{"title":"Murray A. Rae, Resurrection and Renewal: Jesus and the Transformation of Creation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2024, xiv + 194pp. $28.99","authors":"Augustine M. Reisenauer","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12768","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"433-436"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting the Literal Sense of Scripture, in Dialogue With Thomas Aquinas","authors":"Christopher R. J. Holmes","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12759","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Brevard Childs suggests that ‘one of the burning issues in theology lies in a search to recover a new understanding of the <i>sensus literalis</i>’. In this article, I retrieve and commend Thomas Aquinas's account of the literal sense, using Peter's Pentecost speech in Acts 2 as a way of testing Thomas's mettle. In so doing, I address key dimensions of Thomas's presentation, namely, divine authorship and intention, arguing that such emphases are profitable for understanding the priority and expansive character of the literal sense. I conclude by briefly discussing figural reading with reference to Ephraim Radner's <i>Time and the Word</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"331-350"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijst.12759","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Objective and Subjective Atonement Reconsidered☆","authors":"Andrew W. Sutherland","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12757","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article argues that the distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ elements of atonement fails to cohere with a vital historical and systematic point. In many modern analyses, ‘objective’ elements of atonement pertain to Christ's work on humans' behalf to meet the requirements of God's justice, whereas ‘subjective’ elements pertain to changes within individuals, such as a response of love. For historic theologies of atonement such as Abelard's and Augustine's, however, the distinction between what God does for humans to satisfy the requirements of justice and how humans change or respond to God breaks down, such that certain elements of atonement meet the prevailing criteria for ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ simultaneously. Because the typical paradigm can obscure such important points about atonement, including the extent of what God's justice requires and how God works <i>within</i> the human response, theologians should jettison the terms in favor of more precise language.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"401-417"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Doubting Thomas: Aquinas on Doubt and the Act of Faith","authors":"Patrick X. Gardner","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12749","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Several modern theologians affirm that doubt is compatible with faith, even as authoritative voices from the Christian tradition deny this. While Thomas Aquinas is often seen as an exemplar of the traditional view, few scholars have devoted serious attention to the nature of doubt in Thomas’ thought. In the present article, I address this lacuna by examining how Thomas defines ‘doubt’ in a variety of his writings. I then examine how he relates doubt to the act of faith. I conclude that while faith excludes doubt in most senses, Thomas articulates one sense of doubt that is compatible with faith and therefore may help resolve contemporary debates about faith, doubt, and unbelief.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"310-330"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijst.12749","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reading the Creed in the Light of Pentecost: An Eastern European Pneumatic Reflection","authors":"Daniela C. Augustine","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12756","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Reading the Creed through pneumatic lenses is essential for understanding both humanity's eschatological destiny in the likeness of the Trinity and the consistently triune economy of salvation. In light of this assertion, the essay highlights aspects of the Creed's explicit and implicit pneumatology, offering a reflection from an Eastern European pneumatic perspective on the triunity of God's work as creator, redeemer and sustainer/renewer of the cosmos, and on the church as the in-Spirit-ed communal body of Christ on earth. This reflection articulates a vision of Pentecost's Trinitarian theophany as a cosmic event that, since the beginning, has been the intended theotic telos of humanity and the rest of creation. The conclusion looks forward toward the Spirit's eschatological summoning of creation into the triune life and to the Eucharistic re-envisioning of death in anticipation of the resurrection and life in the age to come.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 4","pages":"507-524"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijst.12756","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145242948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What has Nicaea to do with Canterbury? Creeds, Councils, Tradition and the Fathers in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion","authors":"E. S. Kempson","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12755","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article charts the Council of Nicaea's (325) relevance to the Anglican Tradition from the sixteenth century to the present day, as manifested through Anglicanism's engagement with the Nicene Creed, its attitude towards early ecumenical councils, its appeals to ‘the Fathers’ and its approach to ‘tradition’, particularly in relation to Scripture. To that end, this article examines key governing texts in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion – with particular focus on the Book of Common Prayer (BCP 1662) and the Thirty-Nine Articles – as well as relevant political and theological controversies. The findings include some counterintuitive results in relation to classic maxims of ‘Anglicanism’, including that the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds are second only to Scripture in importance while simultaneously mediating Anglicans' encounter with Scripture and setting the conditions for legitimate Scriptural interpretation.