This article makes the following three programmatic points. First, an understanding of divine transcendence, prominent in Christian theology's apophatic strain, developed in tandem, both historically and logically, with ideas about creation that eventuated in a creation ex nihilo viewpoint. Such an account of divine transcendence, second, fosters an account of creation that typically mixes both natural and personalistic images and categories. The loss of such an account of transcendence since the early modern period, I suggest thirdly and in conclusion, is (...) therefore responsible in great part for the dualistic, mutually exclusive alternation between a deistic, interventionist God and pantheism so common in modern Christian thought. (shrink)

Recent writing in feminist ethics, both secular and religious, is moving beyond a moral dualism between an ethic of care and an ethic of justice, with wide-ranging implications for the most fundamental assumptions of moral life. In reviewing the pertinent literature, this essay aims to clarify an emerging vision of self and community indicated by this new direction in feminist ethics.