It is impossible to understand the history of Christian theology without taking into account the relationship between faith and reason. Many works give an overview of faith and reason, or outline key principles, while others put forward a thesis about how one should understand the relationship between faith and reason. In this theological essay, Grant Kaplan revisits the key figures and debates that shape how faith and reason relate. Divided into three parts, Kaplan invites readers into a conversation rather than a drive-by. Readers will encounter the words and arguments of some of Christianity’s greatest thinkers, some well-known (Augustine, Aquinas, Newman) and others nearly forgotten. Readings of these figures bring them to life in an accessible manner. In Faith and Reason through Christian History, the roughly fifty figures treated are given sufficient room to breathe. Rather than simply summarizing their thought, Kaplan traces their arguments through key texts. This book will appeal to a range of audiences: theologians and philosophers, instructors, graduate students, seminarians, lay study groups, and undergraduate theology majors. No book today accomplishes what this book does!

In September of 2014 thirty new members were appointed for a five-year term to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission. These theologians, clerical and lay, were chosen from twenty-six different countries and from five continents. The commission was charged with composing three documents of contemporary theological importance, one of which was that of the relationship between faith and the sacraments. This finished document was published, with the approval of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and by Pope Francis in Spanish in early 2020 under the title: La Reciprocidad entre Fe y Sacramentos en la Economía Sacramental. A subsequent English translation was published thereafter under the title The Reciprocity Between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy. This present volume contains the text of the English translation. There follows an introduction by a member of the ITC, Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., and subsequently followed by six explanatory and interpretive commentaries on various chapters of the document. Dr. John Yocum considers the contemporary relevance of the topic. Dr. Christopher Ruddy examines the dialogical nature of the sacramental economy of salvation. Dr. Jennifer Holmes Martin discusses the relationship between faith and the sacraments of initiation. There are two commentaries for section four concerning faith and the sacrament of marriage. Professor John Grabowski treats the strictly theological issues relating to faith and marriage. Canonist Timothy Cavanaugh takes up the canonical issues regarding faith and its relationship to enacting a valid sacramental marriage. Dr. Daniel Keating rounds off the commentaries by surveying the conclusion of the document, that is, the present need for evangelization so as to enliven the faith of the faithful, and the present relevance of the new ecclesial movements within the Church today. These commentaries are aimed at aiding priests and seminarians as they address or prepare to address the pastoral and theological concerns they encounter or will encounter on a daily basis. This volume could also be used in parish adult education groups as well, wherein the laity could better understand the relationship between faith and the sacraments.

”Theology of Religions” is among the most burning issues within Christian theology today. The challenge to study and discuss different ways of handling conflicting truth claims and religious narratives between religions is taken up by a growing number of theologians across denominational boundaries. This is a common and ecumenical effort undertaken by Christian theologians all over the world. And yet, the impact of specific ecclesiastical or theological traditions on different concepts of theology of religions should not be underestimated. As well known, the Second Vatican council with its pivotal decree Nostra Aetate (On the relation to other religions) not only set the agenda for Catholic theology, but even influenced the wider discussion on the topic. The papers of this volume were all given at a conference in Uppsala, Sweden in October 2017. The structure of Faithful Interpretations follows closely the way the conference was conducted. A general introduction to the development and present status of ”Theology of Religions” by Marianne Moyaert opens the book. Archbishop J Augustine Di Noia of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith then treats the recent developments in the teaching of the Magisterium regarding theology of religions. Anna Bonta Moreland adresses the issue of Muhammad and Christian Prophecy. Diego R Sarrió Cucarella focuses on early Christian theological views of Islam and concludes that Islam has been from the begining a ”disturbing” factor in the Christian view of salvation history. Wilhelmus G B M Valkenberg discusses the impact of Nostra Aetate on the Church’s relation to Muslims, using especially the precedent of Nicolaus of Cues as regards a constructive approach to Islam. Klaus von Stosch adresses a sensitive issue in Muslim-Christian relations and illustrates the advantages of the comparative theology approach for the theology of religions. Complementing this perspective, Peter Jonkers offers a hermeneutical perspective on truth claims, and reflects on ”the religious Other” with references to Jacques Derrida among others. Reinhold Bernhardt argues in favour of a biblically grounded “relational-existential” theory of truth, which would be most helpful with regard to other religions. To conclude, the prominent Catholic specialist on Theology of Religions, Gavin D’Costa, widened the perspective by addressing the relation to Judaism from the point of view of the covenant and the promises of the land. Altogether, the papers of this volume give a clear impression of the status of Roman Catholic Theology of Religions.

