Christ the Heart of Creation

305 Pages·2018·34.86 MB·English

by  Rowan Williams

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CHRIST THE HEART OF CREATION
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C H
HRIST THE EART

C
OF REATION
Rowan Williams
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First published in Great Britain 2018
Copyright © Rowan Williams, 2018
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To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of
Austin Marsden Farrer (1904– 68), and in grateful and affectionate
memory of John Bainbridge Webster (1955– 2016).
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C
ONTENTS

Acknowledgements ix
Preface xi
Introduction: Beginning in the Middle (Ages): Aquinas’s
Christological Vision 1
1. Jesus Christ: Infinite Act and Finite Embodiment 1
2. Summarizing a Tradition: The Christology of
Thomas Aquinas 12
3. The Unity of Christ 26
4. Transforming Humanity: Christ as the Ground
of Communion 35
PART ONE
1.1 Formulating the Question: From Paul to Augustine 43
1. New Testament Origins: History, Faith
and Narrative 43
2. From Paul to Nicaea: The Logos and the Flesh 56
3. Towards Chalcedon 65
4. A Latin Voice: Augustine on the Unity of Christ 70
1.2 Refining the Vocabulary: The Contribution of
Early Byzantine Theology 85
1. Chalcedon and its Aftermath 85
2. Terminological Developments: Leontius of
Byzantium and Leontius of Jerusalem 92
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3. Maximus the Confessor: Christology and the Reconciled
Cosmos 99
4. A Byzantine Synthesis: John of Damascus 110
5. The Story So Far 117
PART TWO
2.1 Loss and Recovery: Calvin and the Re- formation of
Christology 127
1. Dismantling Aquinas: The Later Medieval Discussion 127
2. The Catholic Calvin: A Theological Tradition Renewed 142
3. A New Diversity: The Varieties of Protestant
Christology 156
2.2 Christ, Creation and Community: Christology in the
Shadow of Antichrist 169
1. Barth, Bonhoeffer and the Legacy of Protestant
Orthodoxy 169
2. Bonhoeffer’s Christology Lectures 185
3. Christology, Ethics and Politics: Discourses of
Transformation 199
Conclusion: Christ, the Heart of Creation: The Tension in
Metaphysics and Theology 219
Appendix: Concluding (Untheological?) Postscript:
Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard and Chalcedon 255
Index 273
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A
Cknowledgements

T
his book has had a somewhat prolonged gestation. I began
teaching theology in Cambridge in the late seventies, at a
time when the theological discussion of what could – must – be
said about Jesus Christ was exceptionally lively and disputatious.
Participation in the fortnightly Christology seminar and teaching
for the special paper on modern Christology in the undergradu-
ate theology course gave me a sense of the scope of contem-
porary debates; but my interest in the questions was further
broadened by an invitation in the early eighties to write two long
articles for the German theological reference work, the Theologische
Realenzyklopädie, on the development of Christology in the early
and mediaeval periods. Assembling material for this task allowed
me to acquire some familiarity with the details of Byzantine and
mediaeval treatments of the subject; and a good deal of what is in
this book has its origins in that particular assignment, as well as in
the continuing task of teaching the more modern material. When
the electors to the Hulsean Lectureship in Cambridge did me the
honour of inviting me to deliver a course of lectures in 2016, I was
grateful for the opportunity of revisiting and updating notes and
researches extending three decades and exploring in more depth
an approach to traditional Christology whose roots are most espe-
cially to be found in my earlier reading of Thomas Aquinas. This
book is for the most part a much expanded version of those lectures
as delivered in the Divinity School at Cambridge during the Lent
Term of 2016.
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