For as long as the Christian church has been working out its understanding of the second person o... more For as long as the Christian church has been working out its understanding of the second person of the Trinity, it has employed analytic philosophical reflection to sharpen theological comprehension. In recent times, there has been a rekindled appreciation for the employment of analytic reflection in the service of theology. Analytic theology has established itself as a way of doing theology that employs analytic philosophical analysis in the project of faith in divinely revealed truths seeking understanding. In this issue, the fresh insights of analytic theology are applied to a theme most central to Christian theology—the Son of God.
In this article, I would like to commend one particular organizational schema for introducing Chr... more In this article, I would like to commend one particular organizational schema for introducing Christology to students, and then demonstrate the advantages of that schema by offering a brief example of its key points. The method I recommend is this: follow the leading ideas of the ecumenical councils o f the early church and then support them with biblical argumentation. Conciliar Christology is thus the framework for teaching Christology, with biblical material brought in to fill it out.
The doctrine of the Trinity has, in the past couple of decades, reclaimed its central place in Ch... more The doctrine of the Trinity has, in the past couple of decades, reclaimed its central place in Christian God talk. Theologians are now using it to render every doctrine more explicitly Christian, and to sharpen interreligious dialogue. There is a strong drive toward vindicating the doctrine as relevant, but also a recognition that if it is truly a teaching about God it must remain somewhat theoretical. Finally, the field of historical theology is undertaking a fresh examination of the basic primary texts of trinitarian theology.
After a long period of quiet, there is now considerable noise in evangelicalism regarding the Tri... more After a long period of quiet, there is now considerable noise in evangelicalism regarding the Trinity. When I undertook doctoral work on contemporary trinitarian theology in the late 1990s, my bibliography was dominated by the usual suspects: Barth, Rahner, Moltmann, Pannenberg, von Balthasar, Jenson, Gunton, etc. 1 My non-evangelical advisor at a non-evangelical school knew that I identified myself as an evangelical Christian, and became concerned that I was not engaging in dialogue with any evangelical authors. I assured him that I was not ashamed of my heritage, and that I would gladly have interacted with evangelical authors, but that there simply were none who were doing significant work in this field. Indeed, the entire late twentieth-century renaissance of trinitarian theology took place without active participation from evangelical theologians.
Kendall Snulen's The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity distinguishes itself from recent theolog... more Kendall Snulen's The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity distinguishes itself from recent theological publications in several ways. Before identifying the substantive contribution it makes to the field, 1 feel compelled to bear witness to Soulen's fine authorial style. This is an exceptionally well-written book. It seems to come from some parallel world where the genre of systematic theology belongs nearer the belles lettres, as Soulen is graciously out of step w ith the low guild standards of contemporary theological writing. In The Divine Name(s) he crafts a complex argum ent with many moving parts, which dem ands frequent internal summaries. But Soulen never gets lost in the layers of his own case, never trudges from one point to the next, never cuts-and-pastes to recycle his own key sentences, and never settles for conventional, expected, س overused illustrations. He introduces a fresh thesis, expounds it without obfuscation, and juxtaposes it with a surprising breadth of dialogue partners from biblical studies, historical theology, and recent dogmatics. Owing to his good literary ear, he can interject the occasional allusion to Shakespeare, Goethe, T. s. Eliot, and Lewis Carroll without jarring the theology reader.
Som ething strange, and theologically sigi^ficant, happens w hen ^on listen to M ozart's Don Giov... more Som ething strange, and theologically sigi^ficant, happens w hen ^on listen to M ozart's Don Giovanni. The pecnliar phenom enon 1 have in m ind has been reported by ordinary mnsic lovers as well as by some of the m ost insightfnl critics ever to ponder the work of Mozart, w h a t happens is this: D on Giovanni perform s despicable acts of e^lo ita tio n , sednction, and violence right before onr eyes, and we enjoy every m innte of it. It is not th at we, the andience, are tricked into approving of the actions. They rem ain loathsom e in themselves, and we are never invited to think of the Don as anything bnt a rogne. N or is it th at we merely n tic ip a te with relish the final judgm ent w hich we know awaits the Don, with its reassertion of moral equilibrium : "This is the end w hich befalls evildoers, and in this life, scoundrels always receive their ju st deserts." E ither of these possibilities might explain how w atching the actions of a villain could please us, bu t neither of them is quite as singular as w hat occurs in D on Giovanni. The pleasure delivered by this opera is som ething else, som ething unique and central to this work so frequently hailed as "the perfect opera."
