This thesis examines Gregory Nazianzen’s approach to the human eikon, vis à vis the imago Dei. In the following pages I challenge the popular view amongst scholars that Gregory presents the human eikon solely as the soul or the spiritual intellect. Rather, I argue that Gregory’s vision of the human eikon extends much further than this, embracing the full complexity and mystery of human existence. First, I argue that the eikon relates not only to the soul but also to the whole, dynamic human. I demonstrate this by considering Gregory’s treatment of a) the human eikon as a literal, physical eikon of God, b) Christ the identical Eikon, and c) his theological anthropology where the ‘divine’ eikon transforms the dust. These three strands together reveal that Gregory’s approach to the human eikon encompasses the whole human person, as a dynamic unity of body and soul. Gregory’s presentation of the human eikon narrates the struggles of being human, which as a matter of priority attempts to describe human experience rather than focusing upon the question, “what is the human eikon?” Drawing on biblical narratives, Gregory posits the human eikon in a cosmological battle with the forces of evil, which is only won through participation in Christ and the protection offered by the Holy Spirit. A comprehensive analysis of Gregory’s approach to the human eikon must incorporate her battle with the spiritual forces of evil. Second, throughout the project, I argue that Gregory’s approach is theological, since he interprets the human eikon primarily in light of the identical Eikon, Christ. Regarding his theological anthropology, Gregory is often read in light of philosophical sources such as Plato and the Stoics, with little reference to biblical and extra-biblical writings. Redressing the balance, I highlight how Gregory draws from biblical and extra-biblical traditions in order to weave together the threads which run through his overall vision of being human. Finally, I analyse Gregory’s intentions when he refers to the eikon as ‘divine.’ I argue that if we consider together a) Gregory’s theological anthropology in which God creates the human person specifically to be vulnerable (or porous) to the spiritual realm, b) Gregory’s high pneumatology, c) his ideas about baptism and d) the interaction between the human eikon and the devil, then we must take seriously Gregory’s ideas about a ‘divine’ eikon. Regarding how we may understand this ‘divinity,’ I contend that it encompasses the ontological, functional and relational aspects of the human eikon where she both participates in and functions like the identical Eikon, Christ. In light of the argument which evolves throughout the thesis, I suggest that Gregory’s presentation of the human eikon is summarised best as ‘divine, yet vulnerable.’ I intend this expression to reflect Gregory’s multifaceted and open approach, which relates to human experience. It incorporates both the positive and negative vulnerability of the human eikon, since she is vulnerable to God, having been created with the purpose of becoming ‘divine,’ but at the same time vulnerable to ‘the world, the flesh and the devil.’

In this thesis, I will proceed by the examination of exemplary texts in the western Christian understanding of, and engagement with, the concept of chronically melancholic and destructively sorrowful states. I will begin with influential texts from the ancient west and near east, such as The Book of Job, and the Pseudo-Aristotle, that have provided the touchstones and archetypes of the subject throughout – and beyond – the historical period covered, as well as contemporary narratives whose concerns and themes instructively throw salient features of the former icons into high relief. Thereafter, I shall trace these themes and their development through the work of those Christians who have most powerfully and significantly dealt with the concept of melancholy theologically. In doing so, I will argue, certain significant patterns of interpretation and thematic weighting become apparent. In the narratives surrounding melancholy heroes, we find a personal interlocution with the divine that characteristically takes place in a public context. This is because they contain both a revolutionary critique, and radical reintegration, of a fractured society along compassionate lines. This compassion is interpersonal empathy in the face of the ultimately incomprehensible contradictions and limitations of human life - both in terms of theodicy, and the particularities of every individual’s melancholy, which is grounded in the metaphysically-ambiguous nature of humanity, whose limitations reflect our melancholic distance from divine consummation - the very atmospheric dynamic of contemplation itself. From Evagrius to Kierkegaard, sorrow is the kernel and fulcrum of both sin and moral development. To paraphrase Camus, sorrow is the theological question.

