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Heresy: Early Development of the Concept
He maintained that, having put himself outside the church, Novatian could neither ordain nor administer baptism ( Brent 2010 : 58–70 ): in his subsequent correspondence with Stephen of Rome, he acknowledged no distinction between a baptism that was heretical, being performed in some other name than that of the Trinity, and one that was schismatic yet valid because it had been administered in due form.
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Heresy, in its historical context, refers to beliefs or doctrines that were asserted to deviate from established religious orthodoxy, particularly within Christianity. After tracing the evolution in meaning of the Greek word hairesis from ‘choice’ to ‘false belief’, this entry examines the ...
- Author
- Mark Edwards
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Law, Theological movements
Lutheran Ecclesiology
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Lutheran ecclesiology is an outgrowth of a reform movement within the Western church and shares scriptural underpinnings with this broader tradition. The Lutheran reformers’ convictions about the church and the basic contours of an ecclesiology found binding expression in the Lutheran confe...
- Author
- Jonathan Mumme
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Theological movements
Conciliarity of the Church
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Conciliarity is central to the identity of the Christian church. This article discusses the meaning of the word ‘conciliarity’ and its relation to ‘synodality’ through the lens of the church’s experience of councils (synods) at the local, regional, and universal levels. It offers ten scri...
- Author
- Nicholas Sagovsky
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Theological movements
The Straight Path (al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm)
The deficiency in his Christian doctrine does not invalidate the remaining monotheistic belief that he affirms. ( Moosa 2005 : 149 )
There are thus different degrees of monotheism, and a Christian’s belief in the Trinity does not mean that God is deemed to be numerically three in essence.
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Al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm (the Straight Path) is a central concept within the Islamic tradition. It is loosely understood as the path that leads to God, often being employed as a reference to the Qur’an, the Prophet Muḥammad, or Islam in general. Throughout the history of Islam, many scholars an...
- Author
- Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour
- Faith tradition
- Islam
- Topics
- Spiritual life and practices
Participation in the Christian Doctrinal and Philosophical Tradition
Another participatory angle on the doctrine of God relates to the theology of the Trinity, with the insistence that the three Persons share equally in divinity or Godhead.
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‘Participation’ or ‘partaking’ has featured in Christian theology since the New Testament, describing a relation of derivation, likeness, or communion. Theologians including Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and Thomas Aquinas made this theme a...
- Author
- Andrew Davison
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Being and existence
The Natures, Minds, and Wills of Christ in Christian Philosophy
The Logos had a complete concrete divine nature in virtue of pre-existing from eternity as the second person of the Trinity and having the aspect of his conscious having access to the divine preconscious.
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This article surveys the controversies concerning Jesus’ natures, minds, and wills. It begins with an overview of the debates concerning the exegesis of relevant scriptural passages; the historical controversies leading up to the landmark Chalcedonian Definition (451 CE); and significant ...
- Author
- Andrew Ter Ern Loke
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Being and existence
Hell
As with Eastern Orthodoxy, the Western church also initially resisted directly representing the events of the resurrection; for instance, on the fourth-century Trinity sarcophagus, the story of Daniel in the lions’ den is substituted, understood as a ‘type’ or foreshadowing of Christ in hell.
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In contemporary English, ‘hell’ is almost always used to refer either literally or metaphorically to a place of post-mortem punishment. However, in a longer perspective, the term was once commonly used to allude to the underworld more generally. In the latter sense in the Catholic West it b...
- Author
- David Brown
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Being and existence
Angels in Christian Theology
Like a cascade of light, divinization follows a hierarchical order: coming from the Thearchy, i.e. the Holy Trinity, it first reaches the angels (the heavenly hierarchies) and then is transmitted to the church (the ecclesiastical hierarchy).
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In Christian theology, angels are understood as spiritual beings created by God, primarily serving as messengers and intermediaries between the divine and humanity. They are depicted as possessing qualities of wisdom, power, and holiness, often portrayed in art and literature with human-like ...
- Author
- Serge-Thomas Bonino
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Being and existence
René Girard and Mimetic Theory
Humans are said to be ‘made in the image of God’; discipleship for Christians (which admits related forms in other faiths) is an ‘imitation’ of Christ; and becoming like God means entering the reciprocal exchange of mutually regenerative Love, primordially and ultimately illustrated in the life of the Trinity. This still-to-be-written study will undoubtedly reference Girard; and will, in doing so, come to terms with the unsuspected potential and the inevitable ambiguities at the heart of all human thinking.
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René Girard is not a theologian; he is best described as fundamental anthropologist and culture theorist. His versatile system of hermeneutical and heuristic thinking is known to its author as ‘the Mimetic Theory’.
Girardian ‘mimesis’ denotes, in a myriad of particular forms, a stru...
- Author
- Paul Gifford
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Philosophy and science
Architecture and Christian Theology
At the other extreme from the converted warehouse, almost every detail of the Gothic cathedral – the cruciform plan, the use of light, the statuary, the representation of the Trinity in trifoils and of the four evangelists in quatrafoils, and so on – reveals design decisions that are explicitly theological.
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There is an obvious convergence, in the spaces used for Christian worship, between the practice of architecture and the concerns of Christian theology. Even the most utilitarian of spaces – an old warehouse, a community hall, a converted office building – when adapted for use in Christian w...
- Author
- Murray Rae
- Faith tradition
- Christianity
- Topics
- Society and culture
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