The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology

The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology

Author: Mark A. McIntosh

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-03-04

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0199580812

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This study brings to life the striking role of the divine ideas tradition in the teaching of its central exponents, and suggests how the divine ideas might constructively inform Christian theology and spirituality today.


The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology

The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology

Author: Mark A. McIntosh

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-03-04

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0192551949

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By the time of early modernity, a widely deployed tenet of Christian thought had begun to vanish. The divine ideas tradition, the teaching that all beings have an eternal existence as aspects of God's mind, had functioned across a wide range of central Christian doctrines, providing Christian thinkers and mystical teachers with a powerful theological capacity: to illuminate the Trinitarian ground of all creatures, and to renew the divine truth of all creatures through human contemplation. Already by the time of the Middle Platonists, Plato's forms had been reinterpreted as ideas in the mind of God. Yet that was only the beginning of the transformation of the divine ideas, for Christian belief in God as Trinity and in the incarnation of the Word imbued the divine ideas tradition with a remarkable conceptual agility. The divine ideas teaching allowed mystical theologians to conceive the hidden presence of God in all creatures, and the power of every creature's truth in God to consummate the full dynamic of every creature's calling. The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology brings to life the striking role of the divine ideas tradition in the teaching of its central exponents, and also suggests how the divine ideas might constructively inform Christian theology and spirituality today. Especially in an age of global crises, when the truth of the natural environment, of racial injustice, and of public health is denied and disputed for political ends, the divine ideas tradition affords contemporary thinkers a creative and contemplative vision that reveres the deep truth of all beings and seeks their mending and fulfilment.


Divine Teaching

Divine Teaching

Author: Mark A. McIntosh

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1119468035

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This innovative work is an introduction to Christian theology with a difference. Not only does it interpret, with clarity and energy, fundamental Christian beliefs but it also shows how and why these beliefs arose, promoting an understanding of theological reflection that encourages readers to think theologically themselves. From Irenaeus and Aquinas to Girard, from Augustine to Zizioulas and contemporary feminist thought, Divine Teaching explores the ways in which major thinkers in the Christian tradition have shaped theology through the wide variety of their encounters with God. It makes theological study adventurous and interactive, not necessarily requiring a faith commitment from all, but allowing readers a thoughtful involvement in the subject that takes seriously the Christian vision of God as the ultimate teacher of theology. Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology is an imaginative and lively analysis of the Christian way of thinking, offering vivid and informing insight into the history and practice of Christian theology.


The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology

The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology

Author: Edward Howells

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 725

ISBN-13: 019103407X

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The Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology provides a guide to the mystical element of Christianity as a theological phenomenon. It differs not only from psychological and anthropological studies of mysticism, but from other theological studies, such as more practical or pastorally-oriented works that examine the patterns of spiritual progress and offer counsel for deeper understanding and spiritual development. It also differs from more explicitly historical studies tracing the theological and philosophical contexts and ideas of various key figures and schools, as well as from literary studies of the linguistic tropes and expressive forms in mystical texts. None of these perspectives is absent, but the method here is more deliberately theological, working from within the fundamental interests of Christian mystical writers to the articulation of those interests in distinctively theological forms, in order, finally, to permit a critical theological engagement with them for today. Divided into four parts, the first section introduces the approach to mystical theology and offers a historical overview. Part two attends to the concrete context of sources and practices of mystical theology. Part three moves to the fundamental conceptualities of mystical thought. The final section ends with the central contributions of mystical teaching to theology and metaphysics. Students and scholars with a variety of interests will find different pathways through the Handbook.


The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition

The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition

Author: Andrew Louth

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2007-01-25

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0191608777

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Scholars of the patristic era have paid more attention to the dogmatic tradition in their period than to the development of Christian mystical theology. Andrew Louth aims to redress the balance. Recognizing that the intellectual form of this tradition was decisively influenced by Platonic ideas of the soul's relationship to God, Louth begins with an examination of Plato and Platonism. The discussion of the Fathers which follows shows how the mystical tradition is at the heart of their thought and how the dogmatic tradition both moulds and is the reflection of mystical insights and concerns. This new edition of a classic study of the diverse influences upon Christian spirituality includes a new Epilogue which brings the text completely up to date.


Christian Mysticism and Incarnational Theology

Christian Mysticism and Incarnational Theology

Author: Louise Nelstrop

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-23

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1317166655

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This book examines the relationship between transcendence and immanence within Christian mystical and apophatic writings. Original essays from a range of leading, established, and emerging scholars in the field focus on the roles of language, signs, and images, and consider how mystical theology might contribute to contemporary reflection on the Word incarnate. This collection of essays re-examines works from such canonical figures as Eckhart, Augustine, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Nicolas of Cusa, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, along with the philosophical thought of Iris Murdoch, Jacques Lacan, and Martin Heidegger, and the contemporary phenomena of the Emerging Church. Presenting new readings of key ideas in mystical theology, and renewed engagement with the visionary and the everyday, the therapeutic and the transformative, these essays question how we might think about what may lie between transcendence and immanence.


