Theses - Divinity
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Item Embargo The Right to Resist: A Theological Investigation of the Moral Legitimacy of Maximalist CampaignsMcCormick, Walter PatrickThis thesis presents a theological investigation into the moral legitimacy of maximalist resistance campaigns. It was prompted by the results of landmark research in political science finding that, over the course of the twentieth century, nonviolent campaigns were statistically more effective than their violent counterparts in achieving maximalist objectives. The implications of these findings are profound. If it is not only possible, but more effective, to depose tyrannical governments by nonviolent means, there are ramifications for normative international frameworks, external actors, international law, and moral theology. And yet, to establish efficacy is not to determine legitimacy. This thesis therefore explores the moral legitimacy of maximalist campaigns from a theological perspective. It does so in the context of the social doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the right to resist political authority. The doctrinal criteria for exercising the right to resist are essentially isomorphic with the doctrinal criteria for just war. Accordingly, it examines legitimate reasons for resistance to a government, as well as legitimate means of resistance – corresponding to the jus ad bellum and jus in bello categories of the just war tradition. It then discusses a doctrinal tension in which the modern Magisterium consistently has rejected recourse to war, and yet endorsed the potential use of force to protect vulnerable populations in fulfillment of the Responsibility to Protect. The study suggests that a route toward resolving this tension may lie in clarifying conceptual relationships that remain underexamined in the doctrine itself: (1) the relationship between the right to resist and the rule of law; and (2) the relationship between the rule of law and sovereignty.Item Embargo Muslim Messiah: Evangelical Missionaries and the Controversies of Islamic ContextualizationAnderson, ChristianThis thesis analyses a major evangelical missionary controversy over "insider movements", in which American missionaries encouraged Muslim background converts in South and Southeast Asia to follow Jesus while retaining their Muslim identity, triggering fractious debates over their continuing mosque attendance and use of Muslim-targeted Bible translations which had avoided rendering the term "Son of God" literally. The question of whether an indigenous Christianity might be possible within Islam led to a discussion that persisted from the early 1970s to the early 2010s, exposing fault lines within American evangelicalism over the nature of Islam, the role of Bible translation, and the line between "contextualization" and “syncretism". Drawing on rarely viewed material in archives at Fuller Seminary, Wheaton College, and the U.S. Center for World Mission, this thesis makes a critical intervention in the history of American evangelicalism's relation to Islam. It highlights a less fearful and more empathetic period of engagement during the 1970s and 1980s in which Islam was reimagined as benign culture and gospel receptacle — and evangelical missionaries themselves participated in Ramadan and some even in mosque prayers — before showing how a backlash against these approaches contributed to far more hostile conceptions of Islam from the 1990s onwards. The thesis pays particular attention to Bangladesh as an arena in which the practicalities and politics of Muslim contextualization unfolded, showing how the success of missionary experiments, the growth of Muslim-affiliated Jesus groups and the corresponding objections of the established Bangladeshi churches were all vital in shaping the larger debate.Item Embargo Discrimination and Desire: Gregory of Nyssa’s Hagiographical Writing and the Holy LifeGilfeather, RyanDuring his career at the end of the fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa wrote a significant number of narratives about holy lives. Across his extant texts he articulates the same common goal: to lead the audience into virtue through narrating holy lives. In this, Gregory prompts two questions in the modern reader: why does he believe that these hagiographical texts can lead his audience into virtue, and how does he shape them to do so? I argue that Gregory envisages that his hagiographical texts lead their audiences through mutually reinforcing cycles of reordering desire (ἐπιθυμία) for virtue, and making a correct distinction (διάκρισις) between virtue and vice. Novice Christians are characteristically in bondage to the passions and are, thus, unable to make a διάκρισις between virtue and vice. By framing virtue in sensually pleasurable terms, the ἐπιθυμία of the audience yearns for it, drags the mind to focus on it, and they imitate the virtuous action of the exemplar. Such aesthetic imitation of virtuous action leads to ontological μίμησις of the Divine Nature qua virtue. The Christian experiences spiritual pleasure in the rational faculty, the passions begin to wane and they experience desire for virtue as the true good. Thus, reordered ἐπιθυμία has made it possible to make a correct διάκρισις, because the mind is not dragged about in pursuit of sensual pleasure. Crucially, now correct διάκρισις leads to an increase in ἐπιθυμία for virtue. Hence, the hagiographer is able to lead intermediate Christians into virtue by persuading them of the difference between virtue and vice, through encomiastic and exegetical techniques. Such reordered ἐπιθυμία leads to further cycles of διάκρισις and desire, purging of the passions, until the mature Christian stands on the threshold of mystical union with God. Here, the hagiographer can once again use rhetoric to further enflame the ἐπιθυμία for contemplation. When this happens, the ἐπιθυμία drags the mind across the threshold into mystical union with God. Throughout the life of the Christian, hagiographical texts lead the Christian through these mutually reinforcing cycles between ἐπιθυμία and διάκρισις, until the soul is exalted up to the mountain peak of the holy life. The first part of the thesis establishes the key historical and conceptual contexts. Chapter one will propose what the anticipated contexts of performances and who the intended audiences were for my chosen texts. Chapter two will show that for Gregory virtue is a good movement (κῑν́ημᾰ) proper to one of the three faculties of the soul (λογῐσμός, ἐπιθυμία, or θῡμός), which leads to virtuous actions when the soul is correctly ordered and can distinguish between good and evil. These virtues are reinforced when a person chooses the good. Progress in the virtues of the lower faculties reinforce