Arianism is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius, a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that the Son of God is not co-eternal with God the Father and is distinct from the Father. However, as in mainstream Trinitarianism, Arianism holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity holds that God is one God, but three coeternal and consubstantial persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature" (homoousios). In this context, a "nature" is what one is, whereas a "person" is who one is.
Pneumatology refers to a particular discipline within Christian theology that focuses on the study of the Holy Spirit. The term is derived from the Greek word Pneuma (πνεῦμα), which designates "breath" or "spirit" and metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence. The English term pneumatology comes from two Greek words: πνεῦμα and λόγος. Pneumatology includes study of the person of the Holy Spirit, and the works of the Holy Spirit. This latter category also includes Christian teachings on new birth, spiritual gifts (charismata), Spirit-baptism, sanctification, the inspiration of prophets, and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity. Different Christian denominations have different theological approaches on various pneumatological questions.
Robert William Jenson (1930–2017) was a leading American Lutheran and ecumenical theologian. Prior to his retirement in 2007, he spent seven years as the director of the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was the co-founder of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and is known for his two-volume Systematic Theology published between 1997 and 1999.
Thomas Forsyth Torrance, commonly referred to as T. F. Torrance, was a Scottish Protestant theologian and minister. Torrance served for 27 years as professor of Christian dogmatics at New College, in the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his pioneering work in the study of science and theology, but he is equally respected for his work in systematic theology. While he wrote many books and articles advancing his own study of theology, he also edited the translation of several hundred theological writings into English from other languages, including the English translation of the thirteen-volume, six-million-word Church Dogmatics of Swiss theologian Karl Barth, as well as John Calvin's New Testament Commentaries. He was a member of the famed Torrance family of theologians.
Postliberal theology is a Christian theological movement that focuses on a narrative presentation of the Christian faith as regulative for the development of a coherent systematic theology. Thus, Christianity is an overarching story, with its own embedded culture, grammar, and practices which, can be understood only with reference to Christianity's own internal logic.
Marcellus of Ancyra was a Bishop of Ancyra and one of the bishops present at the Council of Ancyra and the First Council of Nicaea. He was a strong opponent of Arianism, but was accused of adopting the opposite extreme of modified Sabellianism. He was condemned by a council of his enemies and expelled from his see, though he was able to return there to live quietly with a small congregation in the last years of his life. He is also said to have destroyed the temple of Zeus Belos at Apamea.
Patristics or patrology is the study of the early Christian writers who are designated Church Fathers. The names derive from the combined forms of Latin pater and Greek patḗr (father). The period is generally considered to run from the end of New Testament times or end of the Apostolic Age to either AD 451 or to the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.
Homoousion is a Christian theological term, most notably used in the Nicene Creed for describing Jesus as "same in being" or "same in essence" with God the Father. The same term was later also applied to the Holy Spirit in order to designate him as being "same in essence" with the Father and the Son. Those notions became cornerstones of theology in Nicene Christianity, and also represent one of the most important theological concepts within the Trinitarian doctrinal understanding of God.
Perichoresis is a term referring to the relationship of the three persons of the triune God to one another. Circumincession is a Latin-derived term for the same concept. It was first used as a term in Christian theology, by the Church Fathers. The noun first appears in the writings of Maximus Confessor but the related verb perichoreo is found earlier in Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory used it to describe the relationship between the divine and human natures of Christ as did John of Damascus, who also extended it to the "interpenetration" of the three persons of the Trinity, and it became a technical term for the latter. It has been given recent currency by such contemporary writers as Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, John Zizioulas, Richard Rohr, and others.
Subordinationism is a belief that began within early Christianity that asserts that the Son and the Holy Spirit are subordinate to God the Father in nature and being. Various forms of subordinationism were believed or condemned until the mid-4th century, when the debate was decided against subordinationism as an element of the Arian controversy. In 381, after many decades of formulating the doctrine of the Trinity, the First Council of Constantinople condemned Arianism.
David Frank Ford is an Anglican public theologian. He has been the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge since 1991. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and interfaith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning.
John Behr is a British Eastern Orthodox priest and theologian. Since 2020, he has served as the Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen. He is the former Dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, where he was the Director of the Master of Theology Program and the Father Georges Florovsky Distinguished Professor of Patristics. He was ordained to the diaconate on 8 September 2001 and the priesthood on 14 September 2001. He is the editor of the Patristic Series released by St. Vladimir's Press. He was elected dean of the seminary on 18 November 2006 and served from 2007 until 2017 when he was named Father Georges Florovsky Distinguished Professor of Patristics.
The characterization, "pro-Nicene", points to one of the central tenets of the new approach to fourth century Trinitarian theology advocated by Lewis Ayres and Michel René Barnes, among others. The designation, “pro-Nicene,” classifies and describes Trinitarian theological accounts of the mid to late 4th century that supported the propositions in the Creed of Nicaea. Some scholars prefer to utilize a middle category, or stage in theological development, that provides further differentiation between Nicene theologies and pro-Nicene theologies: Barnes labels this middle category “neo-Nicene” theology. Nevertheless, all the scholars who utilize the pro-Nicene category stress the logical compatibility that exists within different theologies of the period, rather than one particular theology. The feature of these like-minded theological accounts that has garnered the most attention is the understanding that in sharing the one power of God, the Father and Son must share the same nature.
Michel René Barnes has been, since May, 2018, Associate Professor emeritus of Historical Theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He focuses on Latin and Greek Patristic Theology, in particular, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, and pneumatological development in the early church. He now works as principal research fellow at the "Augustine Agency", a privately-financed research library outside Milwaukee.
The Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church have been in a state of official schism from one another since the East–West Schism of 1054. This schism was caused by historical and language differences, and the ensuing theological differences between the Western and Eastern churches.
Brian Edward Daley, S.J. is an American Catholic priest, Jesuit, and theologian. He is currently the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology (Emeritus) at the University of Notre Dame and was the recipient of a Ratzinger Prize for Theology in 2012.
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical period in which they worked became known as the Patristic Era and spans approximately from the late 1st to mid 8th centuries, flourishing in particular during the 4th and 5th centuries, when Christianity was in the process of establishing itself as the state church of the Roman Empire.
James L. Papandrea is a Catholic theologian, historian, author, speaker, and singer/songwriter. He is currently Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and also teaches for the Archdiocese of Chicago's Institute for Diaconal Studies. Papandrea is also one of the world's foremost scholars of Novatian of Rome.
Joseph Stephen O’Leary is an Irish Roman Catholic theologian. Born in Cork, 1949, he studied literature and theology at Maynooth College. He also studied at the Gregorian University, Rome (1972-3) and in Paris (1977–79). Ordained for the Diocese of Cork and Ross in 1973, he was a chaplain at University College Cork (1980–81). He taught theology at the University of Notre Dame (1981–82) and Duquesne University (1982–83) before moving to Japan in August, 1983. He worked as a researcher at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nanzan University, Nagoya (1985–86), where he later held the Roche Chair for Interreligious Research (2015–16). He taught in the Faculty of Letters at Sophia University, Tokyo, from 1988 to 2015.
