Theology of Transformation: Faith, Freedom, and the Christian Act

Significant advances in science bring new understandings of the human as a unity of mind, body, and world and calls into question the deep-seated dualistic presuppositions of modern theology. Oliver Davies argues that the changing framework allows a return to the defining question of the Easter Church: "Where is Jesus Christ?" This is a question which can bring about a fundamental reorientation of theology, since it gives space for the theological reception of the disruptive presence of the living Christ as the present material as well as formal object of theology in the world. At the centre of this study therefore is a new theology of the doctrine of the exaltation of Christ, based upon St. Paul's encounter with the exalted or commissioning Christ on the road to Damascus. This places calling and commissioning at the center of systematic theology. It provides the ground for a new understanding of theology as transcending the Academy-Church division as well as the divide between systematic and practical theology. It points also to a new critical theological method of engagement and collaboration.