those of the rational faculty and vice versa. Chapters three and four respond to Allison Gray’s claim that Gregory envisages that his hagiographical texts empower his audience to discern imitable virtues and virtuous actions from an exemplar’s life for themselves. First, chapter three draws on Gregory’s wider *oeuvre* to offer an anthropological and epistemological account of how hagiographical narratives can empower the rational faculty. I theorise Gregory supposes that narratives describe virtuous actions which reveal something of the virtues that generate them. Upon hearing them, the rational faculty of the hearer is able to make a διάκρισις between virtue and vice, and imitate the virtuous action which instils further virtue. Chapter four exemplifies this theory and completes my argument against Gray’s position. It demonstrates how Gregory uses basic emphasis, *allegoresis* and *paraphrasis* in his hagiographical texts to discern what virtues and virtuous actions are, and to foreground them to his audience. My argument culminates in chapter five, where having critiqued Gray’s position on the way hagiographical narratives empower the mind, I broaden out my discussion to explore the role of desire. Using evidence from Gregory’s wider writings to build my theories, and passages from his hagiographical texts to exemplify them, I argue that Gregory envisages that his hagiographical texts lead their audiences through mutually reinforcing cycles of reordered ἐπιθυμία and correct διάκρισις. As the Christian matures, these cycles enable them to aesthetically imitate virtuous actions of these exemplars, through which they achieve ontological μίμησις of the Divine Nature qua virtue. In these ways, Gregory supposes that his hagiographical texts help restore in his audiences the image of God.Item Embargo Rethinking Myth as a Hermeneutical Tool in Pauline StudiesHase, LukeThis thesis undertakes a fundamental rethinking of ‘myth’ as a heuristic analytical tool in Pauline studies. It contends that the discipline’s longstanding resistance to, and insufficient engagement with, the concept of myth has deprived scholars of a rich and illuminating means of interpreting Paul’s letters. It first appraises the reception of ‘myth’ in Pauline research since the dawn of the scientific method, unpacking how the category has previously been engaged, and to what extent this has been critically informed. Each of the main phases of prior engagement with Paul, his gospel and ‘myth’ are shown to have been ideologically driven, theoretically confused and superficial, and to have scarcely ever risen above the popular pejorative equation of myth with ‘unhistorical’. After noting a few nascent attempts in recent decades to engage a more nuanced approach, this thesis then engages more fully than has hitherto been done in New Testament scholarship with modern myth theory across various branches of the humanities and social sciences, with a view to constructing a theoretically informed model of core properties and functions of mythic narrative. A preliminary context for the development of the scholarly study of myth is offered. This is then met by an unpacking of six positive currents in crossdisciplinary myth theory, along with what this body of scholarship has to say about the popular myth-versus-history stance that has loomed large in Pauline studies, where this is shown to be a false dichotomy. Armed with an extensive crossdisciplinary modelling of ‘myth’, the thesis then demonstrates how this offers a rich interpretative framework shedding light on the operative character of the gospel story in key problematic portions of the Pauline corpus—including Romans 6:3-11, 2 Corinthians 1 and 4, and Philippians 2:5-11.Item Embargo Theological Essentialism at the Enlightenment: The Doctrine of Fundamental Articles of the Faith in Daniel Waterland (1683-1740)Williams, SimeonThis doctoral thesis represents the first full length historical and comparative analysis of both the contextual catalysts and the originality of the theologically essentialist writings by Church of England theologian Daniel Waterland (1683-1740). Overviewing the most relevant contemporary discussions of doctrinal “fundamentality,” it breaks with a precarious historiography which often cites Waterland as its sole primary source on the early Hanoverian reception of Protestantism’s Post-Reformation doctrine of fundamental articles of the faith (i.e., the teaching that there exist confessedly biblical articles of the Christian faith unnecessary to the Christian faith). Juxtaposed with the findings of these historical reconstructions, Waterland’s rather cursory and highly critical accounts of contemporary theological essentialism are for the first time critically engaged and confirmed as largely historically accurate. The thesis therefore addresses what was yet an unresolved historiographical tension in Waterland due to his polemical tendency to leave texts of unorthodox views uncited and their authors unnamed. Having located Waterland’s project on the contemporary ecclesiastical landscape, the thesis conducts what is to date the most rigorous exposition of Waterland’s doctrine of fundamentals. He pursued what was described as “formal” (versus heuristic) construction of the doctrine whereby the fundamentals of Christianity are grounded and identified scientifically, just as the expert technician or metaphysician would technically analyze the fundamentals and essentials of any object. Thus committed to the primacy of proper categories, his own methodological and doctrinal proposals appear thoroughly teleological: assuming that the importance of any part is a function of its relation to the defining telos of the whole, and that this relation is itself a function of the nature of the whole (including that of the part) and that of its circumstances. Therefore, the theologian ought only examine “the nature and reason of things” for distinctly operational evidence for the importance of any given part of “the Christian system” of doctrine and practice. The thesis concludes that, despite Waterland’s often forgotten claims to the contrary, the theoretical machinery of his doctrine renders it highly idiosyncratic and apparently unattested within the early Georgian church, if not the English fundamental articles tradition as a whole.Item Embargo Becoming Words of Witness: The Motif of Call and Response in Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath TagoreKhalid, HinaThis dissertation is a thematic exploration of the motif of call and response as it is articulated across the works of Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). By taking this call-response structure as my overarching hermeneutic, I seek to demonstrate how Iqbal and Tagore envision human becoming as a fundamentally artistic