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Early High Christology and Contemporary Pro-Nicene TheologyPhilosophia Christi 26 (1): 7-24. 2024.Proponents of “early high Christology” maintain that the New Testament teaches that God created the world through Jesus (John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16–17; Heb. 1:2, 10). Contemporary philosophical theologians sympathetic to Nicene orthodoxy appeal to this trend in order to justify their understanding of the person and nature of Jesus as divine. This article argues from the logic of the word “through” that the belief that God created the world through Jesus is incompatible with the Nicene doctr…Read more
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27Critique of Supernatural RevelationDiakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy 6 105-136. 2023.This article argues that the claim of traditional Christian theology and religion to be in possession of supernatural revelation cannot be substantiated in a valid and non-circular manner in principle. It then notes the consequences for theology if the notion of supernatural revelation is abandoned. It proposes agnosticism about unknowable matters as a way of exercising faith or trust in the limits God’s providence has established for human knowledge.
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9Joshua Cockayne. Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One (review)Journal of Analytic Theology 11 705-709. 2023.
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20Jesus’s Confession of Ignorance and ConsubstantialityTheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 8 (1). 2022.This essay argues that Jesus’s confession of ignorance about the day and hour of his return (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32) is logically inconsistent with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan doctrine of his “consubstantiality” (homoousia) with God the Father. The essay first defines “consubstantiality”, then presents three formulations of the argument, and finally rebuts a number of possible responses: from the textual originality of the phrase “nor the Son”; from the reinterpretation of “knows” as “makes k…Read more
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11Theology of the Manifest: Christianity without MetaphysicsFortress Academic. 2023.Proposing a radical critique of the method and dualistic onto-epistemology of the catholic tradition, Steven Nemes draws from the thought of Michel Henry and Huldrych Zwingli in the pursuit of developing a post-catholic Protestant restatement of the Christian faith as a theology of the manifest.
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16Two Ways to God in Thomas Aquinas and Michel HenryJournal for Continental Philosophy of Religion 3 (2): 164-187. 2021.One can discern passages in the writings of the Scholastic doctor Thomas Aquinas and the contemporary French phenomenologist Michel Henry which can be interpreted as putting forth very similar ways for grasping the existence of God. These “ways to God” can be fruitfully compared from the point of view of their philosophical starting points as well as of their consequences for theological epistemology. The purpose of the present essay is to pursue this comparative work and to see what philosophic…Read more
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8Self, World, and God in Michel Henry and Dumitru StăniloaeJournal for Continental Philosophy of Religion 4 (2): 105-132. 2022.Christianity proposes that God can be accessed both in the subjectivity of the human self and in the World. This admittedly strange idea can be understood by drawing certain insights from Michel Henry and Dumitru Stăniloae. For Henry, the connection between God and the human self in subjectivity is understood as the generation of the human as a living self in the absolute Life which is God. For Stăniloae, the connection between God and the World is understood through the interpretation of the co…Read more
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19Can Analytic Theology be Phenomenological?Journal of Analytic Theology 10 210-232. 2022.The present essay is concerned with the question of whether analytic theology can be properly phenomenological. Both analytic theology and phenomenology are defined by reference to leading practitioners of both, and responses are given to objections to both approaches. The critique of analytic theology recently proposed by Martin Westerholm is considered, as well the objections to phenomenology brought forth by Tom Sparrow. The compatibility of analytic theology and phenomenology is argued on th…Read more
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22A properly scientific naturalism can be compatible with classical theismThink 21 (62): 91-102. 2022.One might think at first glance that naturalism excludes any form of theism by definition. This article argues to the contrary that proper scientificity requires that a naturalist remain open to the possibility of the truth of the classical theistic conception of God in particular. The only alternative is for naturalism to devolve into an anti-theistic bias and ideology, forsaking the claim to being properly scientific.