Transgressive Devotion

Transgressive Devotion

Author: Natalie Wigg-Stevenson

Publisher: SCM Press

Published: 2021-02-28

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 033405947X

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Academic theology is in need of a new genre. In "Transgressive Devotion" Natalie Wigg-Stevenson articulates a theological vision of that genre as performance art. She argues that theology done as performance art stops trying to describe who God is, and starts trying to make God appear. Recognising that the act of studying theology or practicing ministry is always a performance, where the boundaries between what we see, feel, experience and learn are not just blurred but potentially invisible, Wigg-Stevenson brings together ethnographic theological fieldwork, historical and contemporary Christian theological traditions, and performance artworks themselves. A daring vision of theology which will energise anybody feeling ‘boxed in’ by the discipline, Transgressive Devotion blurs borders between orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heresy to reveal how the very act of doing theology makes God and humanity vulnerable to each other. This is theology which is a liturgy of Divine incantation. In other words: this is theology which is also prayer.


Thinking Theologically about the Divine Ideas

Thinking Theologically about the Divine Ideas

Author: Benjamin R. DeSpain

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-05-16

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 9004511512

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Thinking Theologically contains new insights into the place of the divine ideas in the pedagogical design of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. It subsequently challenges the false dichotomy between philosophy and theology in the interpretation of Aquinas’s engagement with the doctrine.


The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism

The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism

Author: Bernard McGinn

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 2006-12-12

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 0812974212

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This clear and comprehensive anthology, culled from the vast corpus of Christian mystical literature by the renowned theologian and historian Bernard McGinn, presents nearly one hundred selections, from the writings of Origen of Alexandria in the third century to the work of twentieth-century mystics such as Thomas Merton. Uniquely organized by subject rather than by author, The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism explores how human life is transformed through the search for direct contact with God. Part one examines the preparation for encountering God through biblical interpretation and prayer; the second part focuses on the mystics’ actual encounters with God; and part three addresses the implications of the mystical life, showing how mystics have been received over time, and how they practice their faith through private contemplation and public actions. In addition to his illuminating Introduction, Bernard McGinn provides accessible headnotes for each section, as well as numerous biographical sketches and a selected bibliography. Praise for The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism “No one is better equipped than Bernard McGinn to provide a thorough and balanced guide to this vast literature….This is an anthology which deserves to be read not only by those who study Christian history and theology, but by believers who long to deepen their own lives of prayer and service.” -- Anglican Theological Review “Bernard McGinn, a preeminent historian and interpreter of the Christian mystical tradition, has edited this fine collection of mystical writings, organizing them thematically....McGinn offers helpful introductions to each thematic section, author and entry, as well as a brief critical bibliography on mysticism. Published in the Modern Library Classic series, this is a great value.” – Christian Century "No-one is better equipped than Professor McGinn to provide a thorough and balanced guide to this vast literature. A first-class selection, by a first-class scholar." -- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury “This accessible anthology by the scholarly world’s leading historian of the Western Christian mystical tradition easily outstrips all others in its comprehensiveness, the aptness of its selection of texts, and in the intelligent manner of its organization.” -- Denys Turner, Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology, Yale Divinity School "An immensely rich anthology, assembled and introduced by our foremost student of mysticism. Both the scholar and the disciple will find God’s plenty here." -- Barbara Newman, Professor of English, Religion, and Classics, John Evans Professor of Latin, Northwestern University "An unusually clear and insightful exposition of major texts selected by one of the greatest scholars in the field of Christian mysticism, based on his vast erudition and uniquely sensitive interpretation. Like his other books, this one too is destined to become a classic.” -- Professor Moshe Idel, Hebrew University, Jerusalem


Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life

Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life

Author: Nathaniel A. Warne

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2023-03-15

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 0268204926

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Warne’s original study provides an insightful analysis of the role of contemplation and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper, illustrating the importance of this practice to earthly happiness and human flourishing. What is the relationship between creation, contemplation, human flourishing, and moral development? Nathaniel Warne’s Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life offers a sophisticated answer to this question through a systematic analysis of philosopher Josef Pieper’s (1904–1997) thought. Warne’s examination centers on the role of contemplation and creation in Pieper’s thinking, arguing that contemplation of the created order is a key feature of earthly happiness. By emphasizing the importance of contemplation, Pieper illustrates the deep interconnections between ethics, creation, and spirituality. For Warne, to posit a binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy. Following Pieper, Warne claims that theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action—indeed, our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these practices. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed, and they have important implications for both our spiritual development and our engagement with the world around us. Ultimately, Warne’s emphasis on creation and contemplation represents an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. In response to this view, Warne argues that we need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. Contemplation of creation is, fundamentally, a form of communion with God—we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God’s creative action. Taking Pieper as a guide, Warne’s study helps to deepen our thinking about these connections.