This article responds to Pope Francis’s call in Laudato Si’ for an ecological expansion of mission and seeks to provide it with theological support. This support comes by way of a trinitarian rendition of the missiological concept missio Dei. Drawing from Thomas Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan’s accounts of the trinitarian missions, it articulates a theological ecology (as opposed to an ecological theology), in which the traditional doctrine of God is the controlling motif. Through the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit, God transforms the moral-intellectual-volitional comportment of humanity and recruits them into a shared mission of environmental concern.
This article engages Robert W. Jenson on the question of the relation between the immanent Trinity and the person Jesus of Nazareth and proposes a restatement of the doctrine of God that takes into account his concerns. I note that many of the criticisms levelled against Jenson are contradictory and offer instead a rearticulation of Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of God, refracted through the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, as a more viable mode of engaging Jenson's ideas. In particular, I suggest an analogia temporalis rooted in the divine processions to account for the relationship between time and eternity, thereby showing how Thomas's theology can both accommodate and benefit from many of Jenson's insights, while also avoiding the more serious charges levelled against him.
In book 10 of City of God, Augustine appeals to the notion of true sacrifice in order to counteract the attraction of pagan worship. This appeal to the concept of sacrifice gives a distinct shape to the Christology and ecclesiology he develops in this book. Set against this polemical horizon, and within the context of his wider thought, it becomes clear that sacrifice is itself soteriological motif for Augustine. The work it does in this context is to serve as another way of describing the return of humanity to God through the Incarnate Christ. The cross, the Eucharist, the moral life, and the church itself are all identified as instances of the one true sacrifice of Christ. In this way, sacrifice provides an integrative motif for discussing Augustinian Christology, ecclesiology, sacramental theology, and soteriology.
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