"Let books be your dining table, / And you shall be full of delights. / Let them be your mattress,/And you shall sleep restful nights" (St. Ephraim the Syrian).
Showing posts with label theological anthropology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theological anthropology. Show all posts
I thought the promise of the calendar turning from 2017 to 2018 was that we would hear less and less about the 500th anniversary of Mr. Luther's loquacious hammering but perhaps I was a minority in that hope. In any event, we have a new book to consider: Christophe Chalamet, Konstantinos Delikostantis, Job Getcha, and Elisabeth Parmentier, eds., Theological Anthropology, 500 Years after Martin Luther: Orthodox and Protestant Perspectives (Brill, 2021), 344pp.
About this book the publisher tells us this:
Theological Anthropology, 500 years after Martin Luther gathers contributions on the theme of the human being and human existence from the perspectives of Orthodox and Protestant theology. These two traditions still have much to learn from each another, five hundred years after Martin Luther's Reformation. Taking Martin Luther's thought as a point of reference and presenting Orthodox perspectives in connection with and in contradistinction to it, this volume seeks to foster a dialogue on some of the key issues of theological anthropology, such as human freedom, sin, faith, the human as created in God's image and likeness, and the ultimate horizon of human existence. The present volume is one of the first attempts of this kind in contemporary ecumenical dialogue.
The rediscovery of Palamas in the contemporary period is one that must be regarded with some ambivalence insofar as he has often been used to posit certain polemical and apologetical positions by some Orthodox vis-à-vis the Catholic Church, and vice versa. Nevertheless, interest in him remains high, and we have a recent book that adds to it: Alexandros Chouliaras,
How are we to regard our body? As a prison, an enemy, or, maybe, an ally? Is it something bad that needs to be humiliated and extinguished, or should one see it as a huge blessing, that deserves attention and care? Is the body an impediment to human experience of God? Or, rather, does the body have a crucial role in this very experience? Alexandros Chouliaras’ book The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas: the Image of God, the Spiritual Senses, and the Human Body argues that the fourteenth-century monk, theologian, and bishop Gregory Palamas has interesting and persuasive answers to offer to all these questions, and that his anthropology has a great deal to offer to Christian life and theology today.
Amongst this book’s contributions are these: for Palamas, the human is superior to the angels concerning the image of God for specific reasons, all linked to his corporeality. Secondly, the spiritual senses refer not only to the soul, but also to the body. However, in Paradise the body will be absorbed by the spirit, and acquire a totally spiritual aspect. But this does not at all entail a devaluing of the body. On the contrary, St Gregory ascribes a high value to the human body. Finally, central to Palamas’ theology is a strong emphasis on the human potentiality for union with God, theosis: that is, the passage from image to likeness. And herein lies, perhaps, his most important gift to the anthropological concerns of our epoch.
Alexandros Chouliaras, post-doctoral researcher at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Theology, holds a PhD in Theology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Religion and Theology, under the direction of Professors Andrew Louth and John Behr. Some of his texts have been presented in international theological conferences and published in peer-reviewed academic journals. He serves as a parish priest in Athens, Greece (Metropolis of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki), where he lives with his wife and their four children.
In Eastern Christian studies, a new work by John Zizioulas has to count as a major event. He has commanded wide respect and authority across Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions for decades now. Some years back, I did an informal survey of university and seminary classes in ecclesiology where his first and still most famous book Being as Communionwas assigned. It was an impressively high number in schools of all three aforementioned traditions. His ecumenical reach is very impressive and very much to the good.
He has recently released a new book: The Meaning of Being Human(Sebastian Press, 2021), 100pp. About this book the publisher tells us this:
In this book Metropolitan of Pergamon is dealing with the most contemporary, the most urgent, the most existential issues facing the Church today. The core of author’s argument is that personhood as an ekstatic and hypostatic mode of existence is not subject to any predetermination or necessity. The book provides a perfect opportunity to look retrospectively at Metropolitan John Zizioulas’ profound theological vision. It serves both as a significant illustration of his vitality in preserving the continuance of his thought, and of his enduring faithfulness to the constants which permeate his entire theological legacy. The restoration of personhood in Christ leads inevitably to the community of the Church which, in its turn, offers impersonal nature the possibility of being “referred” to God in its integrity through the personhood of man. This makes the Church eucharistic in its very nature, and man God by participation in God. The Church’s eucharistic identity has led Zizioulas to rethink theology as a whole on the basis of ecclesial experience as a reflection of Trinitarian life.
Released just last month under the editorship of Mary Ann Hinsdale and Stephen Okey, the T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropologyfeatures chapters on such towering Eastern figures as Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as chapters on other very topical and current challenges.
