This project offers an expansive theological understanding of the relationship between suffering and the divine while providing grounds for constructive human responses to suffering. To do this, I use an ecomimetic investigation of bats – selected because of their relationship to the COVID-19 pandemic – to explore the complexity of creaturely suffering in an interdependent world. Next, I offer an explanation of vulnerable suffering that is grounded in God's faithfulness to all of the creation that God called good. Rather than using this explanation to excuse human indifference to suffering, I argue that embracing one's creaturely finitude authorises constructive responses to suffering.

T. F. Torrance is widely thought to be one of the most important recent theologians in the Anglophone world. There has been quite a lot of research done on his soteriology. This essay contributes to that discussion by assessing five soteriological themes in his thought. These comprise: his account of the vicarious humanity of Christ, the notion of incarnation as atonement, his christological understanding of the divine image, his wholly objective view of the nature of justification and his atonement mechanism. I use this analysis as a means to investigate two broader notions in his theology. These are theosis and universal salvation. In keeping with several other recent treatments of his work I conclude his theology implies a doctrine of theosis. I also argue that it implies universalism, despite his emphatic rejection of the doctrine.

This paper seeks to examine Barth's ontology of holy scripture by appropriating the latest nomenclatural analysis of Barth's usage of Wesen and Sein. Given the difference between the Wesen and the Sein of the Bible, and the claim that the Sein-in-becoming of the Bible is determined by its Wesen-in-act, it follows that for Barth the Bible is ontologically the Word of God in the sense of Wesen, which underlies the Bible's becoming the Word of God in the sense of Sein. In short, the Bible ontologically becomes the Word of God in the sense of Sein because the Bible is the Word of God in the sense of Wesen.

This paper gives an account of the religious epistemology and theological working methods used in Anne Conway's Principia Philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae (1690). It is argued that the epistemic foundations of Conway's philosophical theology are rooted in a personal revelation of the existence and nature of God, which forms a framework through which the natural world can be approached and studied as creation. In this way, we can clarify both the place of Conway's work in the intellectual currents of the seventeenth century and various aspects of her metaphysical system, such as her account of creation.

St Paul and the tradition which follows in his wake have often fallen victim to the circumstances and ideologies of their interpreters: used as ambassadors for patriarchy by some and rejected as misogynistic by others. This article reviews some of the contentious passages in 1 and 2 Timothy and concludes that they both challenge the mores of their environment and resonate with other (deutero-)Pauline teachings. To ensure that such claims do not fall prey to circularity in their arguments, a methodology is developed and applied in which claims of resonance are not predicated on the content of other writings.

The sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov has exerted a significant amount of influence over Anglophone theology over the last decade. Theological figures as significant as Rowan Williams, John Milbank and Paul Fiddes, to name but a few, have positively engaged with and utilised Bulgakov's sophiology within their own theological contributions. Thus, for many, Bulgakov's sophiology has proven to be a fecund source of theological inspiration, especially when articulating the relationship between God and the world. However, historically, Bulgakov's sophiology has been criticised by many Orthodox theologians, who argue that Bulgakov's proposals are theologically flawed and challenge traditional orthodox readings of Christian doctrine. Despite the controversy surrounding Bulgakov's use of Sophia, very few comprehensive, critical studies of Bulgakov's sophiology, spanning its historical development, exist. This article seeks to fill this void at a time when Bulgakov's sophiology is enthusiastically adopted by many without an accompanying critical lens.