Russell’s article, mentioned in the previous post, scores a few points against Zizi and a relational emphasis in theological anthropology. His main criticisms, however, do not touch a high Reformed anthropology. One of his criticisms is that Zizi does not pay sufficient attention to the role the world plays in constituting our being and personhood. Our embodied bumping-into the world is part of what makes us what we are (this is a part of his point in the quotation in... Read more

Writing in the July 2003 issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology , one Edward Russell argues that Zizioulas’s relational anthropology fails, in part, because of an inadequate doctrine of sin. I’m with him there. But then he quotes from Alan Torrance, and summarizes the point by saying that “Zizioulas undervalues our createdness” and in a thorough theological anthropology both “theological and non-theological loci” must be considered, i.e., “not only trinitarian theology and the doctrine of creation, but also... Read more

There’s a wonderful article in the October 2003 issue of First Things by David B. Hart, an Orthodox theology who teaches at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota (also home to William Cavanagh, one of the most interesting American theologians writing today). Hart’s article is taken from a lecture on the First Commandment, and he makes the argument that the modern world is faced with the stark choice between Christ and nihilism. I resist the urge to... Read more