How can ordinary Christians find moral guidance for the mundane dilemmas they confront in their daily lives? To answer this question, Julie Hanlon Rubio brings together a rich Catholic theology of marriage and a strong commitment to social justice to focus on the place where the ethics of ordinary life are played out: the family.

Sex, money, eating, spirituality, and service. According to Rubio, all are areas for practical application of an ethics of the family. In each area, intentional practices can function as acts of resistance to a cultural and middle-class conformity that promotes materialism over relationships. These practices forge deep connections within the family and help families live out their calling to be in solidarity with others and participate in social change from below. It is through these everyday moral choices that most Christians can live out their faith—and contribute to progress in the world.

The main purpose of The Fathers of the Church in Christian Theology is to argue that Patristic studies still has much to contribute to theological reflections in our time. Throughout history, the reading of the Fathers of the Church has made major contributions to Christian thinking. This fecundity was notably verified in the 20th century through the work of theologians like Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar. It was as well manifested broadly in the life of the church that, with the Vatican II council, drew from the patristic tradition a source of inspiration for its own renewal. However, even though the research and work on early Christianity has experienced considerable growth for several decades, Christian theology is today confronted with new questions. Thus, what status to recognize in the exegesis of the Fathers? Has not the distance from the heritage of patristic thinking been widened? More radically, do not the demands of contextual theologies on diverse continents compel a distancing away from some traditions that formerly were principally limited to Mediterranean and European regions? If these questions must be taken into account, they, nevertheless, cannot dispense with Christian theology being, today as yesterday, inspired and made fecund by the writings of the Fathers. Michel Fédou attempts to shed light on what, in our own era, justifies the necessity of a patristic theology. He shows how the reading of the Fathers contributes to the understanding of the faith in the different fields of Christian thinking. It highlights the importance of their writings for the spiritual life and the valuable nourishment that they thus offer to our times.

Bringing Orthodox Christianity into the recent dialog on virtue ethics, Joseph Woodill investigates the correspondences between the Eastern Orthodox tradition and contemporary virtue ethics, and he develops a distinctly Orthodox vision of theological ethics.

This book fills a vacuum in our understanding of the Eastern Church by revealing themes, persons, and insights that offer resources for a contemporary moral theology. Reviewing the Eastern tradition from patristic times to the present, Woodill shows its relevance to contemporary virtue ethics and identifies both differences and similarities between Orthodox and other—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish—virtue ethics.

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In this new century, born in hope but soon thereafter cloaked in terror, many see religion and politics as a volatile, if not deadly, mixture. For All Peoples and All Nations uncovers a remarkable time when that was not so; when together, those two entities gave rise to a new ideal: universal human rights.

John Nurser has given life to a history almost sadly forgotten, and introduces the reader to the brilliant and heroic people of many faiths who, out of the aftermath of World War II and in the face of cynicism, dismissive animosity, and even ridicule, forged one of the world's most important secular documents, the United Nations's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These courageous, persistent, visionary individuals—notable among them an American Lutheran Seminary professor from Philadelphia, O. Frederick Nolde—created the Commission on Human Rights. Eventually headed by one of the world's greatest humanitarians, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Universal Declaration has become the touchstone for political legitimacy.

As David Little says in the foreword to this remarkable chronicle, "Both because of the large gap it fills in the story of the founding of the United Nations and the events surrounding the adoption of human rights, and because of the wider message it conveys about religion and peacebuilding, For All Peoples and All Nations is an immensely important contribution. We are all mightily in John Nurser's debt." If religion and politics could once find common ground in the interest of our shared humanity, there is hope that it may yet be found again.

