This article defends a classical doctrine of divine immutability by contending that the most influential objections lodged against it by theologians and philosophers such as Richard Swinburne–i.e. that divine immutability is speculative rather than practical, is philosophical rather than biblical, and fails to cohere with a ‘personal’ God who relates to creatures–are rooted in a particular construal of theological reason. I diagnose Swinburne’s account of theological reason with the help of Karl Barth’s interpretation of Anselm, and put forth a contrasting account of divine immutability, rooted in a distinct approach to theological reason, through a theological interpretation of Psalm 102, an analysis of the Creator/creature distinction, and an examination of Augustine’s De trinitate.
Schleiermacher is an increasingly important resource for contemporary systematic theology, particularly as Barth’s criticisms of Schleiermacher, which were thought to have undermined his dogmatic relevance, are subject to severe criticism. With reference to the doctrine of God, Barth argues that Schleiermacher’s theology generates a “God behind God” and is problematized by Feuerbach. I offer a detailed reading of Schleiermacher’s mature account of the divine being and attributes and suggest in view of this interpretation that a slightly nuanced version of Barth’s critique rightly applies to Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God. I make this argument in dialogue with the many contemporary voices arguing in Schleiermacher’s defense and raise some critical questions for those seeking to retrieve Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God.
Reformed Protestantism is variously critiqued in a secular age. On the one hand, Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics represent Protestantism as individualistic, opposed to tradition and liturgy, and tending toward a world-denying spirituality. They see Protestantism as participating in modernity’s worst tendencies. On the other hand, missional churches tend to see Magisterial Protestantism as inflexible and overly traditional, being unable to relate to a modern, secular context. I seek to retrieve the often unrecognised missional potential of a robust Reformed ecclesiology for a secular age. I retrieve an account of Reformed ecclesiology in dialogue with Calvin and some key modern voices.
To combat the charges raised by Radical Orthodoxy and others, which allege that Protestant soteriologies amount to a legal fiction, Bruce McCormack and Michael Horton suggest that Reformed theology embrace a covenantal ontology, which aims to overcome legal fiction objections without sacrificing Reformational insights or making recourse to medieval participatory metaphysics. For both theologians, covenantal history and participatory metaphysics are treated as rival paradigms. I suggest that their proposals display serious weaknesses and propose an alternative approach, inspired by the retrieval of Reformed scholastic insights, which treats covenant and participatory metaphysics as complementary motifs rather than rival paradigms, and is thereby able to overcome the legal fiction objection while maintaining Protestant distinctives.
Radical Orthodoxy locates the intellectual roots of secular modernity in the attenuation of Thomistic participatory metaphysics in the late medieval period. John Milbank implicates Reformational theologies in this unintentionally secularizing movement. I examine seventeenth-century Reformed scholastic Stephen Charnock, contending that he articulates an account of participatory metaphysics similar to Thomas Aquinas, and even further, fails to exhibit the negative trends which Milbank and Catherine Pickstock associate with Scotus and the via moderna. This analysis of Charnock calls into question the location of Reformed theology in Radical Orthodoxy's genealogy of secular modernity, and opens up possibilities for rapprochement between Reformed theology and Radical Orthodoxy.
Radical Orthodoxy and Reformed theologyThe roots of Radical Orthodoxy reside in a historical critique of secular modernity set forth in John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory. The contours of Milbank's critique are by now well known, but crucial for our purposes, is Milbank's contention that the roots of secular modernity lie in the abandonment, or at least drastic weakening, of Thomistic participatory metaphysics. Briefly stated, Milbank contends that secular modernity is not merely the neutral space uncovered by the receding tide of primitivism and superstition, but rather consists in a distinctive evaluation of human personhood and ends which prioritizes indifferent self-determination, and a pseudo-proprietary right to exercise one's volitional
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