This thesis comprises the comprehensive study of St Basil of Caesarea’s theology of the Holy Spirit. It is argued that St Basil believes in the divinity of the Spirit, even though he never calls him ‘God’ or ‘of the same nature’ (homoousion) with the Father and the Son. This silence can be explained by the fact that the nature of the Spirit is such that it cannot be revealed. The Spirit reveals the Son, but stays hidden himself. In the present age we can only judge about the nature of the Spirit from Scripture, his actions in the world, and in the lives of prominent ascetics. In this thesis we demonstrate that St Basil defends the divinity of the Spirit not only from traditional ideas of agency of the Spirit in inspiration of Scripture and in baptism, and not only in sanctification, but also from his role in creating the world, angels and humanity, his role in teaching true doctrines and guiding the Christians, in supporting humans in their ascetic struggles, and in providing knowledge of the Father and the Son. St Basil affirms the divine nature of the Spirit by describing his divine activities in all spheres of human life and in the history of humanity, by asserting his equal honour (homotimia) with the other two Persons and his sharing in communion (koinonia) of the Father and the Son. Moreover, it is argued that for St Basil the ascetic life is grounded in the right doctrines, especially doctrine on the Spirit, and that one can understand the true doctrines only by living an ascetic life, that is, the life in the Spirit. We show that St Basil’s teaching on the divinity of the Spirit is evident in his ascetic works, but also that his dogmatic letters and treatises speak of the ascetic life. Finally, it is demonstrated that the theologian addresses his ascetic ideals to the whole of the Church and not just to monastics. He explains the truth of the doctrine of the Spirit to lay people, clergy, and ascetics. The Spirit is divine and communicates divine life through and in himself.

In 1953 a Special Commission on Baptism was appointed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, under the convenorship of The Very Rev Dr Thomas F. Torrance, to carry out a fresh examination of the Doctrine of Baptism, in order to lead the Church to theological agreement and uniform practice. The Commission had emerged after years of disagreement related to the meaning of baptism and its administration, especially in light of infant baptism. What followed was seven years of Interim Reports and the production of a Biblical Doctrine of Baptism. Since then, Act XVII (1963) pertaining to Baptism has been revisited on several occasions. It is the contention of this thesis that Torrance greatly influenced the work of the Commission and shaped substantially the doctrine that emerged. The result was an understanding of baptism that whilst rooted in the Reformed tradition, departed from it. By suggesting that baptisma was closely aligned to Christ’s vicarious death, and that the sanctifying nature of the incarnation was the primary justification for the baptism of infants, a different trajectory was proposed. This created a tension between two differing paradigms, one that led to discriminate baptism and another, that could have led to indiscriminate baptism. The result was confusion in the General Assembly, and failure to unify doctrine and practice. In light of this, this thesis will explore the baptismal theology of Thomas F. Torrance. It will then examine the reports of the Special Commission, the minutes of their meetings, and the verbatim minutes of the General Assembly during that period, in order to establish Torrance’s influence upon the Commission and the reception of the reports within the church. Identifying that the main areas of tension lay in sacramental and covenantal theology, it will then offer an overview of both the Reformed tradition and the Special Commission to see points of agreement and disagreement, in order to assess the extent to which the Special Commission departed from Reformed principles. Finally, it will explore the influence of the Special Commission’s work on the Church of Scotland since 1963, highlighting the watershed in baptismal theology that occurred in 2003, with the acknowledgement that believers’ baptism, and not infant baptism, was the theological norm.

Contentious unresolved philosophical and anthropological questions beset contemporary gift theories. What is the gift? Does it expect, or even preclude, some counter-gift? Should the gift ever be anticipated, celebrated or remembered? Can giver, gift and recipient appear concurrently? Must the gift involve some tangible ‘thing’, or is the best gift objectless? Is actual gift-giving so tainted that the pure gift vaporises into nothing more than a remote ontology, causing unbridgeable separation between the gift-as-practised and the gift-as-it-ought-to-be? In short, is the gift even possible? Such issues pervade scholarly treatments across a wide intellectual landscape, often generating fertile inter-disciplinary crossovers whilst remaining philosophically aporetic. Arguing largely against philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion and partially against the empirical gift observations of anthropologist Marcel Mauss, I contend in this thesis that only a theological – specifically trinitarian – reading liberates the gift from the stubborn impasses which non-theological approaches impose. That much has been argued eloquently by theologians already, most eminently John Milbank, yet largely with a philosophical slant. I develop the field by demonstrating that the Scriptures, in dialogue with the wider Christian dogmatic tradition, enrich discussions of the gift, showing how creation, which emerges ex nihilo in Christ, finds its completion in him as creatures observe and receive his own perfect, communicable gift alignment. In the ‘gift-object’ of human flesh, believers rejoicingly discern Christ receiving-in-order-to-give and giving-in-order-to-receive, the very reciprocal giftedness that Adamic humanity spurned. Moreover, the depths of Christ’s crucified self-giving and the heights of resurrectional glory, culminating in the Spirit’s eternal communion, convey sin-bound creatures into the new creation, towards their deified end, through liturgical mediation which reveals true giftedness. The gift is thus no aporetic embarrassment but the means of entry into and – more significantly – the very texture of the new, eucharistic creation.

