What might be learned, for theology, from recent interest in the complex love triangle of Nelly Barth, Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth? I explore some aspects of how the story has been told, in and since Christiane Tietz's 2016 presentation and article, and argue that they expose deep-seated issues in and for the discipline of systematic theology. In particular, I draw attention to the focus on preserving the authority of the individual (male/masculine) author as the exemplar of theological practice; and to the reluctance to recognise the social, political and economic dimensions of sexuality and ‘domestic’ life. I argue that a properly ‘systematic theological’ approach to the Barth-von Kirschbaum story would involve critical and constructive theological reflection on theology's conditions of production: using historical contexts to help us recognise and respond to contemporary issues, without reducing such reflection to stories about individual authors.

In dialogue with John Webster and Karl Barth, this essay considers the intersection of divine aseity and holy scripture. I argue that the doctrine of holy scripture is constituted by a backward reference, namely, the plentiful life of the triune God. The doctrine of divine aseity denotes God's self-existent triune life, which anchors God's bestowal of life. Construed negatively, aseity establishes the incommensurability of God and creatures by distinguishing, without sundering, scripture and God's self-communicative presence. Construed positively, aseity constitutes scripture as ‘a field of divine activity’, the sphere of the life-giving missions of the Word and Spirit. The triune God who lives a se, elects the texts of scripture to serve as intermediaries of God's vivifying address.

The Epistle of James is one of the most overlooked texts in the New Testament. This is partially due to Luther's judgement of the epistle as anti-Pauline. This article suggests that James should rather be seen as an early reception of Paul that brings new insight into the Pauline legacy of the late first century. James also helps us understand more about the theological issues of its day.

In the writings of Isaac of Nineveh, a seventh-century East Syriac solitary, one finds a profound compassion for every created being, including wild animals, heretics and demons. This article shows that this compassionate attitude towards external negative entities is rooted in the creature's relationship with its own condition of vulnerability. This vulnerability is distinctive of the human condition. Isaac conceives of the passions as attempts to remove this ontological condition, proposing that one can instead learn to deal with it and to ‘take it on’. This occurs through a demanding exercise of relationship with one's suffering self, and only once this relationship has been discovered does grace reveal itself to the creature. Grace, therefore, emerges from Isaac's writings as something that never removes one's creaturely poverty, but reveals itself only to the person who has the courage to experience, ‘bear’ and ‘take on’ this poverty.

While Karl Barth balances the reliability of revelation with divine counterfactual freedom through the analogia temporalis, Robert Jenson rejects this form of analogy, arguing that it posits an unknowable reality of God behind revelation. He instead transposes metaphysics into narratological terms, arguing that this secures the reliability of revelation and divine freedom, since it means God is future to (and so undetermined by) events in time. This metric for divine freedom cannot, however, replace counterfactual possibility; hence, the analogia temporalis (presupposed in counterfactuals) re-emerges in Jenson's theology. This form of analogy is essential in balancing the reliability of revelation with divine freedom.

Though Nestorius is often thought to have erred largely due to his christological views, this article will suggest that it was his hamartiology that led to his errant christological claims.