exercise which is dynamically interwoven with the divine artistry. The human person is, in other words, called on to become an active participant in the divine creativity unfolding through the cosmos, and to go on crafting her own world in modes that reflect as well as instantiate the primordial creativity. What emerges from my study is that both figures, through their distinctive philosophical-theological vocabularies, elaborate a vision of the human person as homo viator in a world that is itself perpetually pulsating with the new. Across the three substantive chapters, the God-self-world triad will be employed to respectively highlight certain cosmological, anthropological, and communitarian dimensions of the call-response dynamism. We will repeatedly encounter the paradox that while human response is enabled by God’s sovereign call, the fulfilment of this primordial outreach is somehow dependent on the proper exercise of human creativity. In Chapter 1, I outline the metaphysical canopies of their conceptions of human creativity, by drawing out, in their cosmological visions, the primordial call-response structure that sets forth the God-world relation as a dynamic entanglement. I end with a sketch of how the human self becomes a vital locus of this continuous creativity, as focalised for Iqbal in the person of the vicegerent (khalīfa) and for Tagore in the person of the karma-yogin. In Chapter 2, I continue exploring this thematic of the human locus by attending specifically to the motifs of love, artistic creativity, and prayer, as living sites where the call-response structure that characterises the divine-human entanglement is enacted and elaborated. The modalities of vision and voice become especially crucial as the human self is, on these three sites, called on to see and to hear the divine. Indeed, this conception of the pilgrim self, whose identity is not a fixed finality but an unfolding work of art, undergirds their distinctive critiques of the mechanising and utilitarian logics of imperial modernity. Thus, in Chapter 3, I turn to what we might term the choral response, by exploring how the Iqbalian and the Tagorean conceptions of the divine call are refracted through their respective socio-political prisms, wherein the ‘political’ does not connote a remorseless calculus of transactional exchange but serves as another collaborative site for creative and artistic unfolding. In the end, the true ‘politician’, in the polis which is a habitation of the divine, is the khalīfa or the karma-yogin in whose worldly existence – shaped by love, art, and prayer – a vertical openness to the one divine root and a horizontal openness to manifold social routes are integrally intertwined.Item Open Access Protestant Nominalism: An Analysis of Post-Reformation (1555-1662) Protestant Philosophical TheologySnyder, SethThis project addresses critiques of Protestantism based on the thesis that Protestant philosophical theology is constitutively Scotist and/or nominalist in its metaphysics – what I call the “Protestant-nominalist critique” – and assesses them against the philosophical theologies of representative theologians from the Anglican and Lutheran traditions. For this analysis of Protestant philosophical theology I concentrate on theologians from the post-Reformation period, for the reason that the Protestant-nominalist critique and the responses to it to date are largely focused on first-generation Reformers, and therefore could be extended by further research into this later phase of Protestant development. In Chapter One I introduce the Protestant-nominalist critique by identifying its origins in early-modern Roman Catholic apologetics, and by tracing its development through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries up to the present. I then analyze the basic elements or features of the Protestant-nominalist critique as articulated by Milbank, Gregory, etc: the argument from metaphysical univocity, the argument from metaphysical competition, the passivity argument, the modal argument, the extrinsicist argument, the argument from theological voluntarism, the disintegration argument, and the anti-intellectualist argument. Following this analysis, I outline the various responses to the Protestant-nominalist critique in the literature to date. I then argue that both the Protestant-nominalist critique and the responses to it can be illuminated by further exploration of Protestant philosophical theology during the post-Reformation period (1555-1662). The next four chapters form the heart of the thesis. They analyze the philosophical theologies of two Anglican and two Lutheran theologians, focusing on whether, and in what ways, they do or do not match with the characterization of Protestantism as Scotist-nominalist. I select these figures based on four criteria: timeframe, representativeness, relevance, and accessibility. By the timeframe criterion I restrict my analysis to those figures who were alive and active during the post-Reformation period; by representativeness I refer to those figures who are central and defining, as opposed to peripheral or idiosyncratic, within their respective traditions; on the relevance criterion I select figures who treat relevant philosophico-theological topics (e.g., analogy/univocity, divine and created causality, etc.) with sufficient range and depth for a satisfactorily comprehensive analysis; and by accessibility I prefer figures who are clearer, more precise, and, preferably, more systematic in their treatment and arrangement of these topics relative to the alternatives. Using these criteria, I select as my interlocutors John Davenant for Jacobean Anglicanism, John Bramhall for Laudian Anglicanism, Martin Chemnitz for Confessional Lutheranism, and Johann Gerhard for Orthodox Lutheranism. In the fifth and final chapter, I conclude from my analysis that the identification of Protestant philosophical theology with Scotism-nominalism is not borne out in these representative figures, that the relationship between philosophical and doctrinal theology in Protestantism is underdetermined, and that other, non-philosophical concerns (such as exegesis and pastoral concerns) are in some cases more governing for Protestant doctrinal theology than philosophical theology. I conclude the chapter and the dissertation by drawing out some of the scholarly, practical, and ecclesial implications of my research and its conclusions.Item Embargo Paul and the Politics of Idolatry: Ancient Mediterranean Cult Images and Iconic Ritual in the Letters of PaulChantziantoniou, AlexanderThis thesis is a comparative project of redescription and contextualisation, the overarching aim of which is to reinstate the discourse of 'idols' (εἴδωλα) and 'idolatry' (εἰδωλολατρία) in the letters of Paul