstrate the presence of key elements of cosmic conflict in the letters to the seven churches, with a particular focus on the letter to the church in Smyrna (Rev 2:8–11). I identify the main facets of spiritual warfare, such as Jesus Christ versus the devil; Christians versus Jews/Romans; and victory/life versus defeat/death. I conclude that this passage contributes to the military narrative of cosmic conflict in the Apocalypse.

This article examines Herman Bavinck's inclusion of the body in the image of God in comparison with the positions of Reformed orthodox theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It demonstrates that while it is uncommon for earlier figures to consider the body to be properly included within the image, Bavinck's position is not unprecedented and applies lines of reasoning consistent with the tradition's anthropological convictions. First, an embodied imago Dei is advanced by sources such as the Leiden Synopsis and Petrus van Mastricht. Second, the Reformed orthodox in general adhere to the conviction that human beings are a body–soul unity, and that the image of God includes the uprightness of the whole person, positions that lead to the body being related in some way to God's image. Therefore, while Bavinck's account of an embodied image is a unique contribution, it is nonetheless in continuity with the tradition he receives.

This article provides foundations for how our God-talk can inform the way we think about and live out belonging. It resorts to three key Christian doctrines: the Trinity, creatio ex nihilo and the incarnation. This exploration begins with some brief observations about the issues Karen Kilby and Kathryn Tanner raised regarding social trinitarianism. It then explores the concept of participation as understood by Tanner as another way of conceptualising theocentric belonging rooted in creation and the incarnation. From this emerges the idea of an expansive theocentric theology of belonging, understood as participation in the divine life through creation and the incarnation. This expansiveness is explored further through the concepts of kinship and deep incarnation.

This article considers John Owen’s introduction of the word ‘atonement’ as a term of art for Christ’s satisfaction in response to Socinian attacks on that doctrine. Owen’s innovation complicates the use of atonement theories in the dogmatic history of atonement by F. C. Baur and his successors, because Owen’s account of Christ’s work extends beyond satisfaction, and he uses ‘atonement’ to emphasise not the mechanism of that work but its relational necessity. Even as the framework of atonement theories obscures these aspects of Owen’s work, his novel use of ‘atonement’ lays the foundation for satisfaction to become an atonement theory in Baur’s sense.

Is Christ hypostatically united to his human nature during Holy Saturday? If so, how, given that he is (in effect) an object whose parts are in different ‘places’? In this article, I argue that God the Son does indeed remain hypostatically united to his human nature during Holy Saturday and that this is salvifically salient. One way to construe this ongoing union through somatic death is by means of the analogy of a ‘dead limb’ – Christ’s human body being that limb. I set out several ways of making sense of this claim consistent with a broadly orthodox account of the hypostatic union as a contribution to the theology of Holy Saturday and the intermediate state more broadly.

The distinction between God's absolute power and ordained power was a hallmark of medieval theology, yet its role within Reformed theology has rarely been considered. Even more importantly, consideration of the distinction in Reformed theology by historians is often restricted to theology proper or the nature and necessity of the atonement with little regard for how the concept can inform the question of the extent of the atonement. This paper seeks to fill this lacuna by considering two influential Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century: John Davenant and John Owen. While considerable attention has been given to the distinctly Thomist influence on these two theologians in particular, this paper seeks to qualify these legitimate assessments with the following conclusion: Davenant and Owen both understand the two-powers distinction in a way that differs from Aquinas and reflects a shift in the concept in late medieval theology.

Ambrose of Milan’s hymn, ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, uses metaphors of the sun and light to invoke the Trinity and invite God’s sanctifying work. Ambrose’s depiction of the Godhead in terms of the sun and its light demonstrates his careful engagement with traditional Christian metaphors, traditions which he carefully rearranges to align with his view of the Trinity. His representation of God’s sanctifying activity illustrates the Trinity’s inseparable operations, a central focus of his pro-Nicene works. These features suggest that Ambrose intended this hymn to serve as a confessio Trinitatis, perhaps amid the bishop’s conflicts with anti-Nicene factions in Milan.

Contrary to longstanding opinion, it was Luther, not Calvin, who first interpreted Christ’s descent into hell as an event of suffering and feeling forsaken by God. Though Lutheran tradition afterward emphasised a victorious interpretation taken from Luther’s famous ‘Torgau sermon’, a more ambivalent legacy exists in his own writings. Sufficient attention is therefore warranted to view Luther as a forerunner to Calvin’s use of the cry of dereliction to interpret the descensus. Understanding this nuance can smooth the edges of a myopic age-old debate between the two traditions, since the two Reformers have more in common than not on the doctrine.