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A unique interreligious dialogue provides needed context for deeper understanding of interfaith relations, from ancient to modern times

Freedom is far from straightforward as a topic of comparative theology. While it is often identified with modernity and even postmodernity, freedom has long been an important topic for reflection by both Christians and Muslims, discussed in both the Bible and the Quran. Each faith has a different way of engaging with the idea of freedom shaped by the political context of their beginnings. The New Testament emerged in a region under occupation by the Roman Empire, whereas the Quran was first received in tribal Arabia, a stateless environment with political freedom.

Freedom: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, edited by Lucinda Mosher, considers how Christian and Muslim faith communities have historically addressed many facets of freedom. The book presents essays, historical and scriptural texts, and reflections. Topics include God's freedom, human freedom to obey God, autonomy versus heteronomy, autonomy versus self-governance, freedom from incapacitating addiction and desire, hermeneutic or discursive freedom vis-à-vis scripture and tradition, religious and political freedom, and the relationship between personal conviction and public order.

The rich insights expressed in this unique interfaith discussion will benefit readers—from students and scholars, to clerics and community leaders, to politicians and policymakers—who will gain a deeper understanding of how these two communities define freedom, how it is treated in both religious and secular texts, and how to make sense of it in the context of our contemporary lives.

Freedom Made Manifest explicates Rahner’s theology of freedom by elucidating its configuration and sources. Much of its inquiry centers on the fundamental option: each human person’s eternal decision made, paradoxically, in time, as a definitive answer to God’s personally-tailored call to salvation. This idea stems from three principal sources: Catholic conversations with transcendental-idealist philosophy, penitential theology and practice, and Ignatian spirituality. Rahner’s unique redeployment of these sources inflects the fundamental option with theologies of concupiscence, mercy and forgiveness (especially as ecclesially mediated), and devotion to Jesus Christ. Awareness of these inflections can show how Rahner’s theology of freedom may assist in theological reflection on freedom’s susceptibility to injury and trauma.

When Rome was at its height, an emperor’s male beloved, victim of an untimely death, would be worshipped around the empire as a god. In this same society, the routine sexual exploitation of poor and enslaved women was abetted by public institutions. Four centuries later, a Roman emperor commanded the mutilation of men caught in same-sex affairs, even as he affirmed the moral dignity of women without any civic claim to honor. The gradual transformation of the Roman world from polytheistic to Christian marks one of the most sweeping ideological changes of premodern history. At the center of it all was sex. Exploring sources in literature, philosophy, and art, Kyle Harper examines the rise of Christianity as a turning point in the history of sexuality and helps us see how the roots of modern sexuality are grounded in an ancient religious revolution.

While Roman sexual culture was frankly and freely erotic, it was not completely unmoored from constraint. Offending against sexual morality was cause for shame, experienced through social condemnation. The rise of Christianity fundamentally changed the ethics of sexual behavior. In matters of morality, divine judgment transcended that of mere mortals, and shame—a social concept—gave way to the theological notion of sin. This transformed understanding led to Christianity’s explicit prohibitions of homosexuality, extramarital love, and prostitution. Most profound, however, was the emergence of the idea of free will in Christian dogma, which made all human action, including sexual behavior, accountable to the spiritual, not the physical, world.

The claim that evolution undermines Christianity is standard fare in our culture. Indeed, many today have the impression that the two are mutually exclusive and that a choice must be made between faith and reason—rejecting Christianity on the one hand or evolutionary theory on the other. Is there a way to square advances in this field of study with the Bible and Church teaching? In this book—his fourth dedicated to applying Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s wisdom to pressing theological difficulties—Matthew Ramage answers this question decidedly in the affirmative. Distinguishing between evolutionary theory properly speaking and the materialist attitude that is often conflated with it, Ramage’s work meets the challenge of evolutionary science to Catholic teaching on human origins, guided by Ratzinger’s conviction that faith and evolutionary theory mutually enrich one another. Pope Benedict gifted the Church with many pivotal yet often-overlooked resources for engaging evolution in the light of faith, especially in those instances where he addressed the topic in connection with the Book of Genesis. Ramage highlights these contributions and also makes his own by applying Ratzinger’s principles to such issues as the meaning of man’s special creation, the relationship between sin and death, and the implications of evolution for eschatology. Notably, Ramage shows that many apparent conflicts between Christianity and evolutionary theory lose their force when we interpret creation in light of the Paschal Mystery and fix our gaze on Jesus, the New Adam who reveals man to himself. Readers of this text will find that it does more than merely help to resolve apparent contradictions between faith and modern science. Ramage’s work shows that discoveries in evolutionary biology are not merely difficulties to be overcome but indeed gifts that yield precious insight into the mystery of God’s saving plan in Christ.