within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean religion involving cult images and iconic ritual. The focus of this thesis lies most broadly in the political and ethnic dynamics of Paul's ritual demand that gentiles renounce the iconic cult of their own ancestral customs (so-called 'idolatry'), turning from images of gentile gods (so-called 'idols') to serve exclusively the Jewish god, without becoming Jews in the process. My specific enquiry along these lines explores how wider ethnopolitical traditions involving images inform the intelligibility and recognisability of Paul's ritual demand among gentiles. While Paul has been studied time and again alongside other early Jewish polemicists, there has been no full treatment of his claims in light of the wider image-laden world he inhabited—much less from the perspective of Greeks, Romans, and other non-Jews sympathetic to iconic piety and sensitive to its internal politics. That is to say, in Pauline scholarship on 'idols' and 'idolatry', the intelligibility and recognisability of Paul's claims among his own gentile followers have been all but overlooked. The distinctive contribution of this thesis arises from this lacuna. It is my contention that Paul creatively deployed an ancestral Jewish discourse of 'idols' and 'idolatry' to facilitate the social formation of his gentile assemblies, but that, in so doing, he operated within and innovated upon an iconopolitical strategy of cultural production that was otherwise common among Greeks and Romans, no less than Jews. This widespread tradition of 'image politics' configured social power relations between humans and their gods and constructed social identity among competitive ethnic groups through the manipulation of their images. The goal of this thesis, then, is to contextualise Paul within ancient Mediterranean religion more broadly by redescribing his claims about 'idols' and 'idolatry' in terms of sociopolitical practices and ethnic group-making strategies involving images of the gods, which were, on any account, ubiquitous across the Mediterranean basin in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. By approaching Paul from the vantage point of social practices, ritual perspectives, and ethnopolitical strategies involving ancient Mediterranean cult images and iconic ritual, this thesis not only offers fresh illumination to key passages on a topic at the heart of his gentile mission, but it historicises the Jewish discourse Paul deployed in the social formation of his gentile assemblies in a way that renders it intelligible and recognisable among his own gentile followers.Item Embargo Sociality and the Mystical Theology of ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731)Khan, Muhammad ImranThis dissertation explores ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī’s mystical theology in relation to his sociality: his associations, interactions and companionships with others. Nābulusī is arguably the most prolific Muslim author of the early modern period. Yet, he remains insufficiently studied, particularly for someone who was both a distinguished Muslim scholar and an accomplished Sufi. Rivalling this neglect is that there are few studies on sociality in Islam through the lens of a particular figure, notwithstanding copious didactic manuals on pious Muslim behavioural etiquette. This thesis analyses Nābulusī’s life and thought pertaining to sociality in the context of his background as a Sufi-scholar. Studying his ideas about sociality, dovetails Islamic theological and mystical intellectual history in the context of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by presenting Nābulusī’s original forays into areas of theology based on his interpretations of the primary sources of Islam – namely the Qur’an and Hadith. This thesis argues that Nābulusī’s life and thought even in spiritual matters reveal an inherent relationship with others that is central to his mystical theology. It uses phenomenology as a method to explore various aspects of Nābulusī’s relationships theologically, that is, granting particular credence to his own experiences and writings. The focus of this research mainly concerns four such areas which richly expound Nābulusī’s ideas and experiences in relation to sociality, while best illuminating his mystical theology, namely: God, seclusion, teachers and students, and young male companionships. Nābulusī’s vicarious relationship with God (mostly through the dead) complements the study of his relations with fellow living human beings. While direct mystical communication with God is fundamental to deepening one’s relationship with God, the agency of other human beings, including the agency of the deceased, plays an important role that may not be dismissed. Thus, we cannot ignore his grave-visitations and pleas to God in the vicinity of “erstwhile” temporal holy figures. The consideration of Nābulusī’s isolation from society is an essential part of this research, since he justifies the theological suspension of interactions with others during his life. The analysis of this phenomenon leads to a deeper appreciation of the multifaceted ways in which sociality was enacted when “alone”, such as the highlighting and challenging of social injustices through writing. Such intimate engagement with the theological issues at stake, together with the socio-political context and Nābulusī’s personal experiences, demonstrate his engagement and contributions as an original thinker. Teachers of the outward (*ẓāhir*) and inward (*bāṭin*) sciences are indispensable to strengthening an individual’s connection with God. This thesis examines their role in facilitating the seeker on the mystical path to adopt the etiquettes required to advance upon it, as well as the roles that dreams and soul-connections play in advancing knowledge and awareness of God. The multitude of ways in which these connections occur elucidates aspects of knowledge-acquisition that are ordinarily overlooked. This enhances our appreciation of the sophisticated ways in which Nābulusī interacts with others and imparts knowledge and inspiration. Finally, I research the contentious issue of loving boys, and analyse Nābulusī’s defence of this practice in depth. The theological arguments he develops, despite the controversial nature of the topic in his time as well as historically among Muslims, offer a glimpse into his formidable legal reasoning and his scholarly acumen to combine these with endorsement from spiritual perspectives. Thus, relations which are often thought of as spiritually prosaic (grave-visitations), or based on mere ritual practices (seclusion), or usually confined to external etiquettes and simply involving sense-perception (learning), or seemingly profane (interaction with youth) are rooted in much deeper