A journal of academic theology

Research Article

The Typological Approach of Syriac Sacramental Theology

[For the early Syriac writers, the universe, having been created by the Word, is by nature symbolic and finds completion in the Incarnation. Salvation history is a succession of types and antitypes that await realization in Christ. His theandric actions on earth bring forth new types, the Church and the mysteries/sacraments. The mysteries in turn

Martha Nussbaum and Thomas Aquinas on the Emotions

[Martha Nussbaum in her Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions presents a philosophical theory of emotions that interacts with contemporary research in other sciences. Although she has drawn upon the same Aristotelian and Stoic sources as did Thomas Aquinas, she pays scarce attention to his work. The purpose of this present article is to

Challenges to the Role of Theological Anthropology in Feminist Theologies

[Convictions about human personhood, rooted in an analysis of women’s experience, are often foundational to Catholic feminist theologians. Drawing on the work of Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Rebecca Chopp, the author identifies challenges to Catholic feminist theological anthropology. Fulkerson and Chopp adopt a poststructuralist approach to human personhood, emphasizing the relationships that exist among human

Reply to Richard Gaillardetz on the Ordinary Universal Magisterium and to Francis Sullivan

[The author replies to criticisms of his work on the ordinary universal magisterium and to his interpretation of the work of Francis A. Sullivan. He offers further reflections on the ordinary universal magisterium based on issues stimulated by Gaillardetz’s reading of Sullivan. While acknowledging that the consensus of theologians can be a way to recognize

Reply to Lawrence J. Welch

[In the course of his critique of Richard Gaillardetz’s views on the ordinary universal magisterium, Professor Welch also called into question certain formulations on that topic articulated in various writings of Francis Sullivan. To clarify his own position and to elucidate further his own convictions, Sullivan here expatiates on his original intention and contextualizes several

Divine Grace and Human Nature as Sources for the Universal Magisterium of Bishops

[Theologians have discussed for a century and a half the ecclesial institution of the ordinary universal magisterium of bishops when it functions apart from an ecumenical council. Teaching by bishops from the entire world involves the activity and identity of the bishop and his relationship to other Christians who ponder and teach the faith. Analysis

The Catholic Church and the Other Religious Paths: Rejecting Nothing That Is True and Holy

[Catholic thinking about other religious traditions has continued to develop rapidly since the Second Vatican Council. The author discusses the impact of conciliar texts, the thought of John Paul II, the “pluralist” and “regnocentric” theologies of religion, and the practice of interreligious dialogue on Catholic views of other religious paths. The multiple issues selected for

Jewish Understandings of the Religious Other

[That Judaism is specifically the religion of one people, Israel, shapes its entire discourse about the religious other. Halakhah (Jewish law) defines permitted interactions between Jews and non-Jews, thus setting the parameters for the traditional Jewish theology of the “other.” Applying biblical concerns, Jews are absolutely prohibited from any activity that might generate idolatrous behavior

Knowledge of Allah and the Islamic View of Other Religions

[One way to submit oneself to the will of the divine is to contemplate the revelations of the Qur’ân. For Muslims, it is God manifested in human speech and for centuries Muslims have attempted to study the surface and hidden meanings of the Qur’ân in order to know more of Allâh’s presence. The author explores

Hindu Views of Religious Others: Implications for Christian Theology

[Classical Hindu thinkers perfected their orthodoxy and orthopraxis in part by critiquing alternatives. Relying on hierarchies in knowledge, education, morality, and even human nature, they judged other positions defective versions of their own. Theists additionally found God implicitly present in other incomplete, misguided beliefs providentially permitted by God for a time. Likewise, Hindu theorists of

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