'Christian theology', Vladimir Lossky observes, 'does not know of an abstract divinity'. By this one can read 'no doctrine of God abstracted from the rich sets of traditions that provide a context for the form of such a confession', traditions that shape reason doxologically to witness to the incomprehensible 'plentitude of being'. Sounding like Pascal he declares that 'the God of the philosophers and savants is introduced into the heart of the Living God, taking the place of the Deus absconditus, (...) qui posuit tenebras labitulum suum'. Consequently, what Christian dogmatics speaks of as the 'Holy Spirit' cannot be conceived as the Spirit of such an abstracted God, but of the God who 'descends' in 'the divine person of Christ [who] makes human persons capable of an ascent in the Holy Spirit'. (shrink)

Donald M. MacKinnon has been one of the most important and influential of post-war British theologians and religious philosophers. Generally eclectic, frequently allusive, usually intellectually generous, persistently richly challenging and always astonishingly erudite, he had a significant impact on the development and subsequent theological work of the likes of Rowan Williams, Nicholas Lash, David Ford and John Milbank. A younger generation largely emerging from Cambridge, but with influence elsewhere, has more recently brought MacKinnon's normally occasionalist writing to a larger audience (...) worldwide where it is beginning to receive noteworthy attention. In this collection several of MacKinnon's most outstanding papers not yet published in book format is collected together with an Editorial Introduction by a former student of one of MacKinnon's own students. They range from his reflections on theology as educational, the nature of moral reasoning, considerations of ecclesial practice, dogmatics and hope. Here is another reminder of MacKinnon's intellectual brilliance. (shrink)

Introduction: Why so serious? -- The super body-politic: nationally assembling Joss Whedon's exceptional The avengers -- "He was deceived by a lie": tragedy and the dark plague of the politics of fear in George Lucas' Star wars -- Dystopian polyvalence: emancipating the mediated life from The matrix.

Introduction: Why so serious? -- The super body-politic: nationally assembling Joss Whedon's exceptional The avengers -- "He was deceived by a lie": tragedy and the dark plague of the politics of fear in George Lucas' Star wars -- Dystopian polyvalence: emancipating the mediated life from The matrix.

Introducing the moral philosopher and philosophical theologian Donald Mackenzie MacKinnon (1913–1994) is not an easy business. Of course, those who are already familiar with the work of the Scottish Episcopalian from Oban in the Highlands will know this but regard it as a necessary difficulty. It is necessary for two main reasons. Firstly, despite the fact that he is arguably the most influential and important postwar British philosophical theologian, (although many would want to place T. F. Torrance in this category), (...) he remains relatively unknown to theological scholarship outside of those who have in some way had connections with the Universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge, at which MacKinnon had occupied Chairs. Secondly, the intellectual labors of this former Cambridge Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity are proving to be fruitful for a new generation of theologians (the three scholars involved in this project are examples of this) in a way that saves MacKinnon, at least for a little longer, from being relegated to the fleeting memory of a historical footnote in British intellectual life. What makes the introductory project difficult (and here the term is being used in a rather glib sense, especially with reference to a thinker so deeply immersed in refusing to evade the difficulty emerging from the intractable problems of the surd by offering premature resolutions) is that MacKinnon’s work is so resistant to the quick summary, the pithy statement, or the reductive sound bite. The style of his writing is often allusive and therefore particularly demanding of his audience. (shrink)