theological, spiritual and mystical considerations. Researching the above topics in this way presents Nābulusī in a sophisticated manner and offers to Nābulusian Studies, in particular, an original lens through which his thought may be integrated. This study’s contribution to Islamic Studies then is to combine the interrogation of sociality in several areas, and to apply them in relation to Nābulusī’s mystical theology. In addressing such themes, this mystical sociality evinces questions of an ethical and legal nature too, not just its purely mystical dimensions. It demonstrates Nābulusī’s spiritual dependency, interaction and reliance on others, as well as others’ dependence on him for elevation spiritually: a unique conceptualisation of his life that will explicate the theology of sociality for a mystic like Nābulusī, in both theory and practice.Item Embargo Conversion & Community: Revisiting Modern Protestant Anxieties Over “Pietistic Conversion” in Light of Conversion Narratives From the First Great AwakeningMc Craw, AustinThis thesis addresses modern protestant theological concerns with the notion of conversion by examining the operative theologies of conversion implicit in 18th-century anglophone conversion narratives. A number of modern protestant theologians have expressed significant worries over what is regularly referred to as “pietistic conversion.” This theological trope has come to represent problematically subjectivistic, individualistic, and mechanistic views of conversion within protestant theology. Theologians such as Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Jürgen Moltmann, Leslie Newbigin, John Stott, and J. I. Packer all warn of the influence of “pietistic conversion” in the popular theological imagination, particularly in connection to the circulation of first-person accounts of conversion experiences amongst Pietists and evangelicals. However, despite the routine assumption that such conversion narratives are often sentimentally distorted and theologically deficient, modern theological critics of popular theologies of conversion rarely engage directly with such texts. This thesis seeks to address this oversight. Methodologically, this thesis engages with a representative set of twelve conversion narratives from the First Great Awakening in the 18th-century (a period that has proven particularly influential for later protestant ideas about conversion), putting them in conversation with modern protestant theologians, as well as with insights from discussions of conversion-like phenomena in recent critical theory. Chapter 1 demonstrates the existence of the modern protestant anxiety over “pietistic conversion,” outlines the various theological problems associated with the trope and proposes a method for reading 18th-century popular conversion narratives in light of contemporary theological concerns. Chapter 2 examines how the narratives navigate the objective-subjective binary, demonstrating that the notion of conversion implicit in the operative theologies of the narratives offers an integrative account of the relationship between “objective” divine realities and “subjective” feelings in experiences of “conversion.” Here assistance is drawn from literary theorist Rita Felski’s notion of “attunement.” Chapter 3 examines how the narratives resist simplistic readings as theologically individualistic, presuming instead a dynamic interplay between the convert and their community in conversion, in which the community is understood to mediate divine agency in complex ways. This chapter further explores how the narratives handle problems of “advocacy” within a non-competitive view of divine-human agency, demonstrating the layered and textured “distributed agency” presumed in the narratives, particularly in connection with the notion of divine “presence.” Chapter 4 explores how the narratives account for the possibility of manipulation in attempts to influence conversion, engaging also with a set of texts from the debate between Jonathan Edwards and Charles Chauncy over tactics used to help foster the kinds of conversion experiences typically associated with 18th-century revivals. It concludes by identifying several theological categories for navigating the distinction between mediation and manipulation. In the end, this thesis challenges modern protestant theological anxieties associated with “pietistic conversion” by demonstrating that 18th-century conversion narratives, as highly influential works of popular theology, are more complex and nuanced than is often presumed, in order ultimately to offer in the Conclusion a fresh and contemporary angle on the notion of conversion from a theological perspective.Item Embargo Sin and Theory: Martin Luther's Hamartiology in Dialogue with Critical TheoryTorrance, Jonathan; Torrance, Jonathan [0000-0002-1586-0025]Reflections on the pathological in the human condition are a significant part of contemporary discourse, but outside of the theology guild the debate almost never references the category of sin. Within contemporary theology, by contrast, hamartiology is enjoying something of a renaissance, yet few theologians are enthusiastically embracing Martin Luther's insights into the doctrine of sin. Indeed Luther is often seen as a particularly extreme, and therefore particularly malignant, version of the Augustinian tradition, whose theological hegemony so many theologians want to challenge. The primary thesis of this project is that Luther in fact offers powerful resources for reflecting on sin and the pathological more broadly, and that a retrieval, translation and reconstruction of his ideas is thus an important task for theology today. Yet there remain conceptual and theological challenges in deploying Luther's thought, and in addressing these questions this project also proposes a secondary thesis: that dialogue between theology and critical theory can be a highly generative approach to hamartiological impasses. Critical theory represents a dominant theoretical perspective that structures much work in the humanities and underpins a significant proportion of contemporary politics, especially on the Left. It is often seen as inimical to theology, yet in this thesis I treat it as a discourse about human pathology that is particularly alive to issues of self deception, delusion and the hidden quality of the pathological. Seen in such a light, I argue, it actually provides a powerful parallel diagnosis of the human condition, which can be mutually enlightening for a doctrine of sin. Dialogue between theology and critical theory, therefore, not only provides important points of contact between theology and a major contemporary stream of discourse, but can also be illuminating for theological debates. The thesis falls structurally into two parts. The