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12Michel Henry and the Prospect of a Christian Spiritual InactivismJournal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 15 (1): 92-114. 2022.Christian spirituality is often “activist.” It consists in the performance of various actions through which a faithful person attempts to secure the presence of God. The argument of the present essay is that spiritual “activism” cannot actually accomplish this goal. For this reason, it is necessary to seek a foundation for all spiritual activism in spiritual “inactivism.” This means that all Christian spiritual activity must be reconceived as a response to and celebration of a prior presence of …Read more
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32The Life-Idealism of Michel HenryJournal of French and Francophone Philosophy 29 (1-2): 87-108. 2021.The purpose of the present essay is to exposit and interpret the principal contours of the phenomenology of Christianity proposed by Michel Henry in dialog with his theological critics. Against the claims commonly made about him, Henry is not a Gnostic of any sort: neither a monist, nor a dualist, nor a pantheist, nor a denier of faith, nor a world- or creation-denier or anything of the sort. He rather proposes a form of “life-idealism” according to which life is the foundation of the possibilit…Read more
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30Theology without AnathemasJournal of Analytic Theology 9 180-200. 2021.The object of the present essay is to establish the possibility of “theology without anathemas.” First, an argument is given for the conclusion that infallible knowledge in matters of theology is not now possible. Both the Protestant doctrine of claritas scripturae and the Roman Catholic understanding of the Magisterium of the Church are rejected. Then, an alternative, “fallibilist” ecclesiology is proposed, according to which to belong to the Church is a matter of having been claimed by Christ …Read more
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22God Is Not ChastenedPhilosophia Christi 23 (1): 27-35. 2021.Oliver Crisp proposes “chastened theism” as a theologically realist alternative to classical theism and theistic personalism. I critique his chastened theism and propose the alternative of Christian Pure Act theism, a “chastened” version of theological nonrealism.
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13On Reading the Bible as Scripture, Encountering the ChurchPerichoresis 18 (5): 67-86. 2020.As an exercise in the ‘theology of disclosure’, the present essay proposes a kind of phenomenological analysis of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture with the goal of bringing to light the theoretical commitments which it implicitly demands. This sort of analysis can prove helpful for the continuing disputes among Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox insofar as it is relevant for one of the principal points of controversy between them: namely, the relationship between Scripture, Tradition,…Read more
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17Claritas Scripturae, Theological Epistemology, and the Phenomenology of Christian FaithJournal of Analytic Theology 7 (1): 199-218. 2019.The doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture maintains that the meaning of Scripture is clear to those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit through faith. But this definition provides no way to know whether one has true faith or has been so enlightened by the Holy Spirit, a problem accentuated by persistent disagreement among persons who claim to be Christians of good will. This is a specific instance of a more general problem afflicting “closed” theological epistemologies. This essay provides…Read more
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16On aspects of a proto-phenomenology of Scripture in OrigenNeue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 60 (4): 499-517. 2018.Although he was not and could not have been a phenomenologist in the proper sense of the term, the writings of Origen of Alexandria contain certain insightful observations about the way in which Scripture is encountered in lived experience, and these can be fruitfully interpreted from a phenomenological perspective. The object of this essay is to present two aspects of Origen’s “proto-phenomenology of Scripture” and to draw from them a conclusion of theological-methodological import. The discuss…Read more
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16Matthew Levering. Was the Reformation a Mistake? Why Catholic Doctrine is not UnbiblicalJournal of Analytic Theology 6 760-765. 2018.ㅤ
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20Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to EriugenaJournal of Analytic Theology 3 226-233. 2015.
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20Christian apokatastasis: Two Paradigmatic ObjectionsJournal of Analytic Theology 4 66-86. 2016.The present essay elaborates upon some of the important constituent elements of the classical universalist tradition, documented in detail by Ilaria Ramelli’s recent research, in dialog with Oliver Crisp and Jerry Walls, two contemporary objectors to the doctrine of different backgrounds. Its central claim is that the classical universalist tradition can respond to and accommodate the concerns of its objectors while maintaining the firm conviction of the eventual universal salvation.