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 4","pages":"525-549"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijst.12755","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145243086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Karl Barth's Anti-Ideological Theology: A Reconsideration of Barth's Approach to Philosophy","authors":"Kimlyn J. Bender","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12752","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Barth's approach to borrowing from philosophical figures and schools is underwritten by several convictions that made such an approach intelligible. These convictions entailed that (1) Barth had no firm commitment to a philosophical school; (2) Barth's use of philosophy and philosophical terminology displays a pragmatic though principled character; and (3) Barth resisted any grand philosophical systems and rejected not only any form of philosophical hegemony but ideology of any kind. This essay makes a cumulative argument in three corresponding parts. First, against the common supposition that philosophy (and specifically Kant's philosophy) had a programmatic importance for Barth's theology, the actual evidence demonstrates an ever-weakening influence after the second <i>Römerbrief</i>. Second, in view of this examination, the mature convictions of Barth's relation to philosophy can be discerned, and when these are articulated, the overarching consistency of Barth's understanding of the relation between theology and philosophy becomes apparent. This understanding of theology's relation to philosophy is more theologically grounded and stable than is often maintained, and one predicated on a principled position regarding philosophy rather than a simple eclecticism of its use. And third and finally, Barth's principled stance evident in his relation to philosophy will be shown to be the basic mature stance he maintained in relation to all systems of thought – political and economic, and not only philosophical. When this is understood, Barth's theology is displayed as strongly anti-ideological in character.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"372-400"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijst.12752","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Wisdom Christology and the Wise Use of Scripture","authors":"Kyle McCracken","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12753","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Following the grammar of 2 Timothy 3:15–17, this article reflects on the relation between the Christological salvation unto which Scripture ‘makes us wise’ and the corresponding use of Scripture as one among many ‘good works’. Dogmatically restated, it seeks to indicate Scripture's wise use by attending to the Christological Wisdom to which that use corresponds. This task is carried out by way of critical engagement with the work of Susannah Ticciati, who describes the status of Christ as Wisdom in terms of incarnation. The article alternatively suggests the difference it would make to understand Wisdom Christology in terms of justification. Ultimately, it argues that the wise use of Scripture along these dogmatic lines is able to preserve the critical moral force of Ticciati's account without diminishing the genuinely good news that is entailed in God's work of judgment and salvation in Jesus Christ.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"293-309"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijst.12753","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lord of His ‘Loving and Living’: Reading Karl Barth's Notion of the Divine Self-Determination","authors":"Edmund Fong","doi":"10.1111/ijst.12751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijst.12751","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores three strategies currently employed in interpreting Karl Barth's notable idea of the divine self-determination, or God's ‘being-in-act’. They are the ‘repetition’ reading (where the ‘act’ or ‘decision’ merely <i>repeats</i> who the divine being is already), the ‘constitutive’ reading (where the divine being is <i>constituted</i> in the very ‘act’ or ‘decision’ itself), and the ‘specification’ reading (where the divine existence is <i>specified</i> in accordance to the divine essence). The third reading is commended on the basis that it not only considers seriously the implication that divine self-determination carries for the ontology of the divine being, but is also well attested by the text of <i>CD</i> II/1/<i>KD</i> II/1. The ‘specification’ reading, when compared with the ‘constitutive’ reading, is also better able to account for two aspects of Barth's theology – first, that God is not <i>causa sui</i> and second, that God is the absolute person who is the true ‘self-moved’ being, in turn allowing a space for Barth's counterfactual claims to remain.</p>","PeriodicalId":43284,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Systematic Theology","volume":"27 3","pages":"351-371"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144725494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}