Prominent in much Theology of Religions is the concept of fulfilment (the extension of the fulfilment of the Old Covenant by Christ, to the fulfilment of other religions by Christ). The three Catholic theologians who are the subject of this article – Jean Daniélou, Karl Rahner and Jacques Dupuis – rely heavily on the fulfilment concept in their understanding of the relationship between other religions and Christianity. However, each uses the concept differently. This article outlines and then compares the use of the fulfilment concept in the theology of these three prominent theologians, and in doing so develops a fulfilment typology.

The reason why all of our students should be Thomists is that excellence among the intellectual virtues is what should come to define our aspirations for them as emerging Christian scholars. Such aspirations are formed by the design and implementation of practices of study. Such aspirations denounce any distinction between subject and object or finite and infinite. However, such aspirations are also guided by the narrative of excellence as defined by the beatific vision of God. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that this narrative is not one the academy generates on its own but is the story of Christianity as embodied by the Church. Failure to recognize such a narrative and design practices of study accordingly not only leaves our students beyond the formative influence of the intellectual virtues but also leaves them susceptible to the influences wielded by other narratives such as the narrative of the market economy.

What sort of right is the right to life? Does it make sense to speak of a right to die, or to be allowed to die, or to be helped to die, or to die with dignity? Are life and death straightforward alternatives? Are they possible objects of desire or aversion? Can they be given as gifts? If life is a gift, have recipients of it a duty to be grateful? Answers to these questions are obtained by philosophical analysis, chiefly of the concepts of life and death.

Dabru Emet, the important statement by Jewish scholars on the religious significance of Christianity and the Jewish relation to the Church, stimulated an articulate debate among Jews: Jon Levenson fears that the anodyne character of Dabru Emet lacks a conceptually coherent pluralism and commits Jews to positions which alter the fundamental character of Judaism. Does dialogical engagement with another tradition substantially modify the features of a religion? The Christian theologian Paul van Buren outlines three stages in the relationship of the two faiths which seem to lead to radical revision, certainly of Christianity. Van Buren's approach raises the question of the weighting accorded to different ‘moments’ in the dynamic of revelation springing from Israel. If Christianity is ‘reconfigured Judaism’, and the relation to Judaism is at the heart of Christian identity, then the two traditions exercise a conjoined, single mission on behalf of the truth of God. Israel according to the flesh and the community of reconfigured Israel are two communities, focused upon different but inseparable moments in ‘the design of the Lord of the covenant’, which might be designated as ‘the Israel of God’.

In Benedict XVI's God is Love §1 humanity's relationship with God is described as an encounter with an ‘event’, the Christ‐event. I argue that this shift in Catholic theology towards language of act and event signalled a relationship to existentialism, which, taken broadly, entailed an emphasis upon subjectivity and freedom uncharacteristic of the focus upon objectivity common to neo‐Scholastic thought. As we shall see with Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, however, this newfound emphasis on subjectivity and freedom did not necessitate an abandonment of all the elements of the more ‘objective’ perspective. Rather, the task during the ascendancy of existentialist thought became the integration of human subjectivity with the objective and independent reality of the world and God. I suggest that Rahner and von Balthasar use notions such as act and event as a way of being mindful of the role of the subject's creativity and freedom in its encounter with the world, God, and other persons, without thereby undermining the freedom and creativity of that which is other than the subject.

This paper explores the profiles of the women characters Sarah and Hagar as models of human identity. The two characters can only be explored through reading the over-arching narrative of the story of Abraham. Their profiles and narrated personalities have to be extracted from that narrative, but there is a two-sided nature of this necessity. If Sarah and Hagar cannot be separated from the biblical narrator's engagement with father Abraham, neither can Abraham function as father of the nations except through his interaction with these two women. The reader is thus led towards an understanding of how the stories of Genesis 12–24 deal with the issue of parenthood.

The body of the paper consists in a close reading of the biblical material following a method of reading which is rooted in the use of imagination as an exegetical tool – a style adopted by Paul in his allegorical approach to Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4. This approach opens into narrative criticism with a focus on characterisation and on the interactions of Sarah, Hagar and Abraham, caught up in a Domestic Comedy. The women's characters are explored through the themes of parenthood as other, the other woman and woman as other. A final section explores some of the points of narrative ethics to be extracted from the close textual readings of the paper, with reference to the writings of Paul Ricoeur and Emmanuel Levinas. It is suggested that female as well as male characters may offer fruitful models for human identity.