About this book the publisher tells us this:
Including classical, modern, and postmodern approaches to theological anthropology, this volume covers the entire spectrum of thought on the doctrines of creation, the human person as imago Dei, sin, and grace.
The editors have gathered an exceptionally diverse range of voices, ensuring ecumenical balance (Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox) and the inclusion of previously neglected perspectives (women, African American, Asian, Latinx, and LGBTQ). The contributors revisit authors from the “Great Tradition” (early church, medieval, and modern), and discuss them alongside critical and liberationist approaches (ranging from feminist, decolonial, and intersectional theory to critical race theory and queer performance theory). This is a much-needed overview of a rapidly evolving field.
For better or worse, much theology--Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox--has for the better part of four decades now at least been rather interested in all things somatic. Along comes another volume, published just a month ago, to advance our understanding of The Unity of Body and Soul in Patristic and Byzantine Thought, eds., Anna Usacheva, Jörg Ulrich, and Siam Bhayro (Verlag Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2020), 350pp.
About this collection the publisher tells us this:
This volume explores the long-standing tensions between such notions as soul and body, spirit and flesh, in the context of human immortality and bodily resurrection. The discussion revolves around late antique views on the resurrected human body and the relevant philosophical, medical and theological notions that formed the background for this topic. Soon after the issue of the divine-human body had been problematised by Christianity, it began to drift away from vast metaphysical deliberations into a sphere of more specialized bodily concepts, developed in ancient medicine and other natural sciences. To capture the main trends of this interdisciplinary dialogue, the contributions in this volume range from the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE, and discuss an array of figures and topics, including Justin, Origen, Bardaisan, and Gregory of Nyssa.
It has been said for a while now that the major theological questions of our time will be anthropological in nature. Much of the career and writings of John Zizioulas have been devoted to trying to address such questions, but now a new generation of younger scholars is arising to meet some of the same challenges. Collected into a book just released are a number of those scholarly writings: Personhood in the Byzantine Christian Tradition: Early, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives, eds. Alexis Torrance, Symeon Paschalidis (Routledge, 2018), 248 pages
About this collection the publisher tells us:
Bringing together international scholars from across a range of linked disciplines (theology, history, Byzantine studies and philosophy) to examine the concept of the person in the Greek Christian East, Personhood in the Byzantine Christian Tradition stretches in its scope from the New Testament to contemporary debates surrounding personhood in Eastern Orthodoxy. Contributions explore various dimensions of the issue in specific historical contexts that have not hitherto received the scholarly attention they deserve. The volume thus brings forward an important debate over the roots of contemporary notions of personhood and will provide a key stimulus to further work in this area.
Earlier this year, a paperback edition of another book edited by Torrance and Johannes Zachhuber was released: Individuality in Late Antiquity (Routledge, 2018), 204pp.
About this book the publisher tells us the following:
Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important
cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a
new awareness of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary
and international group of scholars documents and analyses this
development. Authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including
the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and
religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more
generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar
and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves
as a comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human
individuality.
Paul Evdokimov remains one of the most interesting figures to come out of postwar Orthodoxy in France--a rich time with many rich thinkers, as I noted before. His book on marriage, The Sacrament of Love, remains to my mind the most theologically satisfying of any work in contemporary theology. But his theological anthropology, as those who have read Woman and the Salvation of the World know, remains problematic. According to at least three scholars I know who have studied and written about Evdokimov, he did not want this last book of his published, fearing it was unfinished and still needing work; but it was published posthumously anyway.
This work offers an analysis of Russian theologian Paul Evdokimov's view
in regard to the position of woman in Orthodox theology. He starts from
the doctrine of imago Dei, which requires a discussion of Evdokimov's
view of God, emphasizing the importance given to personhood within
Orthodox theology, and arguing that the concept of the monarchy of the
Father on the one hand undermines our understanding of personhood
itself, and on the other hand leaves room for hierarchical and
subordinationist structures. On marriage, he distinguishes between
monasticism and marriage, and while he presupposes monasticism to be a
threat to the status of marriage and that a low status of marriage, in
turn, is a threat to the status of woman, he fails to address either of
these. Ultimately, it is argued that Evdokimov's particular attempts to
both praise woman and deny any inferiority when compared with man are
undermined by his wider Orthodox tradition, where personhood is not
fully established, where monasticism has a higher status than marriage,
where woman is to be mother without any parallel requirement for man,
and where woman is not allowed an equal ministerial status with man.
