Friday, March 30, 2007
3:30 p.m. God's Impassible Suffering in the Flesh: The Coherence of Paradoxical Christology
Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Ph.D.
Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk is assistant professor of historical theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of The Suffering of the Impassible God: the Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford University Press, 2004). His scholarly articles have appeared in The Journal of Theological Studies, Scottish Journal of Theology, and Vigiliae Christianae, among others.
Respondent: Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Ph.D.
Dr. Susan Ashbrook Harvey is a professor of religious studies at Brown University. She specializes in late antique and Byzantine Christianity, with Syriac studies as her particular area of interest. She is the co-author, with Sebastian P. Brock, of Holy Women in the Syrian Orient, and the author of Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints. Her most recent book, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination, was published by the University of California Press. She has published numerous articles and book reviews on topics relating to asceticism, hagiography, women and gender, hymnography, homiletics, and piety in late antique Christianity.
Question & Answer Period
6:30 p.m. Keynote address: Divine Providence and the Mystery of Human Suffering
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., is the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society Fordham University , a post he has held since 1988. An internationally known writer and lecturer, he has authored over 750 articles on theological topics and has published twenty-two books including Models of the Church (1974), Models of Revelation (1983), The Catholicity of the Church (1985), The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (1992), The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith (1994), The Splendor of Faith: The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II (1999; revised in 2003 for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the papal election), The New World of Faith (2000), Newman (2002). Cardinal Dulles’ latest book, a revised edition of The History of Apologetics, was published this past summer. The fiftieth anniversary edition of his book, A Testimonial to Grace, the account of his conversion to Catholicism, was republished in 1996 by the original publishers, Sheed and Ward, with an afterword containing his reflections on the fifty years since he became a Catholic.
Past president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society and Professor Emeritus at The Catholic University of America, Cardinal Dulles has served on the International Theological Commission and as a member of the United States Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogue. He is presently a consultant to the Committee on Doctrine of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Respondent: Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., Ph.D.
Fr. Weinandy is the executive director of the Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has previously lectured in patristic and modern theology at Greyfriars Hall, Oxford University. He is the author of works such as In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on the Humanity of Christ, (1993; Continuum 2006) Does God Suffer, (University of Notre Dame Press , 2000); and The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation, (T and T Clark, 2003) which he co-edited with Daniel Keating.
Question & Answer Period
Saturday, March 31, 2007
9:00 a.m. Karl Barth and the Problem of Divine Impassibility
Bruce Lindley McCormack, Ph.D.
Dr. Bruce McCormack is Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. He is especially known for his important study Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909–1936 (Oxford University Press, 1995). Based on his scholarship in the field of Barthian studies, in 1998, he became the first American to be awarded the Karl Barth Prize by the Board of the Evangelical Church of the Union in Germany.
Respondent: Peter Casarella, Ph.D.
Dr. Casarella is an associate professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America. He is the co-editor of several books, including Christian Spirituality and the Culture of Modernity: The Thought of Louis Dupré (Eerdmans, 1998); Cuerpo de Cristo: The Hispanic Presence in the U.S. Catholic Church (Crossroad, 1998). He has published articles in The Thomist, Communio, and many other journals. He is a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Common Ground Initiative.
Question & Answer Period
10:45 a.m. The Dereliction of Christ and the Impassibility of God
Bruce D. Marshall, Ph.D.
Dr. Bruce Marshall is professor of historical theology in the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of many publications, including Trinity and Truth (Cambridge University Press, 2000); Christology in Conflict: The Identity of a Saviour in Rahner and Barth (Blackwell, 1987); Editor, Theology and Dialogue: Essays in Conversation with George Lindbeck (University of Notre Dame Press, 1990).
Respondent: Paul Gondreau, Ph.D.
Dr. Paul Gondreau is an assistant professor of theology at Providence College , where he teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. He is the author of The Passions of Christ’s Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Aschendorff), which originated as a doctoral dissertation under Professor Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP. He has also published a number of scholarly articles on theological topics associated with the anthropology and Christology of Thomas Aquinas. His published essays have appeared in collections on the theology of Aquinas by CUA Press and by Notre Dame Press and in a Festschrift for Servais Pinckaers and for Matthew Lamb.
Question & Answer Period
1:30 p.m. Ipse Pater Non est Impassibilis
Robert W. Jenson, Ph.D.
Dr. Robert Jenson is senior scholar for research at the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton University . He has been the associate director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and the co-editor of its journal, Pro Ecclesia. He has published numerous books and articles, including his two volume Systematic Theology: The Triune God and The Works of God, from Oxford University Press (1997 and 1999).
Respondent: R. Trent Pomplun, Ph.D.
Dr. R. Trent Pomplun is an assistant professor of theology at Loyola College in Maryland . He specializes in late medieval and early modern theology and is the author of numerous articles in scholarly journals. He is currently set to publish The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism, edited with James Buckley and Frederick Bauerschmidt (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, forthcoming 2007), and is preparingA Jesuit on the Roof of the World: Ippolito Desideri in Tibet 1715-1721(ms. in preparation of Oxford University Press).
Question & Answer Period
3:30 p.m. Impassibility, Transcendence, and Divine Innocence
David Bentley Hart, Ph.D.
Dr. David Bentley Hart currently holds the Robert J. Randall Chair in Christian Culture at Providence College. Dr. Hart is the author of numerous theological essays and books, many of which discuss issues related to divine immutability and human suffering. He is best known for his The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans, 2003), and The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans, 2005).
Respondent: Rev. Brian J. Shanley O.P., Ph.D.
Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P., Ph.D. is the president of Providence College. He has taught philosophy at Providence College and was a visiting professor at Emory University 's Candler School of Theology. He most recently served as an associate professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America. Father Shanley has served as associate editor and editor of The Thomist and as a member of the editorial board for the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Widely published in philosophy-focused academic journals, his research interests include Thomas Aquinas, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and ethics.
Question & Answer Period
5:40 p.m. First Vespers of Palm Sunday
Homilist: Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., Ph.D.