Angels, beasts, machines, and men: Configuring the human and nonhuman in Judaeo-Christian tradition

This is the author's pdf version of the book chapter.This book chapter offers four snapshots from the Judaeo-Christian tradition of the theological significance of the distinction between human and nonhuman life

Interpreting human life by looking the other way: Bonhoeffer on human beings and other animals

This is the author's pdf version of the book chapter

Biblical Reflections on Co-Creating with the Redeemer

The Bible does not explicitly answer questions about co-creating with God and discerning whether to try to have children. In consulting Scripture regarding contemporary concerns, one needs to go beyond historical exegesis. Reading Scripture as God\u27s Word requires seeking what God, the divine author of all of Scripture, is currently saying in the biblical passages under study. The primary foundation for biblical teaching about marriage and family is Genesis, especially concerning God\u27s original intention in creating marriage (Gen 1-2). Humans are created in the image of God as male and female, and marriage is the two becoming one flesh. Most of Scripture treats adjustments that were made after marriage and family were gravely wounded by human rebellion against the Creator\u27s plan (Gen 3). The Book of Ruth demonstrates the broader familial contexts and purposes of marriage beyond the couple. The Song of Songs is a powerful poem celebrating the passion, emotion, and love in courtship and marriage. The prophet Hosea portrays the relation of God to his people as that of the covenant between husband and bride, on which the New Testament Letter to the Ephesians builds, in comparing Christian marriage to the mystery or sacrament of Christ\u27s marriage covenant with his bride, the Church. Sayings of Jesus make obvious that after death there will be no more purpose for marriage and procreation in our immortal resurrected bodies. St. Paul develops the meaning of celibacy from these eschatological sayings of Jesus, and discusses a topic closely related to the topics in this conference: temporary sexual abstinence in marriage (see 1 Cor 7). The more synthetic section on theology of the body and magisterial summaries of biblical teaching is structured by the topics introduced in Vatican II\u27s Gaudium et Spes: how marriage is ordained toward begetting and educating children; warnings against lust toward one\u27s spouse as supporting communion of persons of equal dignity in marriage; openness to life and Jesus\u27 welcoming of children; co-creating and receptivity to God\u27s gift of life in marriage; and discernment about bringing new life into the world. Specific answers will require the cooperation of theologians and others, as is manifested in the schedule of papers in this conference

The problem with human equality: Towards a non-exclusive account of the moral value of creatures in the company of Martha Nussbaum

This is that author's pdf version of the book chapter.This book chapter discusses human equality

Angelology in situ : recovering higher-order beings as emblems of transcendence, immanence and imagination

The aim of this study is twofold: to identify the theological purpose underlying the depiction of angels at certain key points in the history of their use, and to explore how far that deeper theological rationale can be re-appropriated for our own day. This study first traces the progression of the angelic motif in the Hebrew Scriptures. By examining numerous pericopes in the Pentateuch, major prophets and Daniel, I demonstrate that the metamorphosis of higher-order beings like the angel of the Lord, cherubim and seraphim, is directly related to the writers’ desire to enhance God’s transcendence. Next, I evaluate pseudo-Denys’ hierarchical angelology, which prominent theologians like Luther and Calvin condemned as little more than a Neoplatonic scheme for accessing God through angels. I propose that not only has pseudo-Denys’ Neoplatonism been overstated, but that his angelology is particularly noteworthy for the way it accentuates Christ’s eucharistic immanence to the Church. Then I maintain that because assessments of Aquinas’ angelology are often based upon the Summa Theologiae, his views are wrongly portrayed as overtly philosophical, rather than biblical and exegetical. In his lesser-known biblical commentaries, however, Aquinas pushes the semantic range of the word ‘angel’ to include aspects of the physical world, which unveils an imaginative, Christocentric, and scriptural dimension of his angelology that is rarely acknowledged. The conclusion considers how contemporary figures and movements relate to these three angelologies. Barth emphasises the transcendent God but unlike Hebrew Scripture, weakens connections between God and angels. New Ageism affirms the immanent angel but unlike pseudo-Denys, does so at the expense of Christology and ecclesiology. Contemporary ecological discourse generally lacks Aquinas’ appreciation for an imaginative, supernatural approach to the world. Finally, I ground the angels’ relationship to transcendence, immanence and imagination in an experiential, eucharistic context