Abstract In this highly appreciative response to Magree's volume, three points for critical discussion are nonetheless raised: (1) I question Magree's account of Gregory of Nyssa's interpretion of ‘kenosis’, and argue that it constitutes a significantly different, and arguably more cogent, model from that of the later Cyril; (2) I urge Magree to clarify with greater metaphysical precision what version of the communicatio idiomatum he is commending; and (3) I express some scepticism about Magree's suggestion that Cyril's rendition of ‘kenosis’ can serve any obvious feminist purpose theologically, while agreeing that the topic of ‘kenosis’ is open to several possible gendered interpretations.
Critical eco-theologians do not consider Karl Barth's theology of creation helpful in addressing the contemporary ecological crisis. In this article, I explore a way to interpret Barth's theology that could lead to a fruitful eco-theological perspective. First, criticism within existing scholarship on Barth's doctrine of creation will be examined. Next, what may seem like a surprising locus in Barth's theology in this regard, viz., his eschatology, will be examined. I argue that Barth's (unfinished) eschatology is closely related to his theology of creation: the eschaton does not introduce anything fundamentally new but rather serves as a recapitulation of earthly life. This reading evokes a renewed ethical imperative for creation care today.
Joan Lockwood O'Donovan argues that the Reformation doctrine of grace entails a rejection of the proprietary anthropology of self-owning individuals and its attendant notion of justice - what C. B. Macpherson termed the "theory of possessive individualism." Although O'Donovan praises Calvin's anthropology and his account of law for its non-proprietary dimensions, the classical Protestant doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement appears to uphold the late-medieval and proto-modern account of moral agents as proprietary subjects. In this essay, I offer a reading of Calvin's soteriology, particularly his account of Christ's merit, to argue that his understanding of merit, which is central to the doctrine of penal substitution, entails a break with the proprietary conception of merit as privately possessed. By his denial that Christ accrues any merit for himself, Calvin asserts merit's irreducibly communicative character and the ecstatic nature of human moral agency.
In Gregory of Nyssa's Oratio catechetica magna, Jesus functions as a ransom for humanity. Jesus is characterized as bait and fishhook while the enemy is characterized as greedy fish in a dramatic depiction of atonement. In contemporary atonement theology, Gregory of Nyssa is often cited as a ransom theorist because of this passage. While Gregory uses the concept of ransom, I argue that he is at least equally focused on the concept of the 'sign of Jonah', a popular motif in fourth-century art history. Gregory, far from being a ransom theorist, layers together ransom, the sign of Jonah and a range of other images in the Oratio to gesture toward the ultimately mysterious doctrine of salvation.
