andygoodliff

Doctrine of Providence Theology Conference

‘Deus Habet Consilium’—

An International Conference on the Career and Prospects of Providence in Modern Theology
7-9 January 2008, King's College, University of Aberdeen

This conference aims to break fresh ground in the analysis of divine providence by exploring a range of current proposals concerning its form, significance and viability within contemporary thought.             

The character and interrelation of divine and human agency lies at the contested heart of modern theology. Since the Enlightenment, the classical doctrine of providence has been aggressively criticised within both theology and philosophy.  Following on the cross-fertilization of early-modern eschatologies and the doctrine of providence, the idea of providence did not so much go into decline as migrate into secularized forms.  In light of the divergence of such humanistic approaches from classical theological conceptions of providence, contemporary restatements of the idea require careful consideration: what exactly is to be recovered? A metaphysical account of the doctrine grounded in divine omnipotence? A thoroughly historicized notion of providence? Or, perhaps something altogether different? By inviting scholars to examine the development of the idea of providence within intellectual history, the axial role of providence in modern systematic theologies, and the reformulation of the classical idea of providence after Hegel, we hope to advance the frontiers of investigation of the doctrine of providence at the present juncture.

Sarah Coakley "Providence and the Evolutionary Phenomenon of Cooperation: A systematic proposal"

David Bentley Hart "Providence and Ontological Causality"

Nicholas Healy "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?  Predestination and providence in Thomas Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar"

Andrew McGowan "Providence and Common Grace: A Reformed perspective"

Alister McGrath "The secularization of providence: Theological reflections on the concept of 'natural selection' in recent atheist apologetics"

Charles Mathewes "Providence and Political Discernment"

Francesca Murphy "The Question of Providence in I Samuel"

Susan Neiman "Providence and the Problem of Evil from Nietzsche to Heidegger"

Cyril O'Regan "Hegelian Theodicy and the Invisibility of Waste"

Hans Reinders "Providence and Ethics"

Katherine Sonderegger "The Pattern of Divine Providence"

John Swinton "Patience and Providence: Living gently in the presence of evil"

Stephen Webb "Providence After Darwin: Historical reflections on evolution and natural evil"

John Webster "Upholding the Universe by his Word of Power: On the theology of providence"

Philip Ziegler "History without Apocalypse: The transformation of providence in pragmatic historicism"

starting at oxford and other news

This week I started at Regent's Park, Oxford. Three days of introductory sessions and getting to know people. Next week is '0' week, which this time is four days looking at leadership in church for all  ministerial students. Then term finally begins.

I'm not the only new student - Brodie is starting an MTh at Edinburgh and Simon Jones is doing an MA in New Testament at Lambeth Palace.

In other news ASBO Jesus is currently producing some fantastic comments on church and christianity. If you've not already add this to your favourites.

Ian Mosby gives some personal reflections on the emerging church

Michael Bird gives an outline of a new book on the theology of early Christianity. He is currently also editing a book on the pistis christou debate.

IJST, October 2007

Calvin's Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ's Human Nature by R. Michael Allen

The Precarious Status of Resurrection in Friedrich Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre by Nathan D. Hieb

Non-Penal Substitution by Oliver Crisp

Barth's Criticisms of Kierkegaard - A Striking out at Phantoms? by Philip G. Ziegler

Trinity and Ontology: Colin Gunton's Ecclesiology by Ronald Chia

Book reviews include a review of Douglas Knight's The Eschatological Economy by Murray Rae and In Search of Humanity and Deity: A Celebration of John Macquarrie's Theology edited by Robert Morgan (esssays from John Webster, Paul Fiddes, Dan Hardy and Geoffrey Wainwright and others)

Jim Gordon on Barth and Von Balthasar

Jim Gordon is currently reading and reviewing Karl Barth and Hans Urs Von Balthasar: A Critical Engagement by Stephen Wigley (T & T Clark, 2007). Jim is a fantastic theologian and writer.

