Brian Leftow offers a theory of the possible and the necessary in which God plays the chief role, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. It has become usual to say that a proposition is possible just in case it is true in some 'possible world' (roughly, some complete history a universe might have) and necessary just if it is true in all. Thus much discussion of possibility and necessity since the 1960s has focussed on the nature and existence (or not) of possible worlds. God and Necessity holds that there are no such things, nor any sort of abstract entity. It assigns the metaphysical 'work' such items usually do to God and events in God's mind, and reduces 'broadly logical' modalities to causal modalities, replacing possible worlds in the semantics of modal logic with God and His mental events. Leftow argues that theists are committed to theist modal theories, and that the merits of a theist modal theory provide an argument for God's existence. Historically, almost all theist modal theories base all necessary truth on God's nature. Leftow disagrees: he argues that necessary truths about possible creatures and kinds of creatures are due ultimately to God's unconstrained imagination and choice. On his theory, it is in no sense part of the nature of God that normal zebras have stripes (if that is a necessary truth). Stripy zebras are simply things God thought up, and they have the nature they do simply because that is how God thought of them. Thus Leftow's essay in metaphysics takes a half-step toward Descartes' view of modal truth, and presents a compelling theist theory of necessity and possibility.

The "African Diaspora and the Study of Religion" engages a variety of conversations at the forefront of contemporary scholarship in the study of religion and in African diaspora studies. These conversations include: the construction of racial identity in diverse national settings (Brazil, Mexico, Britain, North America); new religious movements and nationalism; alternative religious narratives in the diaspora; literature read through the lens of diaspora; trans-Atlantic culture (the role of Denmark in Nella Larson's novel "Quicksand," for example, or Ethiopia in Rastafarianism); and the role of the scholar and scholarship in the construction of religious and political meaning.

What has Luce Irigaray's statement that women need a God to do with her thoughts on the relation between body and mind, or the sensible and the intelligible?
Using the theological notion 'incarnation' as a hermeneutical key, Anne-Claire Mulder brings together and illuminates the interrelations between these different themes in Luce Irigaray's work. Seesawing between Luce Irigaray's critique of philosophical discourse and her constructive philosophy, Mulder elucidates Irigaray's thoughts on the relations between 'becoming woman' and 'becoming divine'. She shows that Luce Irigaray's restaging of the relation between the sensible and the intelligible, between flesh and Word, is key to her reinterpretation of the relation between woman and God. In and through her interpretation of Luce Irigaray's thoughts on the flesh she argues that the relation between flesh and Word must be seen as a dialectical one, instead of as a dualistic relation. This means that 'incarnation' is no longer seen as a one-way process of Word becoming flesh, but as a continuing process of flesh becoming word and word becoming flesh. For all images and thoughts - including those of 'God' - are produced by the flesh, divine in its creativity inexhaustibility, in response to the touch of the other. And these images, thoughts, words in turn become embodied, by touching and moving the flesh of the subject.

Overviewing what makes the intersection between emotion and ethics so confusing, this book surveys an older wisdom in how to manage it, using a range of Christian theologians and sources. More important even than 'managing', we begin to see a vision for a better set of affections to grow within and among us. In this vision emerges a practical and nuanced account of what the Christian tradition sometime summarises as 'love'. How may we recover a deep affection for what matters, both within ourselves and together in groups? This book also dialogues with a new movement in moral psychology, 'social intuitionism'. Cameron argues that researchers in this discipline have interests and conclusions that sometimes overlap with Christian sources, even where their respective lenses differ. In this way, the book overviews recent trends in moral psychology against a recent historical and contemporary cultural backdrop, whilst assaying major sources in Christian theology that offer guidance on moral psychology.

Our Fate is a collection of John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book contains a new introductory essay that places all of the chapters in the book into a cohesive framework. The introductory essay also provides some new views about the issues treated in the book, including a bold and original account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world. The focus of the book is a powerful traditional argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise. Fischer presents this argument (in various forms) and defends it against some of the most salient criticisms, especially Ockhamism. The incompatibilist's argument is driven by the fixity of the past, and, in particular, the fixity of God's prior beliefs about our current behavior. The author gives special attention to Ockhamism, which contends that God's prior beliefs are not "over-and-done-with" in the past, and are thus not subject to the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past. In the end, Fischer defends the argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise, but he further argues that this incompatibility need not entail the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human moral responsibility. Thus, through this collection of essays, Fischer develops a "semicompatibilist" view - the belief that God's foreknowledge is entirely compatible with human moral responsibility, even if God's foreknowledge rules out freedom to do otherwise.

An introduction to the covenant theology of the Old Testament, Second Temple Judaism, the New Testament, and the early Fathers, exploring the implications for contemporary theology. The concept of 'covenant' is a crucial component in understanding God and his actions throughout salvation history. New Covenant, New Community looks at covenant in the Old and New Testaments and the history of Christian interpretation, and makes a substantial contribution to biblical theological studies in this area. What are the elements of continuity and discontinuity in terms of the covenant concept between the Old and New Testaments? Can we truly speak of a 'new' covenant that is distinct from the old? What are the implications of a biblical understanding of covenant for the community of faith - then and now? These are just a few of the many questions Grabe addresses in this far-reaching, well-researched and highly accessible study.