From the Trinity provides an overall view of the history and the philosophical and theological significance of God the Trinity, not only from a religious point of view but from an anthropological and socio-cultural view as well. The perspective is that of Christian doctrine, specifically Catholic, in dialogue with the cultural sensitivity of our times and with the religious pluralism that characterizes it. Following the generative-progressive method proposed by Vatican II, the book begins with a phenomenological reading of the signs of the times, with special focus upon the performative aspect of the announcement and the doctrine of faith. In particular, constant attention to the contribution made by the mystics and great charisms (from Augustine of Hippo to Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avila up until Therese of Lisieux, Edith Stein and Chaira Lubich) toward a deeper understanding of the Trinitarian truth. From the Trinity is unique in what it offers not only for Trinitarian theology, but also for other theological disciplines (Christology, Pneumatology, Anthropology, Ecclesiology, etc.) – in which the Trinity shines forth as the central and enlightening truth – as well as for philosophy, the humanities and the natural sciences. This perspective is especially developed in terms of a Trinitarian ontology (see Part V) by which reality is understood in light of the revelation of the Trinity. The implications of the incarnation of the Son of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit are taken seriously in studying the truth of all things as they are perceived in the space created by living and thinking “in” Jesus, united to the Father in the Spirit, as suggested by the title of the book, looking upon reality “From the Trinity.”

In this stimulating rethinking of the basic foundations of ethics, Patricia McAuliffe derives a fundamental ethic from liberation theology. She asserts that the experience of resisting suffering, especially oppressive social suffering, must be brought from the fringe to the very center of ethics. Arguing for the conceptual priority of ethics over religion, McAuliffe defines an innovative ethic based on experience and practice. Ethics precedes religion and theology because experience and practice precede theory and interpretation, which are the human activities of religion and theology—knowledge is based on experience. She proposes that ethics can be independent of religion, but that while her liberationist ethic can be either Christian or universal, finally the poor and oppressed are the paradigm source of the disclosure of God and of final salvation.

In rethinking the basic foundations of ethics, she compares a liberationist ethic, including Latin American and women's liberation theology, with various classical ethics, and examines and critiques the works of Edward Schillebeeckx, Juan Luis Segundo, Dorothee Soelle, James Gustafson, and George Lindbeck. McAuliffe offers a flexible ethic that balances the absolute and the relative, the particular and the universal, personal and social, creativity and conditioning, practice and theory, and the ethical and religious. Combining superior scholarship with an original and creative approach to ethics, this book is likely to create debate in the fields of fundamental ethics, theology, and philosophy.

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The Future of Ethics interprets the big questions of sustainability and social justice through the practical problems arising from humanity’s increasing power over basic systems of life. What does climate change mean for our obligations to future generations? How can the sciences work with pluralist cultures in ways that will help societies learn from ecological change?

Traditional religious ethics examines texts and traditions and highlights principles and virtuous behaviors that can apply to particular issues. Willis Jenkins develops lines of practical inquiry through "prophetic pragmatism," an approach to ethics that begins with concrete problems and adapts to changing circumstances. This brand of pragmatism takes its cues from liberationist theology, with its emphasis on how individuals and communities actually cope with overwhelming problems.

Can religious communities make a difference when dealing with these issues? By integrating environmental sciences and theological ethics into problem-based engagements with philosophy, economics, and other disciplines, Jenkins illustrates the wide understanding and moral creativity needed to live well in the new conditions of human power. He shows the significance of religious thought to the development of interdisciplinary responses to sustainability issues and how this calls for a new style of religious ethics.