Table Of ContentCOMPANION ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF THEOLOGY
COMPANION
ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
THEOLOGY
EDITED BY
PETER BYRNE AND
LESLIE HOULDEN
London and New York
First published in 1995
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
© 1995 Routledge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available on request.
ISBN 0-203-41403-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-72227-2 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-06447-3 (Print Edition)
CONTENTS
General Introduction ix
Leslie Houlden and Peter Byrne
The contributors xiii
PART I: THE BIBLE
Introduction 3
Leslie Houlden
1. The Hebrew Bible: formation and character 7
John Barton
2. The Hebrew Bible: role in Judaism 28
Gary Gilbert and Alan F.Segal
3. The Christian adoption of the Old Testament 47
G.R.Evans
4. The Old Testament: historical study and new roles 64
John Rogerson
5. The New Testament: content and character 85
Leslie Houlden
6. The New Testament: the tradition of interpretation 102
John Muddiman
7. The New Testament in theology 122
Heikki Räisänen
8. The Bible as holy book 142
Stephen Prickett
PART II: THE TRADITION
Introduction 163
Leslie Houlden
9. Jesus in history and belief 168
Leslie Houlden
10. The triune God of the Bible and the emergence of orthodoxy 187
Robert L.Wilken
v
CONTENTS
11. Christendom: medieval Christianity 206
David d’Avray
12. The transition to modernity 230
Alister McGrath
13. The Enlightenment 251
John Kent
14. Theology now 272
Keith Clements
15. Christian theology and other faiths 291
Gavin D’ Costa
16. Christian theology’s dialogue with culture 314
Frank Burch Brown
PART III: PHILOSOPHY
Introduction 337
Peter Byrne
17. The concept of God 342
Keith Ward
18. The idea of reason 367
Terence Penelhum
19. Natural theology 388
David A.Pailin
20. Religious language 413
Mark Wynn
21. Theology and scientific understanding 433
Peter Byrne
22. Theological anthropology 453
Roger Trigg
23. Evil and theology 472
Stewart Sutherland
24. Feminism in the philosophy of religion 490
Grace Jantzen
PART IV: SPIRITUALITY
Introduction 511
Leslie Houlden
25. Spirituality and theology 514
Philip Sheldrake
26. Patristic spirituality 536
Anthony Meredith
27. Mysticism and devotion in the Middle Ages 558
Benedicta Ward
28. Religious experience in the era of reform 576
Rowan Williams
vi
CONTENTS
29. Theology and spirituality in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries 594
Terry Tastard
30. Religious experience and language 620
William J.Wainwright
31. Spirituality and liberation 642
Kenneth Leech
32. Spirituality and liturgy 665
Gordon S.Wakefield
PART V: PRACTICAL THEOLOGY
Introduction 687
Peter Byrne
33. The idea of Christian ethics 691
James M.Gustafson
34. Violence, warfare and peace 716
Barrie Paskins
35. Ethics and the personal life 738
Helen Oppenheimer
36. Theology, wealth and social justice 759
Jack Mahoney
37. Power and the State 777
Edward Norman
38. The pastoral experience 794
Jack Dominian
39. Theology, medicine and health 817
John Morgan
40. Environmental ethics 843
Stephen Clark
PART VI: CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: SCENE AND PROSPECT
Introduction 871
Leslie Houlden
41. The character and possibility of Christian theology today 875
John Kent
42. Making sense of God 895
Theodore Jennings
43. The figure of Jesus Christ in contemporary Christianity 917
John Macquarrie
44. The Trinity in modern theology 937
Colin Gunton
45. Theology in the narrative mode 958
Brian Home
vii
CONTENTS
46. Theology in the dogmatic mode 976
Paul Avis
47. Theology as praxis 1001
Dan Cohn-Sherbok
48. Theology and the future of the Church 1017
Walter Hollenweger
Index 1036
viii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Leslie Houlden and Peter Byrne
The aim of this Companion Encyclopedia is to provide as comprehensive a
guide as possible to the present state of Christian theology in its Western
academic manifestations and in the setting of the modern world. To understand
the present, especially in the case of a long-standing phenomenon like
Christianity, it is necessary to be aware of the past. So here there is much
history as well as contemporary reflection and assessment.
The contributors are drawn from many different traditions of belief and
thought, but all reflect broadly the assumptions and methods of the modern
Western academy, and write as analysts rather than propagandists. No attempt
has been made to seek or impose a single viewpoint, and readers will sometimes
find themselves presented with different angles on the same material.
Inevitably, too, some features of the scene will recur, most notably the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment: readers will at least become convinced of
the cruciality of this episode, greater, from a modern standpoint, in many
ways than even the early period or the Reformation. At the same time, however
far-reaching the developments or the applications which it undergoes,
Christian theology never loses sight of the originating impulse given by Jesus
of Nazareth. Behind and beneath all the ideas and all the books, it rests on
the story that centres on him.
Modern Christian theology (and everything in this book is ‘modern’ in
standpoint even when it examines writings and ideas of the distant past) is
far from being a unified phenomenon. In the first place, there are significant
differences of theological agenda, ethos, priority and content between the
various Christian Churches, from the largest to the smallest; and, especially
in the case of the great Churches, there are also significant internal differences,
traceable both to history and to contemporary movements of thought and
life. Thus, the Anglican Communion contains strong ‘Catholic’, ‘Protestant’
and ‘liberal’ elements, and the Roman Catholic Church includes both
traditionalists and reformists.
Second, theology involves different styles and emphases according to the
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