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305 Pages·2018·34.86 MB·English
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i CHRIST THE HEART OF CREATION ii ii i C H HRIST THE EART C OF REATION Rowan Williams iv BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 Copyright © Rowan Williams, 2018 Rowan Williams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third- party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing- in- Publication data has been applied for ISBN: HB: 978-1-4729-4554-9; ePDF: 978-1-4729-4553-2; ePub: 978-1-4729-4555-6 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters v 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). vi vi i 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 vii vii i viii CONTENTS 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 ix 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. ix

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