In Glory of the Logos in the Flesh, Michael Waldstein helps readers of Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body enter this masterwork with clearer understanding. Part Three is a map of John Paul's text, a summary of each paragraph with an explanation of the order of the argument. Part Two reflects on the breadth of reason ( logos) in Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Physics, and the Gospel of John, in contrast to the narrowing of reason in Luther, Bacon, and Descartes. Part One shows how this breadth of reason is at work in John Paul's dialogue with Thomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, Kant, and Scheler. --
In Exodus 34 Moses asks to see God's glory, and God reveals himself as a God who is merciful and just. James Hamilton Jr. contends that from this passage comes a biblical theology that unites the meta-narrative of Scripture under one central theme: God's glory in salvation through judgment. Hamilton begins in the Old Testament by showing that Israel was saved through God's judgment on the Egyptians and the Caananites. God was glorified through both his judgment and mercy, accorded in salvation to Israel. The New Testament unfolds the ultimate display of God's glory in justice and mercy, as it was God's righteous judgment shown on the cross that brought us salvation. God's glory in salvation through judgment will be shown at the end of time, when Christ returns to judge his enemies and save all who have called on his name. Hamilton moves through the Bible book by book, showing that there is one theological center to the whole Bible. The volume's systematic method and scope make it a unique resource for pastors, professors, and students.
With a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart, N. T. Wright helps us discover the clues John gives in his gospel that we might see even more clearly the reality of who Jesus is, the new creation he inaugurates and the difference that all makes. Includes 26 sessions for group or personal study.
"A fine collection of probing and imaginative discussions on the relation between the Incarnation and the arts." --Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale Divinity School
The structure and content of the Johannine prologue determine the structure and content of the whole Gospel. It provides the reader with seminal statements about the cosmic situation and God's plan for mankind, statements which are explicated thereafter. Elizabeth Harris demonstrates that a type of prologue found in ancient Greek literature could be the literary convention behind John 1.1-18.
In Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics, Book V, Soteriology Part 1 Matthias Joseph Scheeben delineates who and what Jesus Christ is as the Incarnate Son of God in Person. With characteristic brilliance, Scheeben sets forth in this first half-volume the essential nature and attributes proper to Christ as the hypostatic union of God and man. Beginning with the Scriptural and traditional foundations, he elucidates the Catholic Church’s traditional teaching on Christ’s unity of Person in two natures as they were developed in response to the main Christological heresies of the early Christian centuries. On this basis, he then delves into the speculative depths of the hypostatic union itself as well as the attributes of the God-man that arise from this union. “[T]he translation of the Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics by the greatest speculative theologian of the nineteenth century into the modern lingua franca is an invaluable service to the future of the Church in the secular age. With his speculative penetration of the mystery of the Incarnation in the present volume—enriched by a comprehensive knowledge of patristic, scholastic, and modern theology—Matthias Joseph Scheeben preserves the mystery of Divine Revelation from attempts to naturalize it and the Church from the tendency to reduce it to a merely functional civil religion. He proves that even on the highest level of rational reflection the believer can give to modern man an account for ‘the hope that is in him’ (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), which puts us in a position to clarify definitively our understanding of ourselves and of the world in light of the knowledge of God.” —Cardinal Gerhard Müller— Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
The Prologue of the Gospel of John identifies Jesus Christ as the eternal Word or Logos of the Father, who became flesh for the salvation of the world. Yet the world that Christ saves is his world from the beginning, for he is also the Logos of creation, the one “through whom all things were made” (John 1:3). This divinely revealed claim has profound implications not only for theology but also for metaphysics, whose relation to Christian doctrine was undermined over the course of the twentieth century, such that the Christian faith has become an increasingly private affair rather than a credible account of reality and an invitation to participate more fully in it. With Christ, the Logos of Creation, John Betz seeks to recover a Christ-centered, analogical metaphysics and to establish the indispensability of such metaphysics for Christian theology and the Christian vision of reality. In Part I, he dispels the fog of confusion about analogical metaphysics and addresses the ecumenical issues posed by Karl Barth’s famous rejection of the analogia entis. Part II demonstrates how analogical metaphysics helps to explain Christian doctrine and sheds new light on the interrelationship between individual doctrines, including Trinitarian theology, Christology and soteriology, and theological anthropology. In Part III, Betz explores how this analogical perspective can aid in resolving a number of theological disputes, including the metaphysical relationship between nature and grace and the issue of divine humility. Finally, Part IV outlines further directions toward a fully Christological metaphysics that is proportionate both to the challenges of modern theology and the reality of our life in Christ the Logos.
