The struggle to read Jer 31:31-34 as Christian Scripture has a long and divided history. Yet remarkably little has been done to grapple with the depth of this struggle in the Christian tradition from the post-Nicene period to the modern era. This thesis attempts to show the valu…
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In response to increased iconoclastic pressure from Byzantine emperors in the early eighth century, John of Damascus wrote a series of treatises defending Christian veneration of icons. He made an important distinction between two Greek terms, latreia and proskunesis , worship a…
This work seeks to explore the concept of religious toleration as it has been conceived by key thinkers at important junctures in the history of the West in the hopes of identifying some of the animating principles at work in societies confronted with religious difference and di…
This is an interdisciplinary dissertation, taking a phenomenon commonly discussed within the field of economics and relocating it within the field of theology. I begin by offering a broad definition of economic oppression. I then explore past theologians whose work bears light o…
Christianity teaches that man does not find his end in this world, but transcends all earthly political ends. This doctrine implies a natural question for political philosophers: can men who do not accept the teachings of revealed religion act justly? Can they promote the common…
This dissertation argues that the Venerable Bede held to and promoted an Augustinian theology of grace: humanity is hopelessly corrupted by the fall, and only through God’s gracious election and the bestowal of good gifts to his elect could one hope to escape judgment and receiv…
In Augustine’s De beata vita: On Christianity and Philosophy, I articulate how Augustine understood the relationship between Christianity and philosophy at the time of his conversion, in light of the dialogue De beata vita. In the dialogue, Augustine and his interlocutors take u…
My dissertation is a development of participation as a communitarian principle in Augustine’s philosophy. I argue for being as sharing-from God who endows us to be as sharing-from and sharing-towards. We are called to do so in the spirit of humility and love that forms the pilgr…
This dissertation examines the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, arguing for the importance of “the fall” of mankind for contemporary political life. Augustine believes that human nature was shaped by a cataclysmic fall from grace. His influential interpretation of the Biblical…
The following work explores identity from overlapping vantage points; biblical/theological, historical and practical to establish a robust understanding of identity in our present time. This thesis explores the ontological elements of God and the meaning of “image bearer” throug…
For Torrance, Trinitarian theology is an ecumenical endeavor. This thesis examines T. F. Torrance’s Trinitarian theology as it relates to his efforts toward ecumenical rapprochement across the East-West divide. More specifically, Torrance’s Trinitarianism must be understood in l…
Although the practice of “magic” and the activity of demons were major topics of interest to early Christian thinkers, the terms and concepts that scholars use to engage this material has remained ill-defined. Early scholarship generally classified the belief in "magic” and “dem…
This dissertation is a theological consideration of conflict in pluralist democratic politics. Centering on the relationship between political community and difference, it develops an “agonistic political theology” of radical democracy grounded in the claim that conflict is inhe…
In the classical Christian tradition, personhood is a concept employed to distinguish the members in the Trinity while simultaneously affirming their oneness of being. Yet, this is a term applied to both human beings and God. At minimum a person is a being that exists in defined…
Both Augustine of Hippo and Maximus the Confessor would agree that when God created Adam, he had a plan—a plan that would have allowed Adam, over time, to live into the fullness of his being, true being. Adam, being created in the image and likeness of God, had the potential for…
Maximus the Confessor’s way of reading the Christian Tradition can bypass the binaries of East and West, apophatic and kataphatic, which emerge in the filioque controversy. The highly charged environment of the filioque debates has led to these different approaches to the Christ…
In liberal Protestant seminaries it is common to hear the Holy Spirit referred to, if she is referred to at all, as the “shy” or “self-effacing” member of the Trinity. Yet the dynamic pneumatological witness of Pentecostalism and other charismatic movements forces us currently i…