Thesis (M.A.)--Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-128).

The theology of the cross is both a method of doing evangelical theology, as well as an evangelical confession of the Christian Faith. It is universal in scope, and it is set within the context of the Reformation doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. It, therefore, insists that while the Kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of Christ are to be distinguished from each other, nevertheless, they constitute an intrinsic unity. Marx's concept of man and his theory of history constitute his peculiar atheistic Weltanschauung. This preoccupation with man as an alienated being is paralleled by the concern for man's salvation as expressed in the theology of the cross. However, Marx's anthropology remains one-dimensional in scope, and is thereby placed within the realm of the Kingdom of the world. The Marxian claim that man is the centre of himself and the final and sole arbiter of his own destiny, and that God is a totally human idea which ultimately enslaves man, challenges the Church to proclaim and "incarnate" the liberating message of the Gospel anew today. The Church is called to articulate a theology of the cross in which God is confessed as being pro-man. The Church points to the cross of Christ where it sees God paradoxically revealed in suffering, shame and death, where God seemed (and seems) to be most absent, it is precisely there that He is most present, actively struggling on behalf of man. Cross and Resurrection are bound together. The Christian life is therefore a life of celebration and hope sub cruce. Caribbean theology is at the crossroads: it is historically connected with western theology and finds some "natural" affinities with Liberation Theology. However, while it may and should attempt to draw from the richness of both theologies, it should guard against capitulating to either of those forms. It must articulate an indigenous theology of the cross which maintains the tension between identity and relevance of the Gospel. To do otherwise would lead to a theology (or ideology) of glory. In short, Caribbean theology's primary concern must be the proclamation and "incarnation" of the message that the Triune God, through the praxis of love in His Son, and through the witness of His Spirit, is present in suffering and death, wrath and judgement, working on behalf of man and his reconciliation.

Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / (D.Th(Systematic Theology))

No abstract available / RELIGIOUS STUDIES and ARABIC / MA (ARABIC)

This research is about a theological ontology which is based on Zizioulas’ ontology of personhood. His ontological thought is manifested by a renewed view of God and the human person. Therefore, this thesis includes three parts. The first part examines the being of God as personhood. The second part examines the being of the human person as personhood. The third part analyzes and criticizes Zizioulas’ ontology of personhood. In Part I, I explore the background and source of Zizioulas’ ontology of personhood in the Cappadocian Trinitarian theology. Zizioulas claims that there has been an ontological revolution against Greek substantialism: based on the identification of hypostasis with personhood rather than ousia; the ontological principle of God is traced back to the person (hypostasis). It means that God first is God the Father rather than his substance or nature. This is a reversal of a view which has prevailed in Western theology. The Father is the personal cause of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. One of the significances of the Father as personal cause is that the personal Father generates personal otherness in the divine being. Zizioulas’ ontology of personhood is based on the concepts of communion and otherness. He excludes essence or ousia from his ontological categories. In Part II, I will explore the being of man as personhood. The Father as personal cause bequeaths us an ontology of personhood which also provides the metaphysical ground for the being of human persons. Personhood rather than human nature is the centre of anthropology. The mode of existence of the Trinity is the foundation for the transformation of human existence from a biological hypostasis to an ecclesial hypostasis. Personal otherness is constitutive of human person. Otherness as an ontological existence transforms the relationship between human beings in communion. The coexistence of otherness and communion in a Trinitarian model provides a foundation for the criticisms of Levinas’ concept of otherness without communion. In Part III, I will criticize the Western views of God and person, but also analyze and criticize Zizioulas’ ontology of personhood. The significance of the ontology of personhood is shown by its providing an insightful and radical critique of the substantialist Trinitarian theology which understands One God as substance foremost. At the same time, it provides strong criticisms of individualist understanding of the concept of personhood. I conclude that Zizioulas has reconstructed a new theological ontology and a new systematic theology which are significantly different from our customary thinking of theology. But because of his overlooking of the views of sin and justice in the ontological sense, I also criticize Zizioulas’ ontology of personhood for its lack of a critical reflection on the society.

