Maurice Wiles was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 1970-1991. To celebrate his seventieth birthday, a group of distinguished friends and colleagues have written this important series of original and perceptive essays on the twin themes of making and remaking Christian doctrine. The topics covered in this thought-provoking collection range from the notion of divine action in Hebrew Wisdom literature to reflections on the nature of the ministry, from the concept of God and the doctrines of Christology and of the Trinity to the character of theological reflection, and from revelation and tradition to the "lex orandi," the nature of interpretation in religion and the historical basis of theological understanding.

The Formation of Christian Doctrine is an advanced academic study of how Christian doctrine develops, distinguishing in particular between scholarly term "inventio" and less revelatory process of "invention."

"The adoption of a new rule of faith in the seventeenth century significantly changed the way English-speaking Protestants perceive the doctrine of the Trinity. Having been the proper personal name by which Christians came to know and love their God, the Trinity became primarily a rational construct and as such no longer clearly mattered for salvation. In Invocation and Assent Jason Vickers charts this crucial theological shift, illuminating the origins of indifference to the Trinity found in many quarters of Christianity today."--BOOK JACKET.

'Maurice Wiles shows that it doesn't require a vast tome to present a penetrating challenge to traditional doctrinal positions... This book is important. It deserves to be read carefully and its challenge profoundly considered' (David Pailin in The Expository Times).

The lives of Christian churches are shaped by doctrinal theology. That is, they are shaped by practices in which ideas about God and God's ways with the world are developed, discussed and deployed. This book explores those practices, and asks why they matter for communities seeking to follow Jesus. Taking the example of the Church of England, this book highlights the embodied, affective and located reality of all doctrinal practices – and the biases and exclusions that mar them. It argues that doctrinal theology can in principle help the church know God better, even though doctrinal theologians do not know God better than their fellow believers. It claims that it can help the church to hear in Scripture challenges to its life, including to its doctrinal theology. It suggests that doctrinal disagreement is inevitable, but that a better quality of doctrinal disagreement is possible. And, finally, it argues that, by encouraging attention to voices that have previously been ignored, doctrinal theology can foster the ongoing discovery of God's surprising work.

Theologian, poet, public intellectual, and clergyman, Rowan Williams is one of the leading lights of contemporary British theology. He has published over twenty books and one hundred scholarly essays in a distinguished career as an academic theologian that culminated in his appointment as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. Williams left this post to serve in the Anglican Church, first as Bishop of Monmouth, then Archbishop of Wales, before finally being enthroned in 2003 as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. In this collection of essays, a talented younger generation of Australian theologians critically analyzes the themes that bind together Williams's theology. These sympathetic yet probing essays traverse the full breadth of Williams's work, from his studies on Arius, the Desert Fathers, Hegel, and Trinitarian theology to his more pastoral writings on spirituality, sexuality, politics, and the Anglican Church.

An examination of the resurrection of Christ and its relationship to the doctrine of the Trinity in the mature work of Karl Barth, particularly across the three parts of volume IV of the Church Dogmatics. It argues that, for Barth, the subject and basis of Christ's resurrection is the triune God.