1. Disagreeing Allies
2. Mutually Corrective Theologies
3. On not Smart-Packaging the Almighty

His latest post makes a very important point. I think part of it is really worth repeating:

I think it is important for all of us to now and again encounter new and deep ways of thinking about God, and thinking about God on a scale and range vastly beyond our usual, routine conceptions, which by now are comfortably familiar, challenging but not inconveniently so, and to think way, way beyond that domesticated deity able to fit between the glossy flash covers of a less than 150 page paperback entitled God in Sixty Seconds for Busy People. OK I made that title up, but it stands for a whole genre of reductionist christian piety that wants God to fit in with, rather than collide with, our tolerated low intensity intellectual climate. What do I mean? Well, the tendency to smart package the Almighty into praise songs, or standardise the Eternal into devotional sound bytes, to so suss God that unaware of seismic detectors vibrating ominously, we've lost the capacity to sense  that Holy Love that comes to us with the disruptive potential of an earthquake.

 

Book Review: Beginnings and Endings

Maggi Dawn, Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between): Daily Bible Readings from Advent to Epiphany (Bible Reading Fellowship, 2007), 176pp (with thanks to BRF for review copy)

Maggi Dawn is an Anglican Priest, theologian, university chaplain, singer, author, speaker and blogger. This book is a collection of bible readings and reflections for the season of advent. As Christmas seems to begin earlier and earlier each year, the season of Advent gets squeezed and this book reminds us that there are four weeks before Christmas begins. The style of the book reminds me of Tom Wright's For Everyone series as it communicates and reveals new depths to these well-known stories.

The book is divided into six sections. Section one is all about beginnings and especially how the gospel writers begin their story. Section two and three take us back into Old Testament and Abraham, Elijah and Isaiah. Section four looks at angel-incidents in the Bible and explores how God speaks to us. Section five draws us into the story of Mary and Joseph and section six  is headed endings and we engage with shepherds and kings. 

Some of my favourite of the reflections - 'Coming, ready or not' and 'No room at the inn?' - first appeared on Maggi's blog over the last few years. In 'Coming, ready or not', we find a baby will come whether everything is in place or not and so Maggi says 'it is with God. He will be born in our world whether we're ready or not, deserving or not, prepared or not. The incarnation of God will defy our plans, upset the organized and come with ease and joy to undeserving sinners and the poor in spirit. (p.105). 'No room at the inn?' explores the Greek word kataluma, which is often translated as 'inn'.  Maggi shows us the word is actually more likely to mean 'a large family living room used for eating and receiving guests' (p.115), which puts a different emphasis on how we read the story.

Let me encourage you to get a copy of this book to go with your advent calendar. In and amongst the busyness of those December days, these daily bible readings will enable you to prepare for the coming of God once again.

Modern Theology, October 2007

The end of God's transcendence? On incarnation in the work of Slavoj Zizek by Frederiek Depoortere

Contesting the World and the Divine: Balthasar's Trinitarian 'response' to Gianni Vattimo's secular Christianity by Anthony C. Sciglitano Jr.

Blondel, Modern Catholic Theology and the Leibnizian eucharistic bond by David Grumett

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - An ethics of God's apocalypse by Philip G. Ziegler

The Question of nature and grace in Karl Barth: Humanity as creature and as covenant-partner by Kenneth Oakes

Balthasar, early and late by Edward T. Oakes

With reviews of Aristole Papanikolaou's Being with God: Trinity, apophaticism, and divine-human communion; Paul Molnar's Divine freedom and the Doctrine of the immanent Trinity; Lucian Turcescu's Gregory of Nyssa and the concept of divine persons; Fergus Kerr's Twentieth-century Catholic Theologians; and others.

Book Review: Hospitality as Holiness

Luke Bretherton, Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness Amid Moral Diversity (Ashgate, 2006), 215pp (with thanks to Ashgate for a review copy)

In this book Luke Bretherton seeks to explore how Christians can relate and resolve ethical disputes with non-Christians. In our pluralist society how can we determine or discern the right or just moral action when we don't all share the same beliefs and/or traditions.  This is an important discussion as we continue to respond to new science (e.g. stem-cell research) and new religious questions (how can the Christian, the Muslim and the non-religious live side by side?). The first half of the book sees Bretherton interact and explore the proposals of MacIntyre, Grisez and O'Donovan. The second half Bretherton argues for the practice of Christian hospitality (against the often cited notion of tolerance) as a means of dialogue and resolution. The final chapter situates this in the particular issue of hospice care and euthanasia.