first, (chapters 1 and 2) provides the intellectual and doctrinal foundations for the constructive work of the second part. Chapter 1 is introductory, offering a brief survey of current trends in hamartiology, and outlining the key interlocutors and methodology of the thesis. Chapter 2 then gives an overview of Luther's hamartiology, drawn primarily from a key text, the 1532 *Enarratio Psalmi 51*. Having done this theological groundwork, I then proceed to the constructive work of the thesis, which takes the form of three dialogues between Luther's theology and sources from critical theory. Each is structured around a particular hamartiological problem. Chapter 3 addresses the challenge of producing hopeful hermeneutics under the noetic effects of sin. Chapter 4 interrogates questions surrounding the relationship of individual volition and structural pathologies. Chapter 5 thinks about the ways that a doctrine of sin interacts with experiences of human shame. In each case, concepts drawn from critical theory provide helpful hermeneutical lenses, both for moving the hamartiological debate in more generative directions, and also for enabling more productive readings of Luther. The relationship works in both directions, however, as Luther proves to have helpful resources for critical theory. In and through these dialogues with a major current intellectual trend, Luther is revealed as a nuanced and insightful theologian, whose reflections on sin prove to have significant explanatory and pastoral power.Item Open Access Eden in the Book of RevelationVartanian, JasonThe book of Revelation engages the Genesis story of Eden at several points. In Revelation you find the tree of life, the serpent, and many other images from the Eden narrative. This exploratory thesis analyzes the potential uses of the Eden narrative in John's Apocalypse. This project examines Rev 2.7, 12.1-17, 20.1-6, 22.1-5, 14, and 19 while seeking to answer three questions: (1) What are the possible Eden allusions within Revelation? (2) How do these potential Eden allusions function within Revelation? (3) What practices of textual reuse do these potential Eden allusions display?Item Open Access Words Make Worlds: sexuality, discourse, and the production of knowledge in the Anglican Church of RwandaBagnall, DavidThis dissertation examines the role played by language and discourse in generating new concepts of homosexuality in the Anglican Church of Rwanda (ACR). By means of identifying and analysing Rwandan Anglican sexuality discourse, this dissertation locates as the source of such language a particular conservative discursive world within the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA) and proceeds to analyse how this discourse has evolved and developed since its introduction into Rwanda in the mid-2000s. At the heart of this study is therefore the contention that words themselves have played a vital role in creating new conceptions of homosexuality, and that by paying attention to language itself, and in particular to the rules of formation which generate and regulate Rwandan Anglican sexuality discourse itself, a more nuanced and detailed picture of cross-cultural exchange emerges. After discussing the importance of language in philosophical terms in the introduction, and detailing the history of language-use in the Rwandan Church in the second chapter, the main body of this dissertation turns its attention to the analysis of Rwandan Anglican sexuality discourse itself. It does this by means of identifying three key discursive regularities within Rwandan Anglican sexuality discourse: novelty, foreignness, and sin, and the three chapters at the heart of this dissertation analyse each of these regularities respectively. The dissertation finds that, by means of a relationship established between the ACR and American evangelicals in the early years of the 21st Century, a particular American anti-homosexual discourse arrived into the ACR and that once there, this emerging discourse was profoundly influenced by the politics of the genocide’s aftermath, and by the theological inheritance of the East African Revival. By means of focusing on language, this dissertation provides a fresh contribution to ongoing debates regarding global Anglican sexuality controversies by revealing the actual processes by which new ideas and concepts are exchanged across the Anglican Communion. The dissertation therefore concludes by discussing the relevance of my research to contemporary academic debates before offering some thoughts on the implications of my research for intra-Anglican sexuality debates themselves. If, as this dissertation argues, words themselves are part of the problem, then so too might they be part of the solution.Item Controlled Access Freedom and Plenitude in Medieval Arguments for the Existence of GodAmichay, SufThis dissertation traces the story of the reception, adaptation and ultimately rejection of Aristotelian science in the Abrahamic societies of the middle ages. It traces this story by analysing medieval arguments for the existence of God in Hebrew, Latin and Arabic. Each of these arguments is underpinned by a particular scientific worldview. The premises of the arguments express scientific views about the way things are, either physically or metaphysically. These arguments are often the culmination of scientific theory at the time of their composition. Through them we learn about the different theories of the roles medieval thinkers assigned to God and nature. The dissertation provides a rigorous analysis of the largest collection of arguments for the existence of God studied so far, and the first collection of arguments from all three traditions. The dissertation’s main claim is that due to an incompatibility of the Aristotelian system with Abrahamic religions, in both its Arabic and Latin reception, the traditions followed the same path of reception, adaptation and rejection of the system. I argue that this is due to the incompatibility of the Principle of Plenitude, the constitutive element of Aristotelian science, with the Abrahamic concept of God as an omnipotent, free agent.Item Open Access The Figure of the Widow in the Hebrew BibleGilfeather, ChristieWidows appear in every genre of biblical text, and yet there has been little research into the way in which they are characterised. This thesis seeks to undertake a thoroughgoing exploration of the presentation of the widow in the Hebrew Bible, paying particular attention to her relationship to family structures, economic issues and sexuality. A literary historical-critical methodological approach that is informed by anthropological work on widows from a range of contemporary global contexts underpins this study. Ethnographic accounts of the lives of widows in contemporary Japan, India and