How can we do dogmatics when there is an absolute difference between the Creator and the creature? God is literally indescribable: "not-able-to-be-written-down." We dare not say anything about God without his permission. We receive this permission in the liturgy that he has given us to celebrate. God is incomprehensible, but he is not unapproachable. What cannot be fully comprehended by dogma can be approached when we liturgize God. Here God has given us access to himself, encourages our advance, attracts our deepest selves, elevates our natural desire, and amplifies our longing. But he must be approached correctly, and this is also taught us in liturgy. What knowledge cannot fasten together, love can unite. There is a movement occurring between God and his children, and this divine economy is the subject matter of dogmatics. It is also exactly the definition of liturgy that this work assumes. Liturgy is the perichoresis of the Holy Trinity kenotically extended to invite our synergistic ascent into deification. The Trinity's circulation of love turns itself outward, and in humility the Son and Spirit work the Father's good pleasure for all creation, which is to invite our ascent into participation in the very life of God, which consists of glory, love, beatitude. All chapter topics in this volume are subdivisions of this single story stretching from alpha to omega, and they all turn out to be liturgical verities. What dogma stammers to state, liturgy celebrates in mystical participation. Liturgical Dogmatics therefore examines dogma in light of liturgy. The whole sweeping, saving activity of God, as described by dogma, is the subject of this book.

The ongoing debates on the present state and the future of the Roman Catholic worship are not confined to specialists, but are clearly of interest to a wider public, as the responses to the Sacra Liturgia UK conference, held in London in July 2016, have shown. This volume contains the proceedings of the conference and raises the question of how to bring to fruition the insights and instructions of the Second Vatican Council and its key document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, in the life of the Church today. The initial contribution from Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, calls for a fuller implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Following on from this other leading figures and liturgical scholars, such as Joris Geldhof, David Fagerberg and Alcuin Reid, examine Catholic worship from a variety of perspectives, including historical, pastoral, social, cultural and artistic themes. Taken together, these chapters present another crucial step along the route of authentic liturgical renewal in the contemporary world.

The Church’s liturgy is an appropriate object for academic study, but it is first and foremost the object of the faithful’s participation in divine worship, the site of humanity’s deification by the Trinity. The liturgy is thus not just something that we can look at, but, like a window, it is also something we can look from, viewing other matters of Christian doctrine and practice—indeed, the entire created world—through the lens of the liturgy. In this collection of essays representing nearly two decades of writing and reflecting on liturgical theology, David Fagerberg sets out to explore the liturgical cosmos, attending to how the lex orandi of the liturgy illuminates and shapes the lex credendi of the Church’s faith and the lex vivendi of the Christian moral life. Addressing such topics as asceticism, beauty, Scripture, spirituality, sacrifice, and social renewal, The Liturgical Cosmos directs our gaze to the ways in which the abundant life that Christ came to offer—a life communicated sacramentally and celebrated cultically—is a life lived daily, and liturgically, as the Holy Spirit refreshes our world and conforms us to Christ, the image of the Father.

A contribution to the end of the Church knowing itself as the body of Christ. Irving articulates a theology of the Church as that which participates in all that Jesus is in his vicarious humanity by the power of the Spirit. This is developed through a dialogical (or covenantal) frame that has its focal point in Christ, in whom the faithful love of God toward creation and the faithful love of creation toward God is actualized. The Church as the body of Christ participates in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. Each chapter explores a different element of this participatory ecclesiology. This book offers a constructive ecclesiology, built from the ground up on the foundation of a dialogical perspective, which has participation in Christ as its controlling center. This foundation provides the basis upon which an exhilarating vision of the Church can be built, to encourage Christians to cherish the Church as the body of Christ which participates in the triune communion through being included into the Son by the power of the Spirit and comes to reflect the triune God in its own structures.

This book presents a solid Catholic teaching about angels through Scripture and tradition. It includes the ideas of modern theologians such as Bernard Cooke and Karl Rahner.

The volume of literature in pentecostal theology has quickly become daunting. This brief monograph brings readers up to speed on the characteristics of pentecostal theology in the past and present, as well as its potential in the future.

This Companion focuses on the way Orthodox theological tradition is understood and lived today.

This Element is an overview of the Catholic conception of God and of philosophical problems regarding God that arose during its historical development. After summarizing key Catholic doctrines, the first section considers problems regarding God that arose because Catholicism originally drew on both Jewish and Greek conceptions of God. The second section turns to controversies regarding God as Trinitarian and incarnate, which arose in early church councils, with reference to how that conception developed during the Middle Ages. In the third section, the author considers problems regarding God's actions towards creatures, including creation, providence, predestination, and the nature of divine action in itself. Finally, the last section considers problems regarding how we relate to God. The Element focuses on tensions among different Catholic spiritualities, and on problems having to do with analogical language about God and human desire for God.

This book explores how Judith Butler’s work on gender and the shaping of the human subject and Michel Foucault's notion of parrhesia, ‘speaking the truth’, can be made fruitful for a theology of freedom. The volume illustrates the importance of three concepts - freedom, gender (body) and power (critique) - and how this triad provides the foundational categories and structural elements of a theology of freedom. By starting from an analysis of power and the performative potential of gendered embodiment, freedom can be thought of as the basis of creative and critical human action and thereby implemented in theology. The chapters feature several theological-historical case studies that are representative of topics that continue to shape contemporary Catholic norms and thought. In particular, the author reflects on the 13th century with the idea of personal sin and confession, and the 19th century with a gender ideology that has led to the marginalization of difference and dissent. The book shows how Butler and Foucault can provide essential insights for Catholic theology and is valuable reading for scholars of religion, philosophy, and gender and sexuality studies.