Drawing on Protestant scholasticism, Puritan “precisionism,” and virtue ethics, Virtue Reformed offers a comprehensive rereading of the ethical position of American philosopher-theologian Jonathan Edwards and his fascinating struggle to be both forwarder of the Reformation and participant in the Enlightenment.

With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue ethics seems out of place in Reformed theology, especially in the company of the Reformed tradition's greatest twentieth-century theologian, Karl Barth. In this new addition to the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology, Kirk Nolan argues that Barth's theology actually proves virtue ethics can be compatible with the Reformed tradition. Rather than see virtue as an inevitable and natural process of growth, Barth helps us understand that development in the Christian life comes through a process of repetition and renewal, and that all virtue comes solely as a gift from God. Nolan establishes an important bridge between Reformed moral teaching and the tradition of virtue ethics.

With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue ethics seems out of place in Reformed theology, especially in the company of the Reformed tradition's greatest twentieth-century theologian, Karl Barth. In this new addition to the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology, Kirk Nolan argues that Barth's theology actually proves virtue ethics can be compatible with the Reformed tradition. Rather than see virtue as an inevitable and natural process of growth, Barth helps us understand that development in the Christian life comes through a process of repetition and renewal, and that all virtue comes solely as a gift from God. Nolan establishes an important bridge between Reformed moral teaching and the tradition of virtue ethics.

Two Reformed giants in conversation Jonathan Edwards and Karl Barth are widely considered to be the greatest North American and Swiss theologians, respectively. Though situated in vastly different contexts and separated by nearly two hundred years, they shared intriguing similarities. Both employed exegesis, theology, and philosophy with ease. Both reasoned with unique quality, depth, and timelessness. Both resisted liberal shifts of their day while remaining creative thinkers. And both were Reformed without uncritically assuming the tradition. Edited by Uche Anizor and Kyle C. Strobel, Reformed Dogmatics in Dialogue engages Edwards and Barth for constructive dogmatics. Each chapter brings these theologians into conversation on classic theological categories, such as the doctrine of God, atonement, and ecclesiology, as well as topics of particular interest to both, such as aesthetics and philosophy. As with all great theologians, Edwards and Barth continue to illuminate Christian doctrine. Readers will appreciate their rigor of thought and devotion to Christ.

Includes section "Reviews of recent theological literature".

Addressing a topic of growing and vital concern, this book asks us to reconsider how we think about the natural world and our place in it. Steven Bouma-Prediger brings ecotheology into conversation with the emerging field of environmental virtue ethics, exploring the character traits and virtues required for Christians to be responsible keepers of the earth and to flourish in the challenging decades to come. He shows how virtue ethics can enrich Christian environmentalism, helping readers think and