Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology

Part I: Becoming a Theologian.

1. How God makes Theologians.

Astonishment and Theological Virtue.

Resurrection to Pentecost: Where Christian Theology Begins.

But Can You Study Theology without Having to Believe?.

2. Strange Calling: Theologians as Adventurers, Pirates, Mystics, and Sages.

Adventure: Continuing Conversion of the Theologian.

Piracy: Thinking Analogically.

Mystical Life: Interpreting Reality in Terms of God.

Wisdom: Thinking by Means of God’s Thoughts.

3. Divine Teaching and Christian Beliefs.

Theology’s Weakness and Wisdom’s Parting Gift.

Sacred Teaching: The Nature and Function of Christian Beliefs.

Visions of the Whole: Origen, Aquinas, and Barth.

How Not to Believe: The Dangers of Fantasy and Fanaticism.

Part II: Theology’s Search for Understanding.

4. Salvation: The Foundation of Christian Theology.

ORIENTATION.

Why Start with Salvation?.

Salvation as the Basis for Christian Theology.

Identifying Different Approaches to the Mystery of Salvation.

5. Salvation: Meeting Heaven Face to Face.

LANDMARKS.

Irenaeus: Salvation and New Creation.

Brief Interlude: A Crucial Difficulty in Soteriology.

Augustine and God’s Justice.

Anselm and the Divine Order.

PATHFINDING.

On the Death of Christ: Orthodox, Feminist, and Girardian Concerns.

Salvation and the Paschal Mystery.

6. Divine Life: Trinity, Incarnation, and the Breathing of the Spirit.

ORIENTATION.

Sheer Bliss: Why God Reveals Divine Life to be the Trinity.

Forgiveness and Abundance: Origins of Trinitarian Awareness.

The Life of the Incarnate Word and the Power of the Spirit.

The Developing Principles of Trinitarian Theology.

LANDMARKS.

Augustine on the Mysterious Attraction of the Trinity: How to Read The Trinity.

Karl Barth on the God Who Loves in Freedom.

PATHFINDING.

Questions in Trinitarian Theology Today.

The Trinity and Mystical Participation in God.

7. Creaturely Life: A Journey towards Beatitude.

ORIENTATION.

Death No Longer Has Dominion: Creation’s Path in the Light of Easter.

Creation – Revelation – Sacrament.

Human Life – Ecclesial Life – Beatitude.

LANDMARKS.

Thomas Aquinas on Creation: “A Representation of the Divine Wisdom”.

Blaise Pascal on Human Existence.

PATHFINDING.

Two Disputed Questions.

The Human Calling in Creation.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index