Description
Book SynopsisIn this groundbreaking study, Stephen H. Webb offers a new theological understanding of the material and spiritual: that, far from being contradictory, they unite in the very stuff of the eternal Jesus Christ. Accepting matter as a perfection (or predicate) of the divine requires a rethinking of the immateriality of God, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the Chalcedonian formula of the person of Christ, and the analogical nature of religious language. It also requires a careful reconsideration of Augustine''s appropriation of the Neo-Platonic understanding of divine incorporeality as well as Origen''s rejection of anthropomorphism. Webb locates his position in contrast to evolutionary theories of emergent materialism and the popular idea that the world is God''s body. He draws on a little known theological position known as the ''''heavenly flesh'''' Christology, investigates the many misunderstandings of its origins and relation to the Monophysite movement, and supplements it w
Trade Review... This study is refreshingly provocative and counterintuitive and undoubtedly merits attention * David Brumett, The Expository Times *
those with a postgraduate-level interest in Christology in particular will benefit most from Webb's lively analysis. ... there is no doubt in my mind that this near extraordinary monograph is worthy of serious, sustained attention. Its radical claims about Jesus mean that it should not be ignored. * Terry J. Wright, Theology *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Chapter 1: Thinking with Matter ; Chapter 2: A Brief History of the Metaphysics of Matter ; Chapter 3: Binding Matter, Unbinding God ; Chapter 4: The New Consensus about Anthropomorphism and God ; Chapter 5: What Flesh is This? ; Chapter 6: More Resources: Scotus, Schwenckfeld, and the Transfiguration ; Chapter 7: Thomas Aquinas on Relations, Personhood, and Matter ; Chapter 8: Karl Barth's Christological Metaphysics ; Chapter 9: Godbodied: The Matter of the Latter-day Saints ; Chapter 10: A Conclusion by Way of a Metaphysical Beginning
