not mine

Thomist, 2010

PNEUMA, 2021

This article seeks to construct a renewalist ecclesiology foundations on the idea that the church is an ontological reality with the epistemological purpose of traditioning its members. To accomplish this, I construct, in conversation with Simon Chan and Simon Oliver, a sacramental ontology of the invisible church from the Garden of Eden via the incarnation. Then, interacting with the work of Chan and James K.A. Smith, I explore the role of the visible church to tradition its members. Finally, I offer a framework for an ecclesial traditioning praxis. This praxis is founded in prayer, shaped by the narrative of Scripture, and utilizes both the weekly service and ongoing discipleship training.

New Blackfriars, 2012

A sacramental ontology, informed by a ressourcement of the Church Fathers, informs the theology of the mid-twentieth-century Catholic movement of nouvelle théologie. Rejecting the neo-Thomist separation between nature and the supernatural, the nouvelle theologians focused on the sacramental presence of supernatural grace in natural realities. To be sure, differences among these ressourcement theologians cannot be denied: de Lubac and Bouillard emphasized the a-scending character of human participation in divine grace, while Balthasar and Chenu stressed the de-scent of the Incarnation into the created realities of time and space. Nonetheless, the four theologians shared a deep appreciation for the Greek Fathers, which enabled them to counter the neo-scholastic separation between nature and the supernatural with a sacramental ontology.

The chapter offers a comparison of an Orthodox and a Roman Catholic approach to the foundations of sacramental theology. With each theologian the author analyses an underlying epistemology, a type of relational and symbolic understanding of God, and then asks how these influence preference either for the church or for the world as a starting point for sacramental theology. In her conclusion she suggests how both approaches could complement each other.

2014

This thesis argues for an interpretation of Henri de Lubac’s ecclesiology in terms of the epiclesis in the Eucharist. The visible Church submits to Christ in a posture of humble petition. Christ responds to this petition by consecrating the visible Church as His Mystical Body on earth. The concrete acts taken by contextually-specific Christian communities can be evaluated according to their conformance to petition and consecration. The primary embodiment of the “epicletic tension” is the concrete act of the Eucharistic liturgy, through which the particular community is joined to the whole Communion of Saints. De Lubac’s ecclesiology can therefore respond to contradicting contemporary challenges in articulating the Church’s mission in the world, such as John Milbank’s emphasis on the Church’s particularity and Nicholas Healy’s emphasis on the ambiguities of concrete history. De Lubac’s ecclesiology critiques an approach that attends to either consecration or petition at the expense o...

Horizons, 2003

that the Swiss theologian never produced a textbookstyle christology, soteriology or ecclesiology. In Part III of the book, Mongrain offers us a flavor of the apologetic and polemical nature of von Balthasar’s theology. Although he was never associated with a theological institution or university and had little contact with other professional theologians, von Balthasar was not living in a theological vacuum but developed his own doxological theology in reaction against modern forms of gnosticism influenced by G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) who soars like a phantom over all his main writings. After a brief reflection on the making of modern gnosticism (Chapter 5), we are introduced to von Balthasar’s critique of four contemporary theologies which, according to him, demonstrate different degrees of insufficient resistance to the gnostic temptation (Chapter 6): Karl Rahner’s transcendental theology of history and his refusal to recognize the expiatory significance of Jesus’ death on the cross (15662), Karl Barth’s focus on realized eschatology and his neglect to maintain a significant difference between creation and the Covenant (163-66), liberation theology’s insufficient resistance to marxism with the danger to erase the difference between Church and world, theological and human hope (166-74), and Jürgen Moltmann’s trinitarian theology of the cross with its unavoidable link to Hegel’s epic interpretation of history and Luther’s sub contrario doctrine (17481). Mongrain concludes his research with a critical evaluation of von Balthasar’s own theology by showing that von Balthasar’s “dramatic organic model” can be measured by six basic theological principles that constitute his own “rule of resistance” to gnostic and epic theology (Chapter 7). This “rule of resistance” is applied by the author to von Balthasar’s doctrine of the divine Ur-kenosis in its relationship with the historical drama of the cross, as well as to von Balthasar’s understanding of the doctrine of immutability in relationship to the mystery of suffering in God and, finally, to the political implications of von Balthasar’s theology (Chapter 8). Mongrain offers a solid and helpful interpretation of von Balthasar’s theology for those who are not familiar with the work of the Swiss theologian. But one should note the fact that Mongrain ignores all secondary literature on von Balthasar in languages other than English. This is most regrettable given the international impact of the balthasarian legacy.

Louvain Studies , 2016

Irish Theological Quarterly, 2012

The article explores Neo-Scholasticism, a period in Catholic theology which, normally nowadays, attracts little attention. The publication of Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris, in 1879, and its effects on theology are studied with particular reference to sacramental theology. The main exponents of the Neo-Scholastic movement (e.g. Kleutgen, Mercier) and their contributions are highlighted. The article then proceeds to an in-depth analysis of the treatise De sacramentis in genere as presented by leading theologians, such as Franzelin, Billot, and van Noort. The central issue of causality is investigated. Finally, the article reflects briefly on the positive confluence between Neo-Scholasticism and Ressourcement in the first decades of the 20th century.

International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2005

A historical survey of the various controversies between thinkers associated with the nouvelle théologie and the Roman Catholic hierarchy suggests that three matters were particularly at stake. First was an ecclesiology, whether the church was to be understood primarily as a historically-continuing structure of authority and obedience, or in more sacramental and spiritual ways. Second, the nature of theological language was at stake: is theology merely a set of logical deductions from divinely revealed, but universally accessible, propositions, or is faith and commitment necessary to any serious grasp of the import of theological claims? Finally, and undergirding these two issues, is a disagreement about the reception of the biblical witness, and so the recovery within the nouvelle théologie of patristic and medieval modes of figurative, typological or spiritual exegesis can be seen to be central to the movement. In the April 1946 issue of the Jesuit cultural journal Études, Fr Jean Daniélou, a member of the editorial staff and a professor at the Institut Catholique in Paris, published an article entitled 'Les orientations présentes de la pensée religieuse'. It was an enthusiastic, wide-ranging piece, aimed at a broad circle of readers: a kind of manifesto calling for a broad change of emphasis and style in the development and communication of theology within the Catholic Church. The 40-year-old Jesuit began by observing that those heady days of cultural and political revival in France, less than a year after the formal end of the Second World War, offered the church urgent new challenges, as well as new opportunities; Christian leaders were now demanding, in the face of postwar atheism, 'a more substantial doctrinal and spiritual nourishment than has normally been available'. Daniélou continued: The future is full of promise; this great call of spirits and souls who seek a living form of Christian thought makes us more sharply aware than ever. .. of what our normal teaching of theology or apologetics or biblical interpretation too

Journal of Reformed Theology, 2017