Apartheid South Africa simulate questions of Biblical texts that focus on widows which have not been asked before. Part 1 of the thesis begins with a chapter that focuses on the book of Deuteronomy. Our exploration focuses on what Deuteronomy tells us about the widow in relation to social justice and poverty. The second chapter examines the presentation of the widow in the book of Job, where she is primarily used as a prop for individuals who are concerned with their own reputation for just and pious behaviour. Subsequently, the third chapter explores widow inheritance through the lens of 1 Kings 17 and Ruth 4. Here, the picture of the widow develops beyond the poverty and helplessness that characterises her both in the law and in the book of Job. Part 2 of the thesis shifts focus to the association in the Hebrew Bible between widowhood, sexuality and death. We begin with an exploration of the presentation of widowhood in Genesis 38 and the book of Ruth, arguing that both texts associate widowhood with sexuality and death. Subsequently, the final chapter of the thesis contends that these themes are also present in the description of Daughter Zion as ‘like a widow’ in Lamentations 1. As a whole, this thesis seeks to undertake a detailed study of the widow which goes beyond what has been achieved in scholarship so far, thereby making a unique contribution to the field. It shows that the texts in which the widow appears are rich and brought into sharper focus, the application of an interdisciplinary approach.Item Controlled Access Written Convergence in the Greek Pentateuch: Studies at the Semantics-Pragmatics InterfaceWright, TravisThis thesis defends the following argument: 1\. Signs of macro-structural planning indicate a translator has monitored the performance of the product as Greek discourse. 2\. Unique target language items that generate inferences in the product are one sign of macro-structural planning. 3\. The product contains unique target language items that generate inferences. 4\. So, the translators monitored the performance of their product as Greek discourse. 5\. So, the translators had a pragmatic presupposition that their intended audience would detect inferences generated in the product. If sound, this argument demonstrates that utterances in the product with unique target language items were communicatively independent from their source. The best explanation for the amount and distribution of such utterances is that the product itself was intended to be read as a monolingual corpus. This thesis then proceeds to demonstrate that the translators deliberately licensed discourse-pragmatic meaning borrowed from the source in cases of literalism: 6\. If (5), then neither the translators nor their intended audience were oblivious to the same inferences when they were borrowed from the source. 7\. So, macro-structural planning also includes licensing inferences borrowed from the source. 8\. So, the translators took a maximal stance toward crosslinguistic symmetry in the product. If successful this argument demonstrates that the Septuagint was intended to be read as a monolingual corpus even when its meaning had been borrowed from the source. This argument provides an explanation for a high degree of literalism in the product: written convergence was an epiphenomenon of crosslinguistic symmetry. Alternation between different modes of translation arose as the translators balanced the consequences of asymmetric contact with a desire for interpretive resemblance with the source, leading to a product that appears to be both ‘literal’ and ‘non-literal’ at the same time.Item Open Access In Principio Erat Signum: Dueling Dionysianisms & Sacramental Semiotics In Thomistic & Mystical Franciscan PoetryBelleza, JoseRaoul Eshelman, observing in post-1990 art the deployment of artistic and narratival techniques which seem to break from postmodern stagnancy, has posited the arrival of a new epoch—“performatism” or “post-postmodernity”—marked by a new metaphysical optimism and confidence in the sign. While Eshelman’s description of the performatism paradigm at first appears open to a theological and even sacramental synthesis capable of informing a more robust religious response to postmodern critique, his fundamental recourse to a semiotics grounded on the theories of Eric Gans and René Girard ensures that the adversarial ontology underlying postmodernity also underlies performatism, thus making of performatism a non-identical repetition of the paradigm it wishes to escape. If performatism is to be recovered for theological purposes, an alternative theory of the sign, founded not on violence but on a metaphysics of union, is required. This thesis firstly proposes that the broad tradition of Christian Neoplatonism might offer the type of stable metaphysical-semiotic foundation to bolster performatism’s more positive instincts. Tracing a general metaphysics of union from Plato’s *Phaedrus* to the sacramental cosmos of Dionysius the Areopagite, the grounding of semiotics in an effusive divine source establishes the possibility of all subsequent signs, of language, and of transcendence. However, competing interpretations of Dionysian metaphysics necessarily affect the construal of the sign, and determine whether the link between created signs and their divine source is understood as extrinsically imposed or intrinsically and ontologically communicated. As a case in point, these “dueling Dionysianisms” are assessed through a contrastive analysis of Franciscan and Thomistic poetics. Poems composed by Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, and Iacopone, read in light of the early development of a Franciscan theological school,” exhibit features of a more affective Dionysianism which tends toward an extrinsic semiotics and a slight valorization of spirit over matter in mystical union, perhaps already presaging the bifurcation of the sign in postmodernity. Meanwhile, the Eucharistic poetry of Aquinas, especially the sequence *Lauda Sion*, presents an intrinsic semiotics and ontology of union which integrates bodily and spiritual principles in mysticism. It is this latter Thomist approach—here seen in Aquinas’s poetics but radically consistent with his broader philosophical and theological doctrine—which supplies a theory of the sign which would empower performatism to escape the strictures of postmodernity.Item Open Access Descent and Ascent in Augustine's De Trinitate: Prayer as a Way of Being in the TrinityBorthwick, Kirsty LouiseThis thesis uses an Augustinian model of participation, derived from Augustine’s *De Trinitate*, to examine how human prayer participates in something of God’s own self and action. I argue that intercession is an especially helpful category for understanding the participatory shape of human