Through an examination of Augustine's understanding of language and an exegesis of key passages in De trinitate, this article exposits and critiques Augustine's theology of the Incarnation. It attends to the distinctions Augustine draws between the two verba—the verbum mentis and the verbum vocis—and asks if conceiving of language differently might better account for the Incarnation of the Word in terms of De trinitate’s focus on substantial and relational predication. The author maintains that Augustine's impulse to interpret the Incarnation linguistically is the right one, but argues that drawing upon the resources of a Wittgensteinian approach to language sits more soundly with the rest of the grammar of Christian theology. Deploying the work of Wittgenstein's inheritors, especially Stanley Cavell and Stephen Mulhall, this article shows that while critique is in order, the final result is something broadly in line with Augustine's own best impulses concerning language as found in De dialectica and De doctrina christiana.

When it is misapplied, canon law can cause great unjustified unhappiness, but this paper argues that the content is basically, the practice of which is an authentic form of the church's ministry that is necessary for the structure and life of the church.

Recourse to natural law reasoning has long been a part of how Catholics and Christians engage in debates about issues of public and private morality with people and communities of people who do not share the Catholic/Christian faith. But with the rise of modernity, the scientific revolution, and the relative success of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, many Catholics have begun to question traditional natural law reasoning. Some, including theorists like Germain Grisez, and John Finnis have sought to modify traditional natural law reasoning and continue to employ it within debates concerning public and private ethics, while others, acknowledging the radically altered conception of nature that followed the scientific revolution have thought to look for alternative modes of engagement. The following paper will seek to develop an argument against proponents of this altered version of natural law theory, what has come to be called New Natural Law theory, on the basis of the altered understanding of nature in the contemporary West, and the New Natural Law propensity to sideline the question of nature itself. The paper will then go on to advocate for an alternative and more confessional mode of engagement in public debate.

Taking the important work of Grace Jantzen as its starting-point, this article challenges the dominant pan-metaphoricism of Feminist philosophy of religion. Throughout, I defend an apophatic interpretation of analogy – analogy as a dynamic rhythm between affirmation and negation, praise and silence. I argue that Jantzen's negative position on apophaticism is related to her negative stance on the infinite ontological difference between creatures and creator. However, Jantzen's rejection of “traditional theology” is really, it is shown, a rejection of “dialectical theology”. Without analogy, moreover, we are ironically left with a (metaphorical) theology of dialectical opposition. By contrast, the way of analogy guarantees that there is no dichotomy between the divine and the human. The “logic” of analogy is one of no contrast.

This paper considers some of the issues relating to Christian ministry in a cultural world that thinks of itself as post-religious. It builds upon some ideas of Simone Weil on forms of the implicit love of God (with particular attention to beauty and music), Karl Rahner's anthropology and the Christian doctrine of the creational relationship. It discusses the way Rousseau's bifurcation of religion into personal religiosity and a public civil religion is a template that the modern world seems to favour, making it difficult for Christian religion to find a place in liberal cultures of rights and tolerance. It ends by exploring Marilynne Robinson's suggestion that ‘people live profound lives’ and suggests that the virtues of hope and love might be signs of serious living in the absence of explicit religious belief.

This article revisits the past decades of scholarly use (or rather non-use) of Bernadette Brooten's Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue to reveal that citation practices in biblical studies—or any field—can be inherently political (e.g. misogynistic) whilst maintaining a pretence of scientific objectivity. As a corrective, the author calls for the abandonment of the myth of neutrality in the biblical studies classroom. She argues that rape is only one end of a long spectrum of behaviours that silence; at the other, more subtle end of that spectrum, and all along it, are thousands of lesser instances of silencing and diminishing that occur in the classroom, that are gentler extensions of the notion that women's bodies do not belong to them, that men are the default human beings, and that women are valuable only insofar as they are pleasing or useful from a male standpoint. Parks advocates a biblical studies pedagogy that intentionally upholds inclusion and diversity in its curriculum, its group dynamics, and its citation practices, even (or especially) within institutions that do not. This is especially important given the prevalence of survivors of sexual assault and gender-based violence in every classroom; maintaining a neutral stance implicitly re-inscribes and encourages the status quo of rape culture.