T&T Clark Explorations in Reformed Theology – serie

Many scholars believe that Friedrich Schleiermacher relegates the doctrine of the Trinity to an appendix at the end of his magnum opus, The Christian Faith (1830/31); his alleged disregard for the Trinity is the supposed death knell for serious consideration of his work within the history of Christian thought.This volume argues that Schleiermacher not only calls for the doctrine’s revitalization, but also makes it the centrepiece of Protestant Christianity. Following Schleiermacher’s own thought experiment, Poe presents his doctrine of God in reverse order of its original presentation. Her examination centres on the Trinity, treating it as the keystone of the entire work, while analysing the divine attributes: love and wisdom, justice and holiness, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. When viewed from the standpoint of the conclusion, the Trinitarian shape of Schleiermacher’s theology comes to the fore. What emerges is a middle way between merely economic Trinitarianism and a full-fledged development of immanent Trinitarianism, examining divine personhood and the union of the divine with humanity.The central thesis of this work runs boldly counter to the prevailing academic account of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of the Trinity, and offers an innovative and constructive reading. Readers will be privy to a fresh look at Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God and its importance for contemporary theology.

This volume is a critical and constructive analysis of the sexually differentiated self in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatic. It secures in his Christocentric pattern of human agency an untapped resource for unsettling and reimagining the heteropatriarchal structure of human fellowship at the heart of his theological anthropology.Moving through Barth’s doctrines of revelation, creation, theological anthropology, and special ethics, Faye Bodley-Dangelo locates the human agent in his broader project aimed at re-habilitating the subject of modern protestant theology. She argues the human actor comes into view as the recipient of Christ’s redemptive activity, which redirects it out of self-aggrandizing isolation and into relationships of dependency, responsiveness, and ethical responsibility to multiple sites of divine and creaturely alterity. The book debates that Barth’s model of human agency cannot on its own terms sustain his version of female subordination nor his repudiation of same-sex relationships. Rather, it contains ethically-oriented, critical and reflective mechanisms that resist the sexist heterosexist dimension of his theological anthropology and lend themselves to an anti-essentialist performative account of gender.

Many scholars believe that Friedrich Schleiermacher relegates the doctrine of the Trinity to an appendix at the end of his magnum opus, The Christian Faith (1830/31); his alleged disregard for the Trinity is the supposed death knell for serious consideration of his work within the history of Christian thought.This volume argues that Schleiermacher not only calls for the doctrine’s revitalization, but also makes it the centrepiece of Protestant Christianity. Following Schleiermacher’s own thought experiment, Poe presents his doctrine of God in reverse order of its original presentation. Her examination centres on the Trinity, treating it as the keystone of the entire work, while analysing the divine attributes: love and wisdom, justice and holiness, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. When viewed from the standpoint of the conclusion, the Trinitarian shape of Schleiermacher’s theology comes to the fore. What emerges is a middle way between merely economic Trinitarianism and a full-fledged development of immanent Trinitarianism, examining divine personhood and the union of the divine with humanity.The central thesis of this work runs boldly counter to the prevailing academic account of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of the Trinity, and offers an innovative and constructive reading. Readers will be privy to a fresh look at Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God and its importance for contemporary theology.

Adding her distinctive voice to lively conversations about the work and legacy of Jonathan Edwards, Larsen shows that Edwards thinks boldly about the freedom of the Father and the Son within their blessed fellowship in the Spirit. She identifies profound insights into the relationship between the divine being and the divine economy by focusing on Edwards’s understanding of the Son as he undertakes the work of ad extra glorification—the work by which God is externally blessed through God’s communication to creatures. In addition to careful analyses of the ‘covenantal’ and ‘evocative’ registers in which Edwards describes the fittingness of the Son’s redemptive mission, Larsen concludes by drawing resources from Edwards’s Christology that speak to key issues of freedom and aesthetics in Reformed thought today.