This study considers the nature of the sacramental knowledge that was taught in the sixteenth-century catechisms of Martin Luther, Andreas Osiander, Peter Canisius, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Catechism of the Council of Trent. Focusing on the sacraments of baptism, penance, and communion, this thesis seeks to present two principal arguments that are rooted in the indisputable fact that the catechisms were intended for a lay audience. Firstly, the knowledge imparted in sacramental instruction was too limited to delineate effectively along confessional lines, thereby raising questions about the extent to which catechisms can be viewed as tools by which to create fixed confessional identities. The second argument is that catechisms should be seen as facilitators of concord rather than division. The avoidance of complex sacramental doctrine suggests that catechisms were intended to help the laity live together. This does not suggest that there was an attempt to merge together doctrinal beliefs: each of the catechisms taught the elements of a Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed faith. Moreover, the German catechists were fiercely devoted to their respective confessions, as evidenced by their broader publications. However, in providing religious edification for the laity, the heat was taken out of these theological divisions.

This thesis aims to contribute to Western theology by exploring plurality as well as unity within Christianity. By looking at the history of orthodoxy as a narrative construction of identity, I argue that Christian identity is not based on doxa, dogma, or practises. Instead, I suggest that Christian identity should be rooted primarily as a practise in the experience of and participation with God through the living Christ. I propose that ecumenical unity is not ecclesial or doxalogical but rather practical because unity is achieved when groups act together and participate in each other without ceasing to be different. I explore in my first chapter the philosophical concepts (time and narrative) which form the basis of identity. I introduce the thoughts of G. Deleuze and P. Ricœur separately before bringing them together in a dialogue. The dialogue develops the concepts of time and narrative into a general theory for constructing identity. I analyse identity in the second chapter by reading historical reactions to I. Kant's conception of a permanent identity because Kant is a central focus in contemporary philosophical thought on identity. Inspired by the dialogue between Deleuze and Ricœur introduced previously, I construct a new approach to identity. My concept of identity can be applied equally to individuals and groups, however I primarily follow group identity in my thesis. My third chapter applies this theory of identity to the discussion of the concept of orthodoxy. I present a model for interpreting orthodoxy in terms of group identity, then I trace the history of orthodoxy in three general periods: the early Church, the Reformation era, and our contemporary period. I show that concerns with theological truth in questions of orthodoxy were often politicised and used to establish an authority to control Christian identity. During the Reformations, reforms were treated as questions of authority and at times resulted in exclusion rather than reform. Political moves subsequently created multiple authorities which I suggest reveal the contingency of authority. Since the nineteenth century, groups approached Christian unity without addressing the implications of authority's contingency. In my fourth chapter, I pursue the question of ecumenical unity by interpreting authorities as created and embedded in particular contexts which render impossible a single, universal authority. In contrast to a singular definition of the Church, I argue that Pauline images of the body of Christ shape Christian identity as polydox. My model of relating differences within unity reveals the extent to which many theological 'controversies' still are politicised. Finally, I argue that the ecumenical dialogue overlaps with inter-religious and 'secular' dialogues, both of which are necessary for the Church's work on identity as organic unity.