The Catholic University of America Press recently sent me their catalogue for 2013, and there are numerous books in it that I look forward to seeing in print, including a collection edited by Thomas Albert Howard, Imago Dei: Human Dignity in Ecumenical Perspective (CUA Press, July 2013), 144pp. Eastern Christians will be pleased to note that this collection includes an Orthodox perspective from one of Orthodoxy's leading theologians today, John Behr of St. Vladimir's Seminary. About this book the publisher tells us:
What does it mean when we speak of human dignity? What challenges does
human dignity confront in our culture today? What is the relationship
between contemporary understandings of human dignity and the ancient
Christian doctrine of imago Dei, the view that human beings are created
in "the image and likeness of God"?This book pursues these and
related questions in the form of an ecumenical "trialogue" by leading
scholars from the three major Christian traditions: John Behr from the
Eastern Orthodox tradition, Russell Hittinger from the Catholic, and C.
Ben Mitchell from the Protestant tradition. The book is the first of its
kind to foster an ecumenical conversation around teachings of imago Dei
and present-day understandings of human dignity. The three
chapter-essays, the editor's introduction, and the afterword by Lutheran
theologian Gilbert Meilaender draw from a wide array of sources,
including Scripture, patristic works, ancients creeds, medieval and
Thomistic writings, papal encyclicals, Protestant confessional
statements, the works of modern theologians, and more.
Imago Dei
will serve as an indispensable resource for those wishing to deepen
their grasp of the theological bases for Christian views of human
dignity, as well as for those who believe that Christ's words "that they
be one" (John 17:21) remain a theological imperative today. The
combination of ethical inquiry and ecumenical collaboration makes this
timely book a unique and compelling contribution to present-day
Christian thought.
Les notions de personne (ou d'hypostase) et
de nature (ou d'essence) sont des notions de base de la théologie
trinitaire, de la christologie, de l'anthropologie et de la spiritualité
chrétiennes. Élaborées progressivement et avec peine, tant en
elles-mêmes que dans leurs relations, durant les six premiers siècles,
elles ont été au cœur des controverses et des dialogues théologiques de
toutes les époques. Presque tous les désaccords et tous les accords
concernant la foi ont mis en cause leurs définitions, leur déséquilibre
ou leur équilibre.
Aujourd'hui encore, ces notions restent au cœur des discussions
théologiques entre chrétiens en quête d'unité, qu'il s'agisse du
dialogue entre orthodoxes et catholiques ou protestants sur la question
du « Filioque », du dialogue entre l'Église orthodoxe et les Églises non
chalcédoniennes sur la personne et les natures du Christ, ou encore du
débat suscité par les théories personnalistes de certains représentants
du mouvement néo-orthodoxe grec qui entendent, à tort ou à raison,
contrebalancer tant l'essentialisme de la théologie latine que le
piétisme de certaines formes de spiritualité orthodoxe.
Les études rassemblées dans ce volume constituent des contributions
majeures à ces différentes dimensions du dialogue interchrétien et
interorthodoxe contemporain, et plusieurs d'entre elles, écrites il y a
plusieurs années (mais actualisées pour la présente édition), restent
régulièrement citées comme des travaux de référence.
Derrière l'aspect critique de ces textes, on trouve en effet un réel
approfondissement des concepts mis en jeu et, au-delà de leur caractère
engagé et circonstanciel, une réflexion théologique de portée
universelle susceptible d'intéresser tous les chrétiens soucieux
d'approfondir leur foi.
One of the important debates today concerns the nature of the human person. Questions of theological anthropology, in other words, have become increasingly prominent among Christian thinkers of all traditions. Pope John Paul II made that clear in his inaugural encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. In the East, these questions were set forth in what has remained one of the most influential books, John Zizioulas's Being as Communion--to say nothing of his later works of theological anthropology, particularly Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church.
Today, then, we have an increasing recognition of the importance of the topic, and an increasing number of books on it. One of the most recent comes from the hand of the patristic scholar Sr. Nonna (Verna) Harrison, from whose several essays in learned journals on the theological anthropology of the Greek Fathers (the Cappadocians especially) I have learned much. She is the author of God's Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation (Baker Academic, 2010), 207pp.
About this book, the publisher tells us:
What does it mean to be a human being made in the image of God? This book makes the case that the divine image can be seen in not just one or two aspects of human identity but in all of them. The author, a specialist in early Christianity, reveals the light that leading theologians of the early church shed on contemporary discussions of what it means to be human. Each chapter explores a different facet of the divine image and likeness and maps out a path that can lead toward wholeness and holiness. This fresh approach to theological anthropology brings Greek patristic theology to students in a readable fashion.
I asked Sr. Nonna for an interview about her book, and here are her answers to some questions:
Tell us why you wrote this book.
NVH: For Many years my research has been centered on theological anthropology, that is an examination of how Christians understand what it is to be human. What is it in each of us that manifests the “image of God” according to which we are created? My studies have focused on the Greek fathers, and I have found in their writings many facets of the image of God, not just one standard definition. These facets are what I set out to explore and to summarize in this book.
