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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1912. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [76]-77) Also available on the Internet. Also issued online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1912. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [76]-77).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1912. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [76]-77).

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.

Through the imaginative literary genius of the Scottish author George MacDonald (1824-1905) an exploration of the Mystery of Man and his/her relationship with and to God is explored along the lines of Theological Anthropology. Myth and the literary genre of fantasy (which, like religion is moral in character and relies on relationships with supernatural forces) are explored as vehicles for transmitting and articulating deep truths about what it means to be human. Moral and spiritual growth are explored from psychological sources (Existential and Humanistic Schools of Psychology), and religious sources (Cambridge Platonists and Thomistic Theology) with the goal seen as the perfection of love --deification; And this understood as an irrevocable destiny for all rational creatures.