The book is the first attempt to make a systematic analysis of the Russian ecclesiastical policy in the diocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the period of 1878-1914. It is based mainly on unedited materials from the archives of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sofia, Athens, Belgrade and Istanbul. Using the existing publications on the political aspects of the Eastern question, the author presents a new understanding of the role of Russia in the East Mediterranean region at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

"God, the Future of Man" focuses on religion and secularisation, viewed from various vantage points: secularisation and God-talk; secularisation and the church's liturgy; secularisation and the church's new self-understanding; and, finally, secularisation and the future of humankind on earth in light of the eschaton (church and social politics). These thought-provoking reflections are presented against the backdrop of Schillebeeckx's hermeneutic premises. In the concluding chapter his reflections on secularisation culminate in a God concept that can function fruitfully in a modern culture that assigns the future pride of place: God as the future of humankind. Written in a period pregnant with Cultural Revolution and religious change, the book foregrounds the pivotal issue of secularisation in a thought-provoking way. With feverish urgency he reflects on various forms of religiosity in the modern world. His contribution to the debate could just as well have been written today.

The transatlantic relationship between nineteenth-century American Reformed theology and German Protestant thought has largely been neglected in American religious studies. The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century American Theology explores the influence of mediating theology (Vermittlungstheologie) on Reformed thought in the United States. Annette Aubert offers the first detailed examination of German theological influences on Mercersburg's Emanuel Vogel Gerhart (1817-1904) and Princeton's Charles Hodge (1797-1878). Aubert discusses the influences of Ernst Hengstenberg, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the German mediating theologians, especially in terms of theological method and the doctrine of atonement in light of nineteenth-century modernism and scientific theories. By reassessing Hodge's theological method and Gerhart's significant contributions, she shows how systematic theology, in an age of modern science, could no longer strictly adhere to past definitions of theology and dogmatic works. This book shows how Gerhart and Hodge engaged with the ideas of their German counterparts to articulate theological definitions and methods. Showing that reformed theologians in nineteenth-century America profited enormously from the dogmatic, historical, and biblical works of German scholarship, Aubert's work makes an important contribution to both transatlantic religious and Protestant theological studies.

Modern Israel and its relations with its Arab neighbors has been conspicuously in the daily news ever since World War II. Until that time, the concept of Israel and a continuing Jewish people had been hovering in the distant background of Christian thought and doctrine since the post-apostolic era. In this important work, Dr. Diprose demonstrates the uniqueness of Israel and its special place in the divine plan. By carefully reviewing relevant New Testament and post-apostolic writings, the author traces the origin and development of Replacement Theology--the concept that the Church has completely and permanently replaced ethnic Israel in the outworking of God's plan throughout history--challenging its origin and role in the development of Christian thought on the future of ethnic Israel.

The Christian Humanist ideas of six Catholic scholars who were based in Munich during the first half of the 20th century are profiled in this volume. They were all interested in presenting and defending a Christian humanism in the aftermath of German Idealism and the anti-Christian humanism of Friedrich Nietzsche. They were seeking to offer hope to Christians during the darkest years of the Nazi regime and the post-Second World War era of shame, guilt and reconstruction.

This book is a consideration of major contemporary African American and Jewish theological understandings of God, human nature, moral evil, suffering, and ethics, utilizing the work of James Cone and Emil Fackenheim. Specifically, it examines how profound faith in a just God is sustained, and even strengthened, in the face of particularly horrific and long-standing evil and suffering in a community. The constructive portion of the book explores theological possibilities by focusing on the concepts of human freedom, resistance, and responsibility--all grounded in divine gift--as an effective and meaningful response to oppression and despair.

Engaging recent developments within the bio-cultural study of religion, Shults unveils the evolved cognitive and coalitional mechanisms by which god-conceptions are engendered in minds and nurtured in societies. He discovers and attempts to liberate a radically atheist trajectory that has long been suppressed within the discipline of theology.

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. In "Godless Shakespeare", Mallin argues that there is a profound absence of, or hostility to, God in Shakespeare's plays. It is clear that Shakespeare engaged with and deployed much of his culture's broadly religious interests: his language is shot through with biblical quotations, priestly sermonizing, Christian imagery and miracle-play style allegory. However, he claims that a counter-discourse also emerges in the works, arguing against God, or the idea of God. This is a polemical account of the absence of God and of belief in the plays, and of how this absence functions in theatrical moments of crux and crisis. Following Dante's three part structure for the "Divine Comedy" - the first part (Inferno) represents expressions of religious faith in Shakespeare's plays, the second (Purgatorio) sets out more sceptical positions, and the last (Paradiso) articulations of godlessness. The discussion focuses on the moral and spiritual dilemmas of major characters, developing the often subtle transitions between belief, scepticism and atheism and suggesting that there is a liberating potential in unbelief.

Jewish anthropological beliefs during the Hellenistic-Roman period are an important but previously neglected area of biblical exegesis and Jewish studies. In an effort to address this deficiency, this volume brings together 20 essays related to the subject of sin and death, with special emphasis on integrating material from neighboring cultures. Thus, the volume provides an exemplary foundation for further research on ancient Jewish anthropology.