In other words, what is at the core of our human identity, and what gives each of us value and dignity as a human person? In a world where many people are subject to discrimination for one reason or another, and all too often people are treated like disposable commodities, it is important to affirm their value, to explain why each one has value.
Yet each of us is called to live in accord with that dignity, to manifest God’s image and grow into his likeness, the likeness of Christ. This intrinsically involves affirming a corresponding dignity in each of the people we encounter. But this task turns out to be difficult, and one wonders how it can be done in practice. To address this question in the book, I brought in many concrete examples, especially from the desert fathers and mothers, but also from the contemporary world.
For whom was the book written−did you have a particular audience in mind?
NVH: When I wrote it I was teaching at Saint Paul School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in Kansas City. So it was written with my students in mind and others like them including undergraduates. I also had in mind a broader audience of lay people in parishes. My intention was to reach out to Protestants and all kinds of people, to bring them the Christian message in a way that is understandable today and addresses many people’s need for a sense of identity and meaning in their existence.
Of course, I also hoped it would be useful to the community of scholars to which I belong, those who specialize in patristics and in Eastern Christian studies. In practice, I have found that the book reaches all these audiences. It has been gratifying to learn that during the academic year 2010-2011 it has been used as a textbook in courses at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology.
What about your own background led you to the writing of this book?
NVH: The real question here is, what drew me to study theological anthropology in the first place, and why has it continued to interest me? As I was writing the book, I realized that the initial impetus lay in my childhood questions, some of which I discuss there. For instance, how do I find the value within myself to do or create something of value that I can offer to others? And then there is the issue of personal uniqueness, why am I me and not somebody else? Another childhood question I did not articulate in the book was, how can I find the courage and strength to affirm my value when others so often despise and reject me? I believe many people today have the same kinds of questions I had as a child. The whole book is an attempt to respond to these questions and others like them.
The former Chief Justice William Rehnquist used to say, “It will all come out in the writing.” Were there any surprises you discovered in your writing?
NVH: Much of it was drawing together what I have learned over the years. But let me mention four surprises. The first was the way the chapter on virtues formed the center of the book, the hinge that held the rest together. I realized how very important virtues are to me, how much they disclose the beauty of God. Acquiring and developing them is a gift from God, it is precious, it is worth the pain and the effort required, it fashions in us the divine likeness. As a monastic I probably should have known all this, but I had not thought about it much before.
The second surprise was Chapter Five on “Royal Dignity.” It practically wrote itself. It gave clear expression to a concern for social justice that the Methodists at Saint Paul encouraged. It came out in my teaching there, but I had not often expressed it since I was punished for doing do as a child. A related surprise was the discovery, as I researched that chapter, of slavery’s re-emergence in many parts of the world. Just in the few years since I wrote that chapter, this re-emergence has become better known in the United States. Slavery is among the most direct and systematic denials of the image of God in human persons. Today I saw an interview on PBS with Benjamin Skinner, the investigative reporter whose book, A Crime So Monstrous, is cited toward the end of Chapter Five.
The fourth surprise was the extent to which the aims and methods of modern science manifest the image of God in the scientists themselves. In particular, I was delighted to see how the mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler made precisely this point. The ongoing conversations between theology and the sciences hold a lot of promise.
Sum up briefly the main themes/ideas/insights of the book.
NVH: Some main ideas and themes are discussed above. Each chapter is highlights a different facet of the image of God in humankind: (1) our freedom of choice; (2) our relationship with God and with Christ; (3) our capacity to perceive spiritual realities; (4) the many human virtues; (5) the dignity of every human person; (6)the necessity of the body in fulfilling our vocation as God’s image; (7) our roles in the crested world; (8) the practice of the arts and sciences; (9) human community as image of the Holy Trinity; and in conclusion, the inexhaustible mystery of the image of God.
Some of the most controverted questions in both Church and society today are anthropological in nature. Two in particular stand out: can women be ordained to the priesthood in the Orthodox Churches, and can same-sex relationships be recognized and affirmed, even considered as "marriages" by Christians? Two new very interesting works from Orthodox scholars have just been published on the topic of theological anthropology:
Her book, with a foreword by Met. Kallistos Ware, will be reviewed by the scholar and Hieromonk Irenei (M.C.) Steenberg, himself author of a recent book in the same area, also with a foreword from Met. Kallistos:
Steenberg's book, also to be reviewed next year in Logos, is published by T&T Clark (Continuum), which is a very important publisher that has for some time now been putting out a lot of works in theological anthropology--but an enormous number of books in other areas as well. They are also the official English publishers for Met. John Zizioulas's books.
made that clear in his inaugural encyclical, 
. In the East, these questions were set forth in what has remained one of the most influential books, John Zizioulas's 
. 
, is cited toward the end of Chapter Five.