The Name of God has formed a crucial element of Jewish thought throughout its history, from the Biblical text, through the rabbinic and kabbalistic writings and into the modern age when the topic has still been a focal point for Jewish philosophers. The purpose of this study is to examine the texts of Judaism, especially those within the mystical tradition, pertaining to the Name of God, and to offer a philosophical analysis of these as a means of understanding the metaphysical role of the name generally, in terms of its relationship with identity. While the materials are historical, the aim is a speculative re/construction of a systematic philosophical approach to naming from these materials. Beginning with the formation of rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity, I will progress through the development of the motif into the Medieval Kabbalah, where the Name reaches its grandest and most systematic statement – and the one which has most helped to form the ideas of Jewish philosophers in the 20th Century. This will highlight certain metaphysical ideas which have developed within Judaism from the Biblical sources, and which present a direct challenge to the paradigms of western philosophy. Thus a grander subtext is a criticism of the Greek metaphysics of being which the west has inherited, and which Jewish philosophers often subject to challenges of varying subtlety; it is these philosophers who often place a peculiar emphasis on the personal name, and this emphasis seems to depend on the historical influence of the Jewish metaphysical tradition of the Name of God.

This thesis examines Thomas Aquinas' concept of human freedom in the context of his treatment of God's knowledge of future contingents. Much has been written about Aquinas' attempt to solve the problem of how humans can act freely if God knows all future things, but little of that work comments on a major underlying assumption in his treatment of the problem - namely, the concept of human freedom presupposed. This thesis therefore seeks to establish the nature of the freedom that Aquinas was assuming in the important discussions of God's knowledge of future contingents. Chapter 1 sets out Aquinas' statement of the problem and his solution to it, that since God is outside time, he knows things not as future but as 'present'; and knowing x as 'present' imposes no necessity on x itself. Some criticism of Aquinas' solution is reviewed. It is noted that although Aquinas' approach seems to imply a concept of freedom which includes the possibility of doing otherwise than one does, other interpretations are possible. It is noted also that modern commentators hold differing views on what Aquinas' concept of freedom is. Chapter 2 examines the link between contingency and freedom and makes the point that, for Aquinas, contingency in human behaviour seems to arise from the peculiarly human way of bringing things about i.e. by voluntary action. As a preliminary to looking at his analysis of voluntary action, Aquinas' distinction between 'human acts' and 'acts of man' is noted and a further distinction drawn between 'simply' and 'fully' voluntary acts. It is concluded that the nature of freedom will be found in Aquinas' description of human, or fully voluntary, acts.

This dissertation is an intensive investigation of the rending of the heaven and Temple curtain in Mark’s Gospel from a Christological point of view. The two rending events are examined for their thematic and structural functions in making up the textual and theological world of Mark’s Gospel; embodied in the most critical moments of Jesus’ ministry, his baptism and crucifixion, and of Mark’s narrative, the beginning and end, they are seen and argued as the monumental events that epitomize Mark’s apocalyptic and eschatological understanding of Jesus’ life and death. In line with the apocalyptic and eschatological nature of the Gospel, the motif of seeing, expressed especially in the verbs of seeing and ειδον in particular, plays an integral role in Mark’s depiction of the characters and events throughout his narrative. So it is that in two of the most apocalyptic and eschatological episodes in Mark, Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion, Mark is very careful to note that Jesus himself and the Gentile Roman centurion see the two epoch-making events, the rending of the heaven and the rending of the Temple curtain. As these two events are linked by verbs of the same root (σχιζομένους/έσχίσθη), the reference to spirit (πνευμα/εξεπνευσεν), the use of an identification formula referring to Jesus’ divine sonship (συ ει ο υιος μου/ουτς… υιος θεου ην), the occurrence of ‘seeing’ (ειδεν/ιδων), the Elijah symbolism present, and other theological correlations, it is clear that the motif of ‘seeing’ is incorporated into them also. Mark has deliberately created various corresponding elements between these two key events in Jesus’ ministry, designing these two events to be an inclusio which brackets the entire Gospel structurally, thematically, and contextually. Through the structure of inclusio, Mark set up one pillar of a symbolic event at the beginning of his narrative and of Jesus’ ministry, the rending of the heaven, announcing the apocalyptic commencement of God’s eschatological reign; and the positions another pillar of an event just as symbolic, the rending of the Temple curtain, at the end of his narrative and of Jesus’ ministry, enunciating the destruction of the Temple which further symbolizes the break-down of the old age and advent of the new in which distance and mediation through sacrificial rites and all they stood for are eradicated and access to God’s holy presence is offered to all.