For as long as the Christian church has been working out its understanding of the second person o... more For as long as the Christian church has been working out its understanding of the second person of the Trinity, it has employed analytic philosophical reflection to sharpen theological comprehension. In recent times, there has been a rekindled appreciation for the employment of analytic reflection in the service of theology. Analytic theology has established itself as a way of doing theology that employs analytic philosophical analysis in the project of faith in divinely revealed truths seeking understanding. In this issue, the fresh insights of analytic theology are applied to a theme most central to Christian theology—the Son of God.
In this article, I would like to commend one particular organizational schema for introducing Chr... more In this article, I would like to commend one particular organizational schema for introducing Christology to students, and then demonstrate the advantages of that schema by offering a brief example of its key points. The method I recommend is this: follow the leading ideas of the ecumenical councils o f the early church and then support them with biblical argumentation. Conciliar Christology is thus the framework for teaching Christology, with biblical material brought in to fill it out.
The doctrine of the Trinity has, in the past couple of decades, reclaimed its central place in Ch... more The doctrine of the Trinity has, in the past couple of decades, reclaimed its central place in Christian God talk. Theologians are now using it to render every doctrine more explicitly Christian, and to sharpen interreligious dialogue. There is a strong drive toward vindicating the doctrine as relevant, but also a recognition that if it is truly a teaching about God it must remain somewhat theoretical. Finally, the field of historical theology is undertaking a fresh examination of the basic primary texts of trinitarian theology.
After a long period of quiet, there is now considerable noise in evangelicalism regarding the Tri... more After a long period of quiet, there is now considerable noise in evangelicalism regarding the Trinity. When I undertook doctoral work on contemporary trinitarian theology in the late 1990s, my bibliography was dominated by the usual suspects: Barth, Rahner, Moltmann, Pannenberg, von Balthasar, Jenson, Gunton, etc. 1 My non-evangelical advisor at a non-evangelical school knew that I identified myself as an evangelical Christian, and became concerned that I was not engaging in dialogue with any evangelical authors. I assured him that I was not ashamed of my heritage, and that I would gladly have interacted with evangelical authors, but that there simply were none who were doing significant work in this field. Indeed, the entire late twentieth-century renaissance of trinitarian theology took place without active participation from evangelical theologians.
Kendall Snulen's The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity distinguishes itself from recent theolog... more Kendall Snulen's The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity distinguishes itself from recent theological publications in several ways. Before identifying the substantive contribution it makes to the field, 1 feel compelled to bear witness to Soulen's fine authorial style. This is an exceptionally well-written book. It seems to come from some parallel world where the genre of systematic theology belongs nearer the belles lettres, as Soulen is graciously out of step w ith the low guild standards of contemporary theological writing. In The Divine Name(s) he crafts a complex argum ent with many moving parts, which dem ands frequent internal summaries. But Soulen never gets lost in the layers of his own case, never trudges from one point to the next, never cuts-and-pastes to recycle his own key sentences, and never settles for conventional, expected, س overused illustrations. He introduces a fresh thesis, expounds it without obfuscation, and juxtaposes it with a surprising breadth of dialogue partners from biblical studies, historical theology, and recent dogmatics. Owing to his good literary ear, he can interject the occasional allusion to Shakespeare, Goethe, T. s. Eliot, and Lewis Carroll without jarring the theology reader.
Som ething strange, and theologically sigi^ficant, happens w hen ^on listen to M ozart's Don Giov... more Som ething strange, and theologically sigi^ficant, happens w hen ^on listen to M ozart's Don Giovanni. The pecnliar phenom enon 1 have in m ind has been reported by ordinary mnsic lovers as well as by some of the m ost insightfnl critics ever to ponder the work of Mozart, w h a t happens is this: D on Giovanni perform s despicable acts of e^lo ita tio n , sednction, and violence right before onr eyes, and we enjoy every m innte of it. It is not th at we, the andience, are tricked into approving of the actions. They rem ain loathsom e in themselves, and we are never invited to think of the Don as anything bnt a rogne. N or is it th at we merely n tic ip a te with relish the final judgm ent w hich we know awaits the Don, with its reassertion of moral equilibrium : "This is the end w hich befalls evildoers, and in this life, scoundrels always receive their ju st deserts." E ither of these possibilities might explain how w atching the actions of a villain could please us, bu t neither of them is quite as singular as w hat occurs in D on Giovanni. The pleasure delivered by this opera is som ething else, som ething unique and central to this work so frequently hailed as "the perfect opera."
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