For several years now, Michael Rea has been working to foster a fruitful discussion between theologians and analytic philosophers, and his article review nicely exemplifies those efforts. Rea recognises that he and I agree on several key points, the most important of which is that ‘cataphatic theology can be done without idolatry or violence’. He wonders, though, whether Theology without Metaphysics succeeds in providing a model for such theology, since he thinks it is liable to several objections. By addressing them, I hope to demonstrate that my model is indeed viable, though I would be surprised if this were sufficient to persuade Professor Rea to adopt it. As I see it, more than one model, including Professor Rea’s, may do justice to the relevant phenomena; here I want to argue, against Rea's criticisms, that mine does too.

Professor Beeley has contributed a new chapter to the history of the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum. He has written a provocative book, whose argument is both revisionist and orthodox. Beeley proposes to revise the accepted christological narrative by questioning the significance and theological genius of Athanasius of Alexandria. In Beeley's judgement, Athanasius' contribution pales in comparison with such giants as Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen and Maximus the Confessor. Beeley finds especially in Nazianzen's Christology the most profound and consistent rendering of the unity of Christ, a golden standard for expressing communicatio idiomatum. According to Beeley, Gregory's achievement was only partially matched by the Christologies of Cyril of Alexandria and Leo of Rome. Gregory's Christology is the apex of the Origenist tradition, its most complete and compelling expression. A permanent contribution of Beeley's work is the restoration of Gregory the Theologian to the diptychs of contemporary Western patristic scholarship, in which Nazianzen has been overshadowed by another Cappadocian, Gregory of Nyssa.

Theologians seeking to respond to the ecological crisis seldom turn to the theology of Karl Barth as a resource. In fact, some suggest that his doctrine of God is too monarchical and leads to unnecessary hierarchies between God and humans, or between humans and the rest of nature. This article counters this trend and begins a dialogue with Barth, especially on the place of non-human nature in his thought. While agreeing with the substance of Barth's theology, it is argued a number of critical additions and revisions are appropriate, especially concerning his doctrine of election. The article first briefly outlines Barth's doctrine of election and then, second, examines various New Testament passages on election and non-human nature. This second section will examine the prologue of John's Gospel, Colossians 1:15–20 and Romans 8:18–23. As key texts in Barth's exposition, it will be noted how he passes over important connections between election and nature found in them. Guided by the green exegesis of Richard Bauckham, it will be argued that nature is not merely the stage for the drama between God and humanity but that it is also an object of God's election and thereby participates in reconciliation and redemption. The third part of the article suggests various points of commensurability, correction and addition to Barth's theology arising from the biblical material examined. This includes points concerning theological epistemology, the atonement, anthropology and the theology of nature. For example, Romans 8 suggests that creation groans in anticipation of redemption. Barth's view of the cross, especially the Son's taking up of human suffering, is extended to suggest that the cross is God's way of identifying with the suffering of nature and its anticipation of redemption, and not just human sin and salvation. The most important revision, however, is to be made to Barth's doctrine of election. It may be summarised as follows: in Jesus Christ, God elects the Christian community and individuals for salvation within the community of creation. The article concludes by suggesting areas of dialogue with other types of ecotheology, especially ecofeminist forms.

Although scholarly investigation of the Book of Mormon has increased significantly over the last three decades, only a tiny portion of that effort has been focused on the theological or doctrinal content of this central volume of Latter-day Saints (LDS) scripture. This article identifies three inclusios which promise definitions of the doctrine or gospel of Jesus Christ and proposes a cumulative methodology to explain how these definitions work. This approach reveals a consistently presented, six-part formula defining ‘the way’ by which mankind can qualify for eternal life. In this way the article provides a starting point for scholarly examinations of the theological content of this increasingly influential religious text.

While the names of the six elements featured in Mormon's gospel will sound familiar to students of the New Testament, the meanings he assigns to these may differ substantially from traditional Christian discourse in ways which make Mormon's characterisation of the gospel or doctrine of Christ unique. (1) Faith is understood primarily as action displaying complete trust or reliance on Christ and the power of his atonement. (2) Repentance requires turning away from one's own way and humbly submitting – by covenant – to the way of the Lord. (3) Water baptism is then the prescribed sign of that covenant a repentant person gives in witnessing both to God and to the world that she has repented and undertaken to follow Christ in all things. (4) The baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost brings the remission of sins in a spiritual rebirth to the repentant individual at such time as God judges her repentance to be true. It also provides converts with a direct witness of the Father and of the Son and of the promises of salvation for those who follow this gospel – as they may be led by the continuing guidance of the Holy Ghost. (5) But only those who endure to the end in this way will (6) receive salvation in the kingdom of God.

The overall pattern suggested is a dialogue between man and God, who initially invites all people to trust in Christ and repent. Those who respond by repenting and seeking baptism will be visited by fire and by the Holy Ghost, which initiates a lifelong interaction, leading the convert day by day in preparation for the judgement, at which she may finally be invited to enter the kingdom of God.