prayer. A number of recent scholars have commented on the roots of human prayer in the triune life. This study contributes an analysis of this idea using Augustine of Hippo’s *De Trinitate*. The text’s chiastic structure, in which the account of the descent of the Son and Holy Spirit (Books II-VII) enables the human person’s ascent to God (Books IX-XIV), results in a treatise in which Augustine maps a spiritual progression. In particular, he describes how the activity of the Son ‘for us’ and the Spirit ‘in us’ perfects our imaging of the Trinity, such that we are increasingly shaped to remember, understand and love God. This perfecting happens, Augustine argues, as we are found *in* Christ as members of the *totus Christus*. In Part I, I offer broad introductions to both participation and prayer, with particular reference to Kathryn Tanner’s work on participation and Sarah Coakley’s work on desire. In Part II, this thesis then explores principles of prayer and participation in Augustine’s work with a particular focus on *De Trinitate*’s account of divine descent and human ascent, and consideration of Augustine’s broader interest in the concept of the *totus Christus*. Having discerned an Augustinian model of participation at the end of Part II, I use this in Part III to examine how human prayer might be described as an act of participation in God, indeed as a way of being in the Trinity, whose own way of being in creation - the divine missions - are themselves an act of divine intercession.Item Open Access Politics and Covenant in the Divine Davidic Kinship: A Diachronic Approach to Covenant in the Book of SamuelJohnson, SophiaSince the Covenant Centrality movement of the late 20th century, Hebrew Bible scholarship has obsessed over categorising different covenants by their formal features, such as conditional and unconditional or unilateral and bilateral. However, these classifications assume that function follows form and thus carry an inherently static conception of covenant. A diachronic approach to the study of covenant in the Hebrew Bible that remains sensitive to the narrative at each editorial level offers a dynamic understanding of the concept as it changes not only over time but between different literary settings. This thesis critiques and advances studies of covenant by presenting a new model for interpreting “berith” both as a literary device and as a textual component, specifically a legal formulation with ongoing consequences, with a view to better interpret the biblical texts as changing historical documents. The book of Samuel, and particularly covenants with David, offer a prime case study, due to their complex composition and innerbiblical reception history. Redaction criticism of narratives describing covenants between David and Jonathan, Abner, and the elders of Israel demonstrates the development of the concept of covenant from a simple bond to an oath of political loyalty or allegiance. These various individual covenants build up to the vision of an undisputed Davidic dynasty cast in 2 Sam 7. Jonathan’s pledge of loyalty in 1 Sam 20 takes away any future Saulide claim to the throne by submitting his descendants to David’s. Abner’s disavowal of Ish-bosheth and covenant rendering service to David in 2 Sam 3 facilitates the administrative transition from within the standing leadership, keeping David from charge of sedition. Finally, the covenant with the elders of Israel accompanying David’s anointment at Hebron in 2 Sam 5 brings all the tribes together under the monarchy, thus linking the ideal united kingdom of Israel with the Davidic kingship. Together they form a legal schema that ungirds a Deuteronomistic ideal of Davidic kingship over a united Israel, grounded in the idealised history of the early Israelite monarchy but looking toward a future restoration. Similar to Neo-Assyrian vassal treaties, the Deuteronomistic writers emphasise the legitimacy and authority of the covenants, which lend explanation, censure, and hope for the future of the people of Israel. I argue that the Deuteronomistic editors adapted covenant to the form of loyalty oaths employed by their imperial neighbours to make claims on those they considered to fall under “United Israel” in anticipation of the re-establishment of Israel’s royal dynasty following the exile. This thesis therefore aims to redirect scholarship on covenant by investigating the purpose and functions of legal forms within the covenant texts of Samuel, elucidating the political significance of these texts in their ancient Near Eastern landscape, and contextualising the stories of Samuel in the historiographical narratives of the early Israelite monarchy as they are presented in the wider Deuteronomistic History.Item Open Access Mission Churches and African Marriage in Zimbabwe 1890-1970: Contemporary African Christian Dilemmas Over Marriage in Historical and Theological PerspectiveNgundu, Onesimus A.Chapter 1 reviews the relevant literature on African marriage and states the objectives of this study. Chapter 2 describes the main features of the African (Shona) customary marriage of Zimbabwe which are commonly practised among other African ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Missionary negative attitudes towards African customary marriage were conditioned by their various doctrinal traditions and by the long process whereby the Church in Europe asserted its control over marriage (chapter 3). In place of the African customary marriage, the British colonial authorities introduced statutory marriage law, and claimed jurisdiction over the marriages of all Africans, including Christians (chapter 4). Missionaries, though now denied legal jurisdiction over the marriages of their church members, still required all African Christian couples to wed in church for church purposes (chapters 5 and 6). Chapter 7 analyses a survey of current African Christian attitudes towards marriage and considers three previous scholarly proposals for recognising African customary marriage mainly for church purposes. Whilst there are major differences between male and female perspectives, it is clear that contemporary African Christians would like to discover a way of expressing Christian principles of marriage within a customary marriage framework. The suggested proposal, an African Christian customary marriage ceremony, as put forward in chapter 8, is offered as a theological and pastoral response to the dilemmas surrounding African Christian marriage in sub-Saharan African with special reference to Zimbabwe. The proposed approach, which has already been tried in some churches in current Zimbabwe, is culturally relevant, in conformity to civil law and ecclesiastically acceptable in the country where customary and civil marriage laws co-exist as in independent Africa.