This book offers an innovative, critical, and constructive exploration of Barth’s theology, one which demonstrates the radicality of his thought and which underscores the continued contribution he might make to theological reflection on a central element of the Christian tradition.Declan Kelly uncovers the promise of viewing Barth’s account of salvation as a “three-agent drama”—a drama involving God, humanity, and anti-God powers. Kelly demonstrates and examines Barth’s cosmological portrayal of God’s saving event as a defeat of the lordship of Satan in the cosmos—and, bound up with this, as an ending of God’s “left handed” activity—and as the bringing into existence of a new creation under the rule of God’s right hand. Barth’s doctrines of election, the atonement, and the resurrection receive a fresh reading as the book explores his apocalyptic grasp of God’s eschatological deed of salvation and as it puts forward the claim—with and against Barth—that the climax of this deed of salvation is best located in the event of God’s raising of Christ from the dead.

This volume is a critical and constructive analysis of the sexually differentiated self in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatic. It secures in his Christocentric pattern of human agency an untapped resource for unsettling and reimagining the heteropatriarchal structure of human fellowship at the heart of his theological anthropology.Moving through Barth’s doctrines of revelation, creation, theological anthropology, and special ethics, Faye Bodley-Dangelo locates the human agent in his broader project aimed at re-habilitating the subject of modern protestant theology. She argues the human actor comes into view as the recipient of Christ’s redemptive activity, which redirects it out of self-aggrandizing isolation and into relationships of dependency, responsiveness, and ethical responsibility to multiple sites of divine and creaturely alterity. The book debates that Barth’s model of human agency cannot on its own terms sustain his version of female subordination nor his repudiation of same-sex relationships. Rather, it contains ethically-oriented, critical and reflective mechanisms that resist the sexist heterosexist dimension of his theological anthropology and lend themselves to an anti-essentialist performative account of gender.

This volume puts Barth and liberation theologies in critical and constructive conversation. With incisive essays from a range of noted scholars, it forges new connections between Barth’s expansive corpus and the multifaceted world of Christian liberation theology. It shows how Barth and liberation theologians can help us to make sense of – and perhaps even to respond to – some of the most pressing issues of our day: race and racism in the United States; changing understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality; the ongoing degradation of the ecosphere; the relationship between faith, theological reflection, and the arts; the challenge of decolonizing Christian thought; and ecclesial and political life in the Global South.

This book offers an innovative, critical, and constructive exploration of Barth’s theology, one which demonstrates the radicality of his thought and which underscores the continued contribution he might make to theological reflection on a central element of the Christian tradition.Declan Kelly uncovers the promise of viewing Barth’s account of salvation as a “three-agent drama”—a drama involving God, humanity, and anti-God powers. Kelly demonstrates and examines Barth’s cosmological portrayal of God’s saving event as a defeat of the lordship of Satan in the cosmos—and, bound up with this, as an ending of God’s “left handed” activity—and as the bringing into existence of a new creation under the rule of God’s right hand. Barth’s doctrines of election, the atonement, and the resurrection receive a fresh reading as the book explores his apocalyptic grasp of God’s eschatological deed of salvation and as it puts forward the claim—with and against Barth—that the climax of this deed of salvation is best located in the event of God’s raising of Christ from the dead.

This volume puts Barth and liberation theologies in critical and constructive conversation. With incisive essays from a range of noted scholars, it forges new connections between Barth’s expansive corpus and the multifaceted world of Christian liberation theology. It shows how Barth and liberation theologians can help us to make sense of – and perhaps even to respond to – some of the most pressing issues of our day: race and racism in the United States; changing understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality; the ongoing degradation of the ecosphere; the relationship between faith, theological reflection, and the arts; the challenge of decolonizing Christian thought; and ecclesial and political life in the Global South.

This is the first book to apply Bavinck’s theological anthropology to contemporary theological issues. Sutanto provides a sustained close reading of Herman Bavinck’s contributions to theological anthropology and positions him in conversation with current and historical dialogues on embodiment, revelation, affect theory, phenomenology, the cognitive science of religion, ethics, race, covenant, and the beatific vision. Sutanto explores the holistic character of Bavinck’s vision of humanity, suggesting ways in which his theological anthropology cuts across several potential binaries in contemporary discourse, between affect and reason, body and soul, animality and religiosity, unity and diversity, and between a this-worldly or other-worldly eschatology.

