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Books by Richard Cross

This series sets out to reconsider the modern distinction between 'historical' and 'systematic' t... more This series sets out to reconsider the modern distinction between 'historical' and 'systematic' theology. The scholarship represented in the series is marked by attention to the way in which historiographic and theological presumptions ('paradigms') necessarily inform the work of historians of Christian thought, and thus affect their application to contemporary concerns. At certain key junctures such paradigms are recast, causing a reconsideration of the methods, hermeneutics, geographical boundaries, or chronological caesuras which have previously guided the theological narrative. The beginning of the twenty-first century marks a period of such notable reassessment of the Christian doctrinal heritage, and involves a questioning of the paradigms that have sustained the classic 'history-of-ideas' textbook accounts of the modern era. Each of the volumes in this series brings such contemporary methodological and historiographical concerns to conscious consideration. Each tackles a period or key figure whose significance is ripe for reconsideration, and each analyses the implicit historiography that has sustained existing scholarship on the topic. A variety of fresh methodological concerns are considered, without reducing the theological to other categories. The emphasis is on an awareness of the history of 'reception': the possibilities for contemporary theology are bound up with a careful rewriting of the historical narrative. In this sense, 'historical' and 'systematic' theology are necessarily conjoined, yet also closely connected to a discerning interdisciplinary engagement. This monograph series accompanies the project of The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Christian Theology (Oxford University Press, in progress), also edited by Sarah Coakley and Richard Cross.

Communicatio idiomatum: Reformation Christological Debates

Papers by Richard Cross

Christology and Metaphysics in the Seventeenth Century

This chapter describes the way in which Cajetan’s account of the Incarnation was developed in lat... more This chapter describes the way in which Cajetan’s account of the Incarnation was developed in later Dominican circles. It discusses the contributions of four theologians: Diego Álvarez (the first theologian to attempt a response to Suárez’s innovations), Giovanni Paolo Nazario, João Poinsot, and Jean-Baptiste Gonet. The question for these theologians lay in working out what kind of ground was required for categorial union relation held by Aquinas to exist between the human nature and the divine person. Their answer was that the relation is grounded simply on the immediate communication of the divine subsistence and existence to the human nature. One worry had by Suárez is that no action can be simply unitive, as the communication of the divine subsistence to the human nature seems to be. Nazario responded by attempting to give an account of such an action in terms of a created efflux mediating between action and passion. Poinsot maintains that subsistence might count as a mode; the ...

Theological Studies, 2017

According to the so-called “religio-ethical” model of disability accepted in some sense by Aquina... more According to the so-called “religio-ethical” model of disability accepted in some sense by Aquinas, disability is fundamentally a punishment for wrongdoing. Duns Scotus rejects this view and holds that disability could simply have been part of God’s plan, and that its presence could have been explained simply by virtue of God’s finding beauty in some of the bodily configurations of the disabled. I conclude by showing how Scotus’s view relates to the so-called “social” model of disability.

Speculum, 2019

The first of these, formed in the Latin patristic period and reaching a level of explicit themati... more The first of these, formed in the Latin patristic period and reaching a level of explicit thematization in the twelfth century, held that the soul could attain a loving union of wills with God, an unitas spiritus [i.e., unity of spirit] whose basic human analogue was to be found in the marriage embrace of the lovers portrayed in the Song of Songs. But in the thirteenth century, first among some of the women vernacular theologians, a second form of understandingmystical union began to emerge, a potentiallymore radical and possiblymore questionable understanding which emphasized a goal of “union without difference” . . .—the insistence that . . . there is some absolute identity between God and the soul.

Duns Scotus on God, 2018

Contents: Introduction. Part 1 The Existence of the One God: Theories of causation The existence ... more Contents: Introduction. Part 1 The Existence of the One God: Theories of causation The existence of a first being Perfect-being theology The knowledge and volition of a first being Divine infinity Divine simplicity Divine unicity Divine immutability and timelessness. Part 2 The Trinitarian Nature of the One God: The Trinity and scientific demonstration Internal divine productions The number of productions Divine persons The commonality of the divine essence Personal properties Persons and essence in the production of Son and Spirit Notional and essential acts The constitution of a divine person Anti-subordinationist strategies. Appendix Bibliography Indexes.