This article develops the fruitful metaphor of musical performance to think about church-dividing conflicts over doctrine. In particular, I show that just as there is more than one way for a score of music to be faithfully performed, so there can be more than one way for shared fundamental dogma to be faithfully articulated in different confessional or doctrinal traditions. When the disagreements between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches over christological doctrine are reframed as contrasting but not contradictory “performances” of one shared scriptural and Nicene dogma, possibilities for ecumenical reconciliation are strenghthened. Indeed, while not articulating its practice by means of the metaphor of a musical performance, the Roman Catholic magisterium is already approaching doctrinal reconciliation in just this way.

Biblical Inspiration has long been considered an important concept for Catholic theology, but the difficulties experienced in trying to give an adequate and convincing explanation of how divine and the human authors could collaborate in producing Biblical texts has discouraged many writers from pursuing the topic. Some have considered that the difficulties are so great that the task of exploring a theology of Inspiration is too great to make the effort worthwhile.

This article, in attempting to sketch a model for Biblical Inspiration, begins by trying to identify exactly what is required for the theology of Inspiration, and then discarding what is not; it also sets out to distinguish clearly between Revelation and Inspiration, while recognising that the two are closely related, and using a model of symbolic mediation for Revelation. The article goes on to propose a model of Inspiration which satisfies not only the demands of contemporary Biblical scholarship and philosophical hermeneutics, but also the requirements of the doctrine of Inspiration as found in the Magisterial documents of the Catholic Church.

Something like natural law is required if Christians are to say that Jesus Christ is as relevant to human beings of every age and in every place that we have ever existed as a race. There must be something stable about the human condition which means that we are all alike in need of a Saviour. That something is the fact that we are created to love God and to love our neighbour. This much is revealed to all humankind. For the Apostle Paul and Thomas Aquinas the natural law was not given as an alternative method of salvation but rather to explain the justice of God's judgment and the utter gratuity of divine grace. Similarly, natural theology is not an assertion that faith in Christ is optional but rather that all human beings are culpable if they do not recognise that there is a god who created them and rewards those who seek God. Natural theology is the minimum content of faith where Christ has not been proclaimed; it is no substitute for explicit faith in Christ when He has been revealed.

John Paul II's “Letter to Artists” identified two ways artists, particularly literary artists, can help reveal the nature of man to himself by showing both 1) the threat to human dignity from humans themselves, as well as 2) the possibility of transcendence and redemption as achievement and divine gift breaking into this life. We offer close readings of two contemporary novels as examples. The first way is illustrated by Robert Clark's In the Deep Midwinter, a novel at whose centre is an illegal abortion in the 1950's. We argue that the novel's portrait of suffering and abiding loss effectively shows the devastating effects of moral evil. The characters are conflicted in their desires and chosen actions, and they defend different positions; however, the plot in particular underscores the harm humans can inflict on themselves and others. The second way is illustrated using Hansen's Atticus. We argue that the character of Atticus serves both as an example of a virtuous Christian everyman and as an allegorical representation of God the Father. Redemption becomes possible for the dissolute son Scott when he turns to Atticus, his loving father, for forgiveness.

Bind Us Together argues that in naming both the Anglican and Catholic Ugandans killed in the mid 1880s as “martyrs” a visible unity is implied that is useful in contemporary ecumenical theology. By recounting the story of the Ugandan martyrs told through both Catholic and Protestant sources, I am able to perform the Christian unity that I am arguing for. I also engage historical and theological obstacles to my argument. The historical obstacle is brought about by the mutual condemnation of both Catholic and Protestant martytrs by each side during the 16th century. The theological obstacle is the work of Ephraim Radner. Being indebted to Radner's understanding of repentance, I use John Paul II to overcome both of these obstacles. I conclude by discussing more explicitly the connections between the Ugandan martyrs and church unity showing that these martyrs provide Christians with language to speak intelligibly about Christian unity today.

In The Grain of Wheat, Hans Urs von Balthasar quotes St. Basil on the intent contemplation of God's works. In Letters to Malcolm, C. S. Lewis speaks of making “every pleasure into a channel of adoration”, by praising “these pure and spontaneous pleasures” as “‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.” According to Iris Murdoch, such attentiveness requires a degree of “selflessness” that resembles aesthetic contemplation and— it may be inferred — prayerful reflection. Using these passages and others by Kathleen Norris and Simone Weil, this essay offers related perspectives on the process and the effects of attentiveness, in poetry and prayer. Poets practise, and thereby teach an attentiveness that is analogous to that achieved in certain forms of prayer. Prayer, like poetry, gives thanks for the mysteries — even as it seeks to understand and respond to the injustices and sufferings — of life. Denise Levertov illustrates in her poetry an awareness of how such attentiveness can be productive, in her late religious poems especially.