Volume 6, Issue 2, June 1993
Editorial
John Honner, pp.ii-ii
There is much to report. We thank those readers who responded to our survey: your observations were both supportive and suggestive. While we remain ready to publish full-length scholarly articles, we also wish to establish a forum for brief discussions and observations and invite your contributions. We are aware that many of the articles published in Pacifica are more Eurocentric than the title of the journal indicates and we hope that more contributions from the Asian-Pacific rim will appear in the future. Some respondents asked for issues of Pacifica to be devoted to a particular theme, and we are exploring the possibility of a future volume being devoted to a re-reading of Patristic theology.
Sponsorship from the Melbourne College of Divinity has ensured the continuing viability of Pacifica. We are delighted to report that the MCD and the University of Melbourne have entered into a formal agreement of affiliation, enhancing the provision of facilities for theological education as well as improving resources for teaching and research.
Other MCD news includes the following appointments: Dr Mark Brett as Professor of Old Testament Studies at Whitley College; Dr Eddie Broadhead as Lecturer in New Testament at Whitley College; Rev Greg Elsdon to take up the position of Principal at the Churches of Christ Theological College in 1994. Dr Dorothy Lee to succeed Prof Nigel Watson as Professor of New Testament at The Uniting Church Theological Hall in 1994; Dr Howard Wallace to succeed Prof Robert Anderson as Professor of Old Testament at The Uniting Church Theological Hall in 1994. The United Faculty of Theology farewells not only Professors Watson and Anderson, but also Professor Harry Wardlaw, who also retires at the end of 1993.
We also sadly farewell Pamela Foulkes, a founding member of the Pacifica Association, who has been involved with the journal since the first exploratory meetings of 1986 and who served as Manager and then Book Review Editor. Pamela has migrated to Sydney to take up work with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All readers of Pacifica owe her an enormous debt and we shall miss, hopefully only for a short time, her assiduous and passionate contribution to the well-being of the journal.
Articles
Reception Hermeneutics and the "Development" of Doctrine
Ormond Rush, pp.125-140
Despite its strengths, the development model for understanding the history of doctrine has certain inadequacies. It is proposed that the category of “reception” provides a more adequate reading of doctrinal history. Appropriating the reception hermeneutics of Hans Robert Jauss, this approach envisages the expression of doctrine and dogma in any age as part of the living reception of the living tradition. Such a reception-model highlights a certain dynamic evident in the history of doctrine that has implications for the interpretation of doctrine and dogma today.
Are There Really Angels in Carlton? Australian Literature and Theology
Noel Rowe, pp.141-164
This article considers how literature and theology can cooperate to develop “Australian theology”. It also asks that theology be sensitive to the ways in which literature can create its meanings, be aware of the demonic possibilities in writing, and come to terms with texts which deconstruct the words and worlds of traditional theology.
Persons, Souls and Embryos
Peter Coghlan, pp.165-178
The first part of this paper offers comments on the current debate within the Catholic church over the point in the development of the human embryo when ensoulment takes place. Interest is not so much in trying to determine the point of ensoulment as in clarifying the concept of ensoulment (animation, hominization) as inherited from Aristotle and Aquinas. This clarification leads to the second part of the paper, a discussion of some problems with the traditional Catholic notion of the soul as a spiritual principle “created immediately...by God”.
Whiteheadian Creativity, the Tao, and the Thomistic Act of Being
Joseph A. Bracken, pp.179-188
The notion of Creativity within the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead offers a generalised structure of intelligibility. Creativity is not an entity, not even God as the Supreme Being or utterly transcendent entity, but an underlying activity which serves as the ontological ground for everything that exists. Comparisons can thus be made between the notion of the Tao within classical Chinese philosophy, the God-world relationship within the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas, and the neo-classical process-oriented metaphysics of Whitehead. It is arguable that a transcendent activity underlies all the particular changes in this world.
A New Ontology? A Response to a Recent Suggestion
Tony Kelly, pp.189-209
In offering a constructive response to Honner’s “New Ontology”, this article suggests: (1) some continuities with a number of traditional theological techniques; (2) the desirability of greater emphasis on the doctrines of creation and the trinity; (3) the need for a more careful retrieval of some former distinctions dealing with the incarnation, the eucharist and eschatology; and (4) the foundational relevance of a more thorough-going “turn to the subject”.
Book Reviews
Hymnus: Materialen zu einer Geschichte der antiken
Michael Lattke
Majella Franzmann pp.210-212
Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community
John Christopher Thomas
Francis J. Moloney pp.212-214
The Son of Man Tradition
Douglas R.A. Hare
Francis J. Moloney pp.214-216
The Romans Debate, Revised and Expanded Edition
Karl P. Donfried (ed.)
Brendan Byrne pp.216-218
Women and the Genesis of Christianity
Ben Witherington
Elaine Wainwright pp.219-221
The Case for Women's Ministry
Ruth B. Edwards
Muriel Porter pp.221-223
Spirit of the World: The Moral Basis of Christian Spirituality
Neil Brown
Michael Casey pp.224-225
Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions
Gavin D'Costa (ed.)
Lawrence Nemer pp.225-227
Remembering Esperanza: A Cultural-Political Theology of North American Praxis
Mark Kline Taylor
Ian Williams pp.228-231
Changing Women, Changing Church
Marie Louise Ehr
Muriel Porter pp.231-234
Making Australia. Exploring our National Conversation
John Thornhil
Tony Kelly pp.234-236
The Göttingen Dogmatics - Instruction in the Christian Religion, Volume 1
Karl Barth
Gordon Watson pp.236-239
Diakonia: Reinterpreting the Ancient Sources
J.N. Collins
John Painter pp.239-241
Are All Christians Ministers?
J.N. Collins
Gideon Goossen pp.242-243
An Anthology of Christian Mysticism
Harvey Egan
Austin Cooper pp.243-244
Dialogue with the Other: The Inter-Religious Dialogue
David Tracy
Tony Kelly pp.244-245
Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine
Nils Alstrup Dahl
James Haire pp.245-247
Contributors
Ormond Rush is a Roman Catholic priest of the diocese of Townsville. After thirteen years in parish ministry, he completed a Licentiate in Fundamental Theology at the Gregorian University and spent one year of postgraduate research in Boston. He is currently on the formation staff at Pius XII Seminary, Banyo, and teaches in the Brisbane College of Theology.
Noel Rowe, S.M., teaches Australian Literature at the University of Sydney. His poetry has been published in Les Murray’s
Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry. With Dr Erin White he has been teaching a course in “Australian Religious Imagination” at the Aquinas Academy and the Catholic Theological Union in Sydney.
Peter Coghlan is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Head of the Department of Theology and Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University, Christ Campus, Oakleigh, Victoria. His present interests include a study of the educational thought of John Henry Newman.
Joseph A. Bracken, S.J., is Professor of Theology at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Freiburg and has published widely on the Trinity, his most recent work being Society and Spirit: A Trinitarian Cosmology.
Tony Kelly, C.Ss.R., S.T.L., Dr. Theol., lectures in systematic theology at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne, where he served as President from 1980-1985. His work on the connections between science and theology, An Expanding Theology: Faith in a World of Connections, is about to be published by E. J. Dwyer.