Bretherton argues that MacIntyre's (and also Hauerwas') claim that any relationship between Christians and non-Christians will consist of rivalry and conflict is mistaken, however, neither can we assume that Christians and non-Christians will find agreement (contrary to Grisez's natural ethic). Bretherton claims (in part following O'Donovan) that 'the line between Christians and non-Christians is fluid' (p.115). For Christians it is not about competing traditions (so MacIntyre), but about the church and its distinctive witness. 'The church develops specific patterns and thought' writes Bretherton, which means 'some of its neighbours will participate in a church's response to the issue, some will reject it, some will ignore it, and some will actively oppose it' (p.197). It is the practice of Christian hospitality that allows the relationship between Christians and non-Christians to be fluid, because 'within the Christian practice of hospitality there is the imperative to enter into relationship with, and accommodate those who are different' (p.148).  Hospitality demands that the Christian welcomes and listens to the poor, the vulnerable, the stranger and in the 'other' see Christ. Bretherton concludes:

'Mediating disputes over moral problems which confront Christians and non-Christians is never simply a question of each accommodating the other's view, nor of compromise between two positions, nor of rivalry as one tradition seeks  to vindicate its answer against the answer given by other traditions. The only criterion by which the church can accept or reject the thought and action of its neighbours is whether such action accords with thought and action directed to God.' (p.151)

The practice of hospitality means the church must be open to recognising that the thoughts and actions of non-Christians might in some cases might bear a more truthful witness to Jesus Christ (p.151).

With new moral, social and political questions emerging every day, the Christian church must find ways to live among its neighbours and retain its distinctive witness. The temptation of the church is also two-fold, to accommodate and water-down its witness or to retreat from the public square and so disengage from the world. In presenting the biblical and theological practice of hospitality Bretherton offers the church a way to live within the plural world, that follows the example of Jesus Christ. I think the church has much to learn or perhaps relearn about hospitality, it is not a simple practice. Bretherton accepts the tensions involved in how we practice hospitality.

This is a well-written book, which makes an important contribution to how the church should relate to and live in the world. I hope it gets widely read.

 

Oxford and theology

As I prepare to start next week at Regent's Park College (they need to update their website), a permanent private hall, today's story in The Times covers the review of permanent private halls. I think Regent's will be ok and the real losers are Wycliffe, who have been in the news a lot over the summer about its shift towards conservative evangelicalism. Theology at Oxford has suffered over the last few years with the loss of John Webster and Oliver O'Donovan. New appointments Markus Bockmuehl and Nigel Biggar are good news and I'm looking forward to engaging with the likes of Bernd Wannenwetsch and Paul Fiddes.

Colin Gunton Conference: Douglas Knight's Paper

Douglas Knight has made available his paper Father, Son and Holy Spirit - Colin Gunton and the doctrine of God from last week's Colin Gunton Conference.

A Good Childhood? Growing Up in the 21st Century

The St Paul's Institute is running a series of debates around the issue of childhood:

Where do babies come from?’ Children, parents and contemporary society
16 October 2007, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

Do we see children as a blessing, a right or a lifestyle choice? For the first time in human history, we expect to have control over when we have children, and to some extent, what children we have. This opening discussion considers whether both increasing affluence and advances in fertility treatment and genetics have led to the commodification of children, and how attitudes to children are affected by a market-driven society.

Can I have some more? Childhood and consumerism
23 October 2007, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

Products for children have become big business, and children are increasingly the targets of advertising campaigns and marketing strategies. Meanwhile, the UK has one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe. What impact does consumerism have on child development? What are the present and long term spiritual, psychological and ethical consequences of childhood consumerism?

Must try harder? Education in the 21st century
30 October 2007, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

 

What is education for? To what extent is education an investment in ’human capital’ - equipping children with skills useful to the economy? In an increasingly competitive global economy is there pressure to sacrifice a well-balanced childhood to global economic forces?

Are we nearly there yet? Towards a good childhood
6 November 2007, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

This final discussion will take up the issues raised throughout the series to consider what makes for a good childhood - and the grounding of a good adulthood. What are the implications for educationalists, policy makers, spiritual leaders and parents?