Choice Reviews Online, 2014

Preface Introduction: Institutions and Sources Part I: CONSOLIDATION Chapter 1. Anselm of Canterb... more Preface Introduction: Institutions and Sources Part I: CONSOLIDATION Chapter 1. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109) Chapter 2. From 1100 to 1200 Peter Abelard Gilbert of Poitiers Bernard of Clairvaux The Victorines Peter Lombard Part II: REVOLUTION Chapter 3. From 1200 to 1277 Robert Grosseteste William of Auvergne Alexander of Hales Albert the Great Bonaventure Roger Bacon The Paris Arts Faculty Chapter 4. Thomas Aquinas (c.1225 - 74) Part III: INNOVATION Chapter 5: From 1277 to 1300 Correctorium literature Henry of Ghent Peter Olivi Giles of Rome Godfrey of Fontaines Chapter 6. Duns Scotus (c.1266 - 1308) Part IV: SIMPLIFICATION Chapter 7. William of Ockham (c. 1287 - 1347) Chapter 8. From 1310 to 1350 Durand of St Pourcain (and Hervaeus Natalis) Peter Auriol Ockham's Oxonian contemporaries, followers, and opponents Nicholas of Autrecourt Epilogue. Retrospection: John Wyclif (c.1330 - 84) Glossary Bibliography Index

Harvard Theological Review, 2017

Medieval accounts of disability by and large (though not universally) defend what is now labeled ... more Medieval accounts of disability by and large (though not universally) defend what is now labeled the “religio-moral” construction of disability: seeing an individual's disability as a punishment for that individual's sin.1Unsurprisingly, such models are not much in favor among contemporary disability theorists for a number of reasons, among which we might include the unacceptable thought that an individual with disabilities somehow deserves those disabilities. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) accepts some version of this theory, but one rather different from the standard one (or at least, from what is now generally understood as the religio-moral model). Aquinas sees physical impairments—things that constitute a subclass of what he labels “bodily defects”—fundamentally as punishments for original sin. He is (generally) very careful to distance his account of defects from notions of individual punishment. (When he is not, it is because of pressure from Scriptural sources—though as ...

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 3, 2015

Journal of Theological Studies, 2004

Communicatio idiomatum: Reformation Christological Debates

Christology and Metaphysics in the Seventeenth Century

Theological Studies, 2017

Speculum, 2019

Duns Scotus on God, 2018

Choice Reviews Online, 2014

Harvard Theological Review, 2017

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 3, 2015

Journal of Theological Studies, 2004

Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 2014

The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 2002

The period from Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus is one of the richest in the history of Christian t... more The period from Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus is one of the richest in the history of Christian theology. This book aims to provide a thorough examination of the doctrine in this era, making explicit its philosophical and theological foundations. Medieval theologians believed that there were good reasons for supposing that Christ's human nature was individual. In the light of this, Part 1 discusses how the various thinkers held that an individual nature could be united to a divine person. Part 2 shows how one divine person could be incarnate without any other. Part 3 deals with questions of Christological predication, and Part 4 shows how an individual nature is to be distinguished from a person. The work begins with a full account of the metaphysics presupposed in the medieval accounts, and concludes with observations relating medieval accounts to modern Christology.

Medieval Philosophy & Theology, 2003

Charting a course between modalism (the belief that there is just one divine person) and tritheis... more Charting a course between modalism (the belief that there is just one divine person) and tritheism (the belief that there are three divine substances or Gods) has long been the major problem for Trinitarian theology. In what follows, I shall discuss part of the contribution made by Duns Scotus to this problem. I will argue that, with a few small modifications, Scotus presents a coherent account of the doctrine of three persons in one substance, and thus that this doctrine can be coherently defended against both modalism and tritheism. I do not intend to give a complete presentation of Scotus's

Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 1998

Faith and Philosophy, 2005

I argue that accepting the resistibility of grace does not entail accepting either Pelagianism or... more I argue that accepting the resistibility of grace does not entail accepting either Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, and offer seven models for the offer of grace that allow for the resistibility of grace: respectively, covenant theology, synergism, and five models that posit no natural human act of acceptance (while allowing for natural human acts of resistance). Of these, I conclude that all but covenant theologies avoid serni-Pelagianism, and that all avoid Pelagianism, as defined at the Second Council of Orange.

In response to Anna Zyrkhova's contribution, this paper argues that we should not let a strong ap... more In response to Anna Zyrkhova's contribution, this paper argues that we should not let a strong apophaticism govern our interpretation of Conciliar teachings on the doctrine of the Trinity. The paper distinguishes the material question of the divine nature and attributes-the kind of thing God is-from the formal question of the divine essence and persons as universal and particulars, as outlined by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. Apophaticism on the first does not mandate apophaticism on the second, as the example of the Cappadocians goes to show. Basil himself seems to have advocated an approach to conciliar hermeneutics that is flexible rather than prescriptive.

Duns Scotus’s Theory of Cognition, 2014

The first part of the book offers a new narrative of the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies... more The first part of the book offers a new narrative of the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies. It takes forward modern revisionary scholarship, showing the slow emergence of the theologies that came to constitute pro-Nicene orthodoxy. Ancient heresiological categories, such as ‘Arian’ and ‘Neo-Arian’, are avoided while the unity of ‘Nicene’ theologies is not assumed. The second part offers a new account of the unity in diversity of late fourth-century pro-Nicene theologies. In particular it is argued that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed and the statements of unity and plurality in the Trinity, to be found in all pro-Nicene theologians and in Theodosius’ anti-heretical legislation, were intended to be understood in the context of a broad set of theological practices and assumptions. An account of the basic strategies that ground pro-Nicene theology is offered, focusing on common epistemological concerns, a common notion of purification and sanctification, and a common aesthet...

Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 2003

As is well-known, Duns Scotus adopts a moderately realist stance on the being of the common natur... more As is well-known, Duns Scotus adopts a moderately realist stance on the being of the common natures of categorial entities-substances and accidents. He believes that such natures have extramental being, such that, though real, each nature-e.g. humanity, redness, and so on-in itself lacks numerical unity. Scotus holds, too, that the divine nature is not like this: it is numerically singular, really the same in each exemplification of it. Scotus thus accepts a version of a more extreme realism in the case of the divine nature. Here, I intend to show how Scotus distinguishes these two cases and, more generally, how he understands them. In addition, my investigation also has ramifications for Scotus's account of individuation. I shall first of all give an account of three crucial terms in Scotus's theory: predicability, divisibility, and communicability. While Scotus's use of this terminology is not always consistent, a reasonably clear overall theory will emerge. Secondly, I shall look more closely at Scotus's use of certain identity claims in the context of his theory of common natures, by way of showing that he has good reason to hold that the more extreme form of realism that he accepts in the case of the divine nature is not logically incoherent. In the third section, I shall show how Scotus argues for the existence of these different sorts of natures in the cases, respectively, of creatures and of God.

This is an account of the interactions of metaphysics and Christology in the seventeenth century,... more This is an account of the interactions of metaphysics and Christology in the seventeenth century, covering Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed thought.

Forthcoming in the Marilyn Adams memorial volume

Forthcoming in the T and T Clark handbook to Christology

My purpose here is to consider the question of the reasonableness of Christian belief as it was a... more My purpose here is to consider the question of the reasonableness of Christian belief as it was approached by two medieval theologians, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. I choose these two thinkers primarily because they provide strikingly contrasting accounts, albeit that Scotus directly targets some of the central theses of Aquinas's view on Christian faith. But what is notable about the differences is that they directly track different general epistemological positions accepted by Aquinas and Scotus for philosophical reasons quite independent of the theological question. Basically, Aquinas holds that the only ground for Christian belief is divine testimony; Scotus, contrariwise, holds that Christian belief can be made fully credible simply on the basis of human testimony. Both thinkers accept a hierarchy of epistemic attitudes -doubt, suspicion, belief (opinio -mere belief), faith (fides), and knowledge (scientia). And both thinkers believe that certain cognitive processes, in certain situations, are liable to produce the wrong belief. But here is the difference: Scotus is much more optimistic than Aquinas about our capacity to diagnose such malfunctioning cases, and thus consciously to correct the initial output belief. He is thus in general far more optimistic about an internalist account of what it is for a belief to be reasonable. As we shall see, he is, in line with this, quite optimistic in general that scepticism can be refuted. Aquinas's approach is very different. He is far more interested than Scotus is in the question of error, and adopts a globally fallibilist epistemology, believing that our natural cognitive processes are sometimes tainted by malfunction that we can neither be aware of nor prevent. Aquinas in effect moves towards an error theory that would if successful undermine any attempt at providing internalist justification for religious faith. Religious faith -specifically orthodox Christian belief -is supposed to have the highest degree of certainty (i.e. is supposed to be formed on the basis of an process that cannot go wrong), and this is why Aquinas holds that the only ground for Christian belief is divine testimony: only if the relevant faith is caused by God can the process that causes it be maximally reliable. Aquinas in effect analyses the different epistemic attitudes externalistically, in terms of the reliability of the various processes the produce the relevant doxastic output. And the divine origin of that process is not transparent to us. Scotus's optimism about the prospects for internalist justification more generally allows him 'Human Knowledge', in Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 311-26 (p. 317). For an account of Aquinas on faith that is not hugely distant from what I offer here, see Eleonore Stump, Aquinas,

Aquinas on physical impairment: human nature and original sin Medieval accounts of disability by ... more Aquinas on physical impairment: human nature and original sin Medieval accounts of disability by and large (though not universally) defend what is now labeled the "religio-moral" construction of disability: seeing an individual's disability as a punishment for that individual's sin. 1 Unsurprisingly, such models are not much in favor among contemporary disability theorists, for a number of reasons among which we might include the unacceptable thought that an individual with disabilities somehow deserves those disabilities.

Conference, 11-13 February 2021 Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition Organizers: Daniel... more Conference, 11-13 February 2021
Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition
Organizers: Daniel Heider and Claus A. Andersen, both University of South Bohemia (České Budějovice, Czech Republic)
Confirmed speakers: Richard Cross, Roberto Hofmeister Pich, Giorgio Pini, Jorge Secada