This thesis is an examination of Muslim traditions concerning Muhammad's call to prophethood. Although Muhammad's initial prophetic call is one of the most crucial events in the history of Islamic religious tradition, Muslim records of the event are too inconsistent to be reconciled. At the expense of sound source criticism, some influential modern Islamicists, like Tor Andrae and W. M. Watt, have tried to reconstruct Muhammad's call from inconsistent hadiths. Drawing on the works of four Muslim traditionists, i.e. Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Bukhari and al-Tabari this thesis points out that, other than the fact that Muhammad must have gone through a fundamental religious experience, Muslim traditions do not permit a reconstruction of the historical event of Muhammad's call; they do provide, however, evidence of the complex ways in which Muslims understood the event, suited to their religio-theological interpretation of the Qur'anic allusions to the modes of Muhammad's religious experiences.

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Thesis advisor: Richard R. Gaillardetz / This dissertation argues that Sandra Schneiders’ work lays the groundwork for a robust theology of the church’s prophetic nature and builds upon her work by proposing the beginnings of a critical prophetic ecclesiology. This ecclesiological method seeks to articulate how the church might live more fully into its prophetic nature both through its mission in the world and in its ordered life of communion. This dissertation proceeds in an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction argues that the tensions in the Second Vatican Council’s treatment of the church’s share in Christ’s prophetic work call for the development of a theology of the church’s prophetic nature. Moreover, it proposes that Schneiders’ work is poised to help theologians respond to that call. The first chapter highlights Schneiders’ fundamental theology and hermeneutical theory, in order to draw out her claim that Christians respond to God’s salvific invitation to share in God’s life by appropriating the paschal imagination—the ideal meaning of scripture and tradition’s witness to God’s self-revelation—into the world in which they live. The second chapter draws out Schneiders’ understanding of the paschal imagination, which is rooted in her theology of the paschal mystery. It demonstrates that in the paschal mystery Jesus is revealed to have incarnated God’s unceasing invitation for creation to share in the life of God and the fullness of the response humanity is called to offer through its cooperation with the Spirit’s salvific initiative in his prophet life, ministry, and death. The church manifests the presence of the risen body of Jesus in history through its ongoing cooperation with the indwelling Spirit, through whom the risen Jesus returns to his disciples. The third chapter illustrates that Christian spirituality, which Schneiders suggests must be feminist in nature, is the life project of responding to God’s salvific initiative by participating in the life of the risen body of Jesus. Such participation necessarily entails sharing in the prophetic life through which he was glorified in the life of God in the paschal mystery. Sharing in this life involves attending to the laments of the oppressed, announcing God’s vision of salvific communion revealed in Jesus and the Spirit, working to deconstruct structures of domination, and seeking to build up structures that make the shalom of God’s life manifest. The fourth chapter reviews developments in the theology of the church’s share in the prophetic identity of Christ since Vatican II. It argues that Schneiders’ work, drawn out in the first three chapters, provides a framework for a robust theology of the church’s prophetic nature by rooting the prophetic character of the church in the paschal mystery and implicitly calling the church to adopt a prophetic ecclesial spirituality. The fifth chapter develops the beginnings of a critical prophetic ecclesiology, an ecclesiological method that seeks to articulate how the church might live into its prophetic nature more fully, particularly in light of the ways it has failed to do so. It puts this method into practice by examining how the U.S. Catholic Church has failed to embody the prophetic life of Jesus in its ordered life through its participation in clericalism, patriarchy, and White racist supremacy. In response to the church’s participation in these structures of domination, it develops theologies of ordered evangelical relationality, charismatic discipleship, and a recovered sense of the church’s Gentile identity that calls the church to transform the wounds it has inflicted upon its body into sites of Christ’s glorification. The dissertation’s conclusion argues that ordering the church around base ecclesial communities would allow it to live into its prophetic identity by providing a practical means for these theologies to take root and empowering the church to continue the mission of Jesus in the world through practices of radical solidarity. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Richard Lennan / A number of theologians claim that the church has not tapped into the fullness of Vatican II’s teaching on the sensus fidelium. As an attempt to address that concern, this dissertation examines the teaching authority of the laity as a key element in the expression of the sensus fidelium in the church. It argues for a fuller realization of Vatican II’s emphasis on the laity’s participation in Christ’s prophetic office. It proposes a three-part lay hermeneutic (hermeneutic of everyday life, hermeneutic of desire, and hermeneutic of trust) as a relevant, authoritative framework for discerning the sensus fidelium, of which Filipino popular Catholicism is a living expression. This dissertation employs a method that is primarily critical, hermeneutical and practical. It is structured in two parts: the first two chapters establish the theological underpinnings of the study, while the last three chapters focus on the laity, their sense of the faith, their reception process, their lived faith expressed through popular Catholicism, and their participation in the prophetic office of Christ. Through an analysis of the laity’s sensus fidei as an integral dimension in the discernment of the sensus fidelium, this dissertation emphasizes that authority in the church derives from all its members and that the interpretation of faith is a process that invites the participation of all the baptized as sharers in Christ’s prophetic function. In such a church, not only the ordained, but the laity, equally belong to the guild of interpreters of God’s revelation. The laity possess a teaching authority that contributes significantly to the life of the church. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

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