It is always exciting to read the retelling of a familiar narrative, whether it is of the early life of Shakespeare, the political careers of Washington and Jefferson, or the story of the development of the classic Christian understanding of the person of Jesus Christ during the first seven or eight centuries of Christianity. In this last case, the reader feels liberated from the weight of inherited pieties, invited to look again at the existing documentation with fresh eyes, urged to reconceive what he imagines to be the implied agenda of the main actors, and their significance for the later history of Christian faith. Christopher Beeley's new book from Yale certainly has this effect on those trained by earlier tellings of the story of early Christology, from Newman to Harnack and Loofs, to Sellers and Grillmeier and Kelly. The heroes and villains, characteristic phrases and defining moments of heresy and orthodoxy, all take on a slightly new form in Christopher's reconstruction – a form centred on the question of how the personal and ontological unity of the Saviour is conceived and emphasised by key Christian authors and principal church synods from the third to the eighth centuries.

This book, the latest in Wright's series on ‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’, is a daunting phenomenon: over 1500 pages, packaged in two volumes, containing (I reckon) more than 800,000 words. Building on his earlier publications, and referring across to companion volumes – not even this gigantic text is self-sufficient – Wright here advances in full the synthetic vision of Paul's theology which he has developed and promoted over more than thirty years. The scale reflects his ambition: to integrate all the motifs in Pauline theology within a single large-scale schema; to elucidate its Jewish roots and its points of interaction with Graeco-Roman philosophy, religion and politics; to engage in most of the recent debates on Pauline theology; and to defend and advance his own distinctive theories on justification, covenant and the Messiahship of Jesus, against critics who have lined up against him on several sides. The structure and size of the project create considerable repetition. Many topics are opened, postponed for several hundred pages, then discussed and then later reprised, while the reader is liable to be wearied by a prose style which often seems excessively baggy. Wright strives to keep our attention with arresting metaphors, engaging illustrations and a knock-about lecture-hall style, but the latter is often tetchy in its criticism of others, and descends too often to caricature. Indeed, the standard of intellectual engagement with contrary opinions is often disappointing, and hardly improved by grand generalisations about ‘Enlightenment frameworks’ and ‘postmodern moralism’. It is only rarely that this large work engages in detailed exegesis (close engagement with texts, in debate with a range of exegetical options): the opening discussion of Philemon, the focused study of Galatians 6:16 and the close analysis of Romans 9–11 (the highlight of this work) are among the exceptions. Of course one cannot advance a thesis of such breadth without sacrificing some depth in textual debate, but the effect is to lessen considerably the persuasiveness of the whole.

One of the most significant studies of Barth's theological ethics to have appeared in recent years is The Analogy of Grace by Professor Gerald McKenny of the University of Notre Dame. In this article review, I seek to accomplish three things. First, I will offer a concise introduction to the form, content and purpose of this book. Second, I will attend to some of the volume's core claims in greater detail, exploring areas of potential exegetical and theological divergence. And finally, by way of conclusion, I will comment on the work against the backdrop of contemporary studies of Barth's theological ethics.

The question of the fate of Paulinism in late antiquity, a point of controversy in early Christian studies especially since Adolf von Harnack, has benefited from fresh attention in recent research, even as, simultaneously, there is ever less agreement among New Testament scholars on the question of what Paulinism actually is. This state of affairs comes sharply into focus in Todd Still and David Wilhite's edited volume Tertullian and Paul, the first in a new series from T&T Clark on the reception of Paul in the church fathers. Reading and assessing Tertullian and Paul is a sometimes dizzying experience of intertextuality. The reader encounters, for example, Margaret MacDonald reading Elizabeth Clark reading Tertullian reading Paul. What is more, Paul himself is reading, for example, Second Isaiah, who is reading First Isaiah, who is reading parts of the Pentateuch, and so on. One thinks of Derrida's notion of différance, in which any given text refers to other texts, which refer to still other texts, which refer to still other texts, and so on, ad infinitum.

I am deeply grateful to my colleagues for their careful attention to my work, and for the invitation to respond to their comments in the pages of the Scottish Journal of Theology. It is a privilege to participate in such a conversation among friends and fellow scholars.

I am grateful to the Scottish Journal of Theology for offering me the opportunity to respond to Paul Nimmo's article review of the The Analogy of Grace, and I am especially grateful to Dr Nimmo for his lucid and accurate overview of the book, his generous comments, and his thoughtful and challenging criticisms. It is an honour to receive this careful and critical attention from the author of Being in Action, a study of Barth's ethics for which I have the highest regard.

The contributions of this fine book are many but I will concentrate on three, before turning to several more critical remarks.

First, and most obviously, the book does the invaluable service of surveying developments in kenotic christology in the nineteenth century while situating them nicely in their different contexts of origin and with reference to lines of mutual influence: continental, Scottish and British trends are all canvassed rather masterfully. Some attention, in lesser detail, is also given to the way these christological trends are extended in the twentieth century to accounts of the Trinity and God's relation to the world generally: kenosis, the self-emptying or self-limiting action of God, in the incarnation, is now viewed as a primary indication of who God is and how God works, from creation to salvation.