M.A. (Bible Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis advisor: John . Makransky / “The body” has become a major focus of intellectual inquiry across academic disciplines over the last fifty years. The interest in the body has also intensified with recent advances in studies of materiality, affect, technology, and neuro and cognitive sciences. In Christian theology, works on the body have also grown rapidly. My aim in this essay is to make a contribution to contemporary Christian theological discussions on the nature and role of the human body by turning to Edith Stein’s writings on contemplation and engaging a comparative theological study of a particular Tibetan Buddhist meditation tradition called lojong (Tib. blo sbyong). The core issue that I address is the lack of practical traction between theologies of the body and a person’s actual relationship with her body in a life of Christian formation. Christian theology has not provided an adequate model of the body that can concretely inform Christian experience of the body and guide Christian practice. I argue that Stein’s extensive work on the body in both philosophical phenomenology and ascetico-contemplative theology can make a particularly important contribution to addressing this issue. However, Stein’s theory of the body has limitations that point to deeper issues in the ontology and anthropology she inherits from the Western Christian tradition. I argue for a comparative theological study of non-Christian sources that conceive the body in ways that shed new light on her view of the body. The current theological literature shows three broad approaches to constructing a theology of the body: re-appropriating neglected sources within the Christian tradition; appropriating concepts and methods from academic disciplines outside Christian theology; or a combination of the two. Yet, these approaches fall short of elucidating how theoretical work on the body should concretely affect bodily experience and practice. In addition to these approaches, there is a need to study theological sources that employ models where the body is better integrated into the anthropology and contemplative framework. I turn to Tibetan Buddhist lojong to reflect on how the points of convergence and divergence between lojong and Stein can help us develop a model of the body that addresses the lacunae in Christian theology of the body. I examine the underlying ‘subtle body’ model operative in lojong texts and argue for explicitly using a subtle body model in Christian contemplation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Transhumanism is a movement dedicated to radically changing the human condition through technology, including by extending lifespan in one of three ways: (1) a biological approach that focuses on reducing the effects of aging, (2) a cybernetic approach that focuses on replacing the body with mechanical equivalents, and (3) a digital approach that focuses on reproducing human minds within computers. This dissertation focuses on the third way, digital immortality, because digitality can serve as a framework for further human enhancement that goes beyond mere life-extension, and thus has nearly unlimited potential to transform the human condition, and also because some forms of digital immortality are already technologically feasible. The dissertation examines transhumanist ideas of digital immortality from three perspectives. First, it employs the lens of theological anthropology to evaluate transhumanist arguments for how and why it is possible to reconstruct a person’s behavior patterns, and perhaps consciousness itself, in a machine. Second, it uses the lens of eschatology to examine the relationship between these immortality scenarios and the technological singularity, including the rise of superintelligent artificial intelligence. Third, it applies the lens of the philosophy of history to examine transhumanist ideas of evolution and the necessity of perpetual cycles of human enhancement to keep pace with AI and future generations of posthumans. The dissertation uses the anthropologies, eschatologies, and philosophies of history constructed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jürgen Moltmann to create a framework for comparing Christian theology and transhumanist philosophy. The dissertation concludes that the real conflict between Christian theology and transhumanism is over supernaturalism, the degree to which God intervenes and directs human activity in history. As a result, transhumanists can find common theological ground with Christian naturalists as they pursue the religiously charged questions that transhumanists are asking about the essential nature, purpose, and destiny of humanity.

Thesis advisor: Frederick G. Lawrence / Taking as its mandate the expansive vision suggested by the integral ecology of Laudato Si’, in conjunction with the insights of contemporary ecological and evolutionary theologians, this dissertation proposes a framework for an integral, planetary, and cosmic theology of grace. It draws from and builds upon many of the insights of the leading Catholic contributors to ecological and evolutionary theologies, including especially John Haught, Elizabeth Johnson, Denis Edwards, and Celia Deane-Drummond. Through their various approaches, each emphasizes the created, cosmic effects of both the universal invisible mission of Holy Spirit and the visible mission of Christ’s Incarnation, intended from all eternity and culminating in his passion death and resurrection. Noting the strong resonances with traditional accounts of the economy of grace in human redemption, this dissertation seeks to provide a unitive account of God’s healing and elevation of all of creation through a creative and redemptive economy of grace. This project is also carried out in intentional dialogue with both with traditional understandings of grace, especially as articulated in the speculative and systematic synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas, and with contemporary scientific understandings of world process. To facilitate this larger conversation, this dissertation also explores Bernard Lonergan’s transposition of grace, nature, and sin from the Medieval theoretical framework into a framework based on interiority, and it relies especially on Lonergan’s explanatory account of the dynamic orientation of nature as “upwardly but indeterminately directed,” as laid out in his generalized emergent probability. However, as Lonergan and his students have only attended to grace in relation to human contexts, the constructive part of this dissertation lays out an understanding of grace as “God’s created relationship of transformative love and care for all creatures that opens them up to ever deeper relationships with God and with each other.” This broad definition makes possible the identification of God’s grace throughout all of creation: humans, other animals, plants, and even “inanimate” matter are caught up in the networks of grace that bring them to greater perfection along three axes: According to their absolute finality, all creation may be observed as existing in a state of ontological praise of its Creator and Redeemer and in a state of eschatological expectation. According to their horizontal finality, each creature is empowered to realize its particular, fleshly excellences in line with its dynamically conceived nature, the account of which nature is described by the vast array of modern sciences. According to their vertical finality, each creature exists in networks of interconnection that undergird the possibility and, sometimes, the reality of surprising and irreducible inbreaking of renewal and emergence. At the same time, this framework also recognizes the elevation of human beings to not only these forms of relative supernaturality, but also to the absolute supernaturality of sanctifying grace and the habit of charity in which we are adopted into the intra-trinitarian life of friendship. By situating this theology of grace in relation to Lonergan’s transposition of nature in the form of his account of generalized emergent probability, the specifically theological character of this account of world process is both distinguished from and related to the other explanatory accounts offered by the whole range of the human, social, and natural sciences. To clarify these relationships and the particular role of theology in dialogue with these other sciences, the final chapters explore the hermeneutical and heuristic value of this theology of grace in relation to the larger conversations around emergence, convergence, and cooperation in evolutionary theory. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / One of the most controversial theological subjects today is the doctrine of man. In this area, too, lies some of the sharp criticism of Protestant liberal thought. Hence there should be value in analysing some recognized liberal thinker's doctrine of man. Harry Emerson Fosdick was an especially well-known liberal preacher of the first half of the twentieth century. He received both great praise and severe negative criticism. While much has been written concerning his preaching methods, there has been little effort to analyse any of his theological doctrines. This dissertation has sought to make clear and to evaluate Fosdick's doctrine of man. An effort has also been made to discover what implications this doctrine has for Fosdick's type of liberalism. The method followed has been a careful reading of all Fosdick's work pertinent to any phase of the doctrine of man, supplemented by correspondence and personal interview with Fosdick himself. Fosdick is not a systematic theologian. He has not fully expounded any theological doctrine in any one place. Therefore, it was necessary to select different emphases from different works and to try to bring them together into a coherent whole. The resulting doctrine of man was then analysed for its liberal elements. These elements were compared with those found in concepts of liberalism expressed in the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr and Walter Marshall Horton. These two theologians hold widely differing views of what constitutes liberalism. The comparison between their concepts of liberalism and that revealed in Fosdick's doctrine of man served to clarify Fosdick's type of liberalism. The study established the fact that Fosdick's doctrine of man is fundamentally Christian, true to the emphases of the Bible and general Christian thought. Fosdick does not reveal the tendency, often found today, to over-emphasize one aspect of man's nature to the exclusion of others. He balances the idea of man's goodness with clear recognition of his sin; reason is important but revelation is primary; man is both free and limited; man is a spiritual being but the physical body is a necessary vehicle for its expression; eternal life, which is both present and future, is open to man. What man should be, as a total person, is seen in Christ, the revelation of both God and man. In insisting on the sacredness of personality Fosdick is true to the spirit of Jesus. Fosdick is clearly a liberal. He is not guilty, however, of the excesses of liberalism which gave rise to severe criticism. His liberalism has always been moderate and he has remained close to central Biblical affirmations. A critic himself of much early liberalism, he expressed neo-liberal ideas before the term "neo-liberal" came into existence. No adequate grasp of Fosdick's theology can be gained unless one reads all his work. Much of his theolo gical thought is expressed in writing other than his published sermons upon which many are prone to base their criticism. A thorough study of all his work shows that he deserves more recognition than he has received in theological circles. Appreciated as he has been for his important contribution to early liberal thought, he has not been recognized for his solid contribution to what is now often called neo-liberalism. In the advance guard of both the critics of early liberalism and the adherents of a new, more realistic, and soberly considered liberal viewpoint, he deserves consideration in modern thought.