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This thesis is a constructive work in theology. The aim is to show the centrality of liturgy for theological investigation, exposing how liturgical action at once shapes and gives rise to theological articulation and also manifests an implicit theology. The meaning is in the making, as it were, and this thesis seeks to show the descriptive nature of theology and liturgy as that which makes all theology possible. What is liturgy? Following the earliest usage of leitourgia in the ancient world, and especially as articulated by Saint Paul, Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Irenaeus, I show that the Church’s earliest articulation of liturgical action bears an implied ontology of participation, namely in the singular liturgical action of Christ. Liturgy is not, therefore, to be defined or understood as “the work of the people,” but rather as the “work of the One for the sake of the many,” in which all of creation participates. I argue that the human is to be understood as a liturgical animal who by virtue of her being(-)created is incorporated into the Liturgy God is. I also argue that liturgy names the inter-offering of the Persons of the Trinity, whereby each hypostasis exists as mutually constituting and constituted. The human’s participation in this liturgical action is a participation of the whole person, mediated by the materials and movements involved in the liturgical action—liturgy as the mediation of the divine economy. I also show how late medieval liturgical reforms issue a gradual and unwarranted relegation of the laity’s involvement in the liturgical action. Although inadvertent, this continual extraction of lay participation serves to secularize their role and extract them from the economy to which the liturgy is meant to assimilate. All of this is to expose how the liturgical action, which was vastly influential to the social imaginary of the medieval world, construes and conditions the human more and more along a secular line. Additionally, it is to recover the essential nature of liturgical action for social construction. Indeed, liturgical action as social construction—the embodying of the reciprocal and mutually constituting life of God in whose image the human is created and to whose Being, through Christ the Liturgy, the human has been assimilated, is being-assimilated, and will be assimilated.

This thesis seeks to account for virginity as the source of Mary's power to attract. The point of departure is the syncretistic culture of the classical world. Here, patristic use of Old Testament typology recognises the distinctive work of grace in Mary's virginity, thus allowing it to become the determining quality by which her experience is subsequently perceived and universalised. The thesis divides its exploration into the three categories by which Mary is portrayed in the gospels - woman, spouse, mother - concluding its investigation with the end of the nineteenth century and its new understanding of human identity in gender and sexuality. In each category the thesis attempts to identify ways in which the attraction of virginity has functioned through ambiguity (Mary as virgin and mother, mother and spouse of her son) as a positive quality of potency and freedom, rather than as a strictly biological human condition with negative association in contemporary culture. In order to assess the extent of Mary's attraction in periods that lacked the modern forms of articulating self-awareness, the thesis has considered the fabric of devotional practice in religious texts, art, drama and ritual, seeking to allow the perceptions of earlier periods of history (a medium in itself) to challenge our own. As expressions of attraction to Mary, these media have yielded an insight into the power of virginity as a statement of paradisal, heavenly life accessed by grace through male and female human experience. They have also shown virginity to be a source of power that can be exploited for political ends. Finally, the thesis suggests that the power of Mary's virginity has been subversive and liberating in Church and society, thus indicating its neglected significance as a statement about the ambiguity of our nature as human, gendered, and sexual beings.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to explore the difficulty of an individualised Christology in the postmodern world and to offer possible avenues for the Church in addressing it. Throughout the thesis we use the example of Helmut Thielicke to demonstrate the nature of an individualistic christology. His sermons are particularly singled out because they serve as the main vehicle through which his Christology reached the people. Thielieke is important to our goals for several reasons. For one, he represents a christological approach that is highly individualistic. Secondly, Thielicke is representative of a shift in the christological paradigm within Lutheranism. Discovering whether that shift is helpful or harmful directly affects how Lutheranism relates in the postmodern world. The thesis will progress through three stages to accomplish our goals. The first three chapters form the first stage. Their purpose is to establish concrete examples of the way Thielicke's individualised christology affects specific key doctrines in classic Lutheranism, as well as how it impacts the more general areas of Lutheran ecclesiology and sacramental tlieology. The second stage involves chapters four and five. The purpose here is to search for additional roots of Thielicke's individualism. Chapter four looks to the influences of both philosophy and secular social thought on Thielicke's Christology. Chapter five seeks to find Thielicke's place within the overall development of the individual. Chapters six and seven form the final stage and represent our response to the kind of individualised christology Thielicke represents. We begin in chapter six by proposing a Theology of Presence as part of the solution to individualism. We conclude in chapter seven offering practical ways this theology can be applied in the postmodern context. Our conclusions will lead us toward the importance of establishing a new metanarrative based on a more corporate form of christology.

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This is a study in the dogmatic theology of Christianity. The theological doctrines of atonement and pneumatology are based upon the revelatory work of the second and third persons of the trinity . The importance of this study lies in its attempt to gain insight into the relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit and from this to analyse in a fundamental way the relation between atonement and pneumatology. With this area of theology in mind attention is directed toward the nineteenth century Scottish theologian George Smeaton, Smeaton's works on the doctrine of the atonement and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit are of interest not only because of their dogmatic presentation of these two doctrines but more importantly because of the way he systematically thinks through the relation between atonement and pneumatology based upon the conjoint revelatory activity of the Son and the Spirit, This study then is essentially an attempt to discern Smeaton's understanding of the relation between atonement and pneumatology. The procedure followed is to discover Smeaton's essential theological understanding in chapter one and then to examine more fully his thought with relation to the ongoing stream of Christian theology, both ancient and modern.

This thesis examines the doctrine of the incarnation with particular attention to the implications of this doctrine for a theological understanding of human/nonhuman relationships. To do so, it is guided by two driving questions: Why did God become human in particular in the incarnation?, and what are the implications of the humanity of Christ for the way in which Christian theology construes the human/nonhuman relationship? Each chapter is guided by these questions, and seeks to find and test the answers given by four major theologians from the Christian tradition: Anselm of Canterbury and sin, Gregory of Nyssa and the image of God, Maximus the Confessor and the human constitution as microcosm, and Karl Barth and the human calling to be a representative covenantal partner. Through the use of the guiding questions, and engagement with these four theologians and their respective answers, three theses are developed over the course of the dissertation. First, that God’s motivation for the incarnation extends beyond the human to include the nonhuman creature. Of the various reasons put forward throughout this thesis, each of them is shown to include the nonhuman animal in some way. Second, that God became human in particular due to the unique human calling to be a representative creature. In arriving at this conclusion, various viewpoints are considered and ultimately rejected as being sufficient to account for God’s will to become human in particular. Third, the unique human calling of representation is shown to carry with it ethical implications for humans with regards to nonhuman animals. Given the human calling of representing creation to God, and God to creation, there are necessary ethical implications which such a calling has for what it means to be human.

För många med en inbrottscentral hemma eller på sitt företag  kan det vara intressant att i realtid kunna få information om statusförändringar. I vanliga fall kontaktas man av larmcentralen som man är ansluten till, men då oftast enbart vid allvarliga händelser som t.ex. larm eller sabotage och oftast med någon minuts fördröjning.I detta arbete visar jag hur man med enkla medel kan utöka funktionaliteten på sitt larmsystem genom att använda sig av en mikroprocessor och en mobiltelefon. Arbetet resulterar i en fungerande konceptuell enhet med förslag till enkla förändringar för utökad funktionalitet och säkerhet.

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