This is the first book to apply Bavinck’s theological anthropology to contemporary theological issues. Sutanto provides a sustained close reading of Herman Bavinck’s contributions to theological anthropology and positions him in conversation with current and historical dialogues on embodiment, revelation, affect theory, phenomenology, the cognitive science of religion, ethics, race, covenant, and the beatific vision. Sutanto explores the holistic character of Bavinck’s vision of humanity, suggesting ways in which his theological anthropology cuts across several potential binaries in contemporary discourse, between affect and reason, body and soul, animality and religiosity, unity and diversity, and between a this-worldly or other-worldly eschatology.

In this compelling work, Baylor draws on the works of John Owen to address critiques of a Reformed theology of God’s power and right. Modern outlooks on the world often encourage individuals to think of themselves as free and self-possessed sovereigns, rather than as subjects responsible to some higher authority. Christian responses to this have rightly sought to re-assert the creature’s dependence upon God, often focusing criticism on modernity’s possessive moral logic, and its disenchanted view of the world. However, Protestant theology is frequently caught in the crossfire, because many argue that the disenchantment of the modern world is driven by a Protestant vision of God’s rule as absolute and arbitrary.This rigorous study shows that Reformed theology has the resources to answer these criticisms and offer a compelling account of God’s rule. Baylor turns to Owen’s theology of divine “dominion”, an attribute that sought to integrate reflection on God’s power and justice. By tracing Owen’s richly textured vision of the creature’s relation to God, Baylor shows that Reformed theology sought to condition our notions of God's power by the forms of the creature's dependence upon God within God’s moral economy. In doing so, this book offers a nuanced account of God’s relation to creatures, and a powerful rebuttal to contemporary critics that depict Reformed visions of God’s power as arbitrary and tyrannical.

Adding her distinctive voice to lively conversations about the work and legacy of Jonathan Edwards, Larsen shows that Edwards thinks boldly about the freedom of the Father and the Son within their blessed fellowship in the Spirit. She identifies profound insights into the relationship between the divine being and the divine economy by focusing on Edwards’s understanding of the Son as he undertakes the work of ad extra glorification—the work by which God is externally blessed through God’s communication to creatures. In addition to careful analyses of the ‘covenantal’ and ‘evocative’ registers in which Edwards describes the fittingness of the Son’s redemptive mission, Larsen concludes by drawing resources from Edwards’s Christology that speak to key issues of freedom and aesthetics in Reformed thought today.

An in-depth analysis of the function of feeling (Gefühl) in the development of Karl Barth’s theological anthropology in dialogue with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theology.If feeling is recognised at all in Karl Barth’s theology, it is often treated as part of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s ‘feeling (Gefühl) of absolute dependence’ that Barth rejected when he broke with theological liberalism. This study offers a different and more nuanced account. It argues that feeling has been neglected in the interpretation of Barth’s theological understanding of the human being. Affect theory, which highlights changeable disposition and environmental attunement, is used to discover the ways in which the concepts of feeling and experience change as Barth’s theology develops. Templeton also offers a fresh angle on Barth’s complex relationship with the theology of Schleiermacher. Initially, as a young scholar of modern theology, Barth embraces Schleiermacher’s concept of feeling, claiming that Christ’s revelation is verified in the believer’s affection. Then, as a pastor shocked at the capitulation of the Church and Academy to Germany’s war ideology, Barth rejects feeling as the root of a subjective and experiential theology that evades the judgment of God’s Word. Finally, as a professor of theology, Barth rehabilitates feeling by de-coupling it from Schleiermacher’s account, proposing instead that human feeling (with knowing and willing) becomes an analogy of Christ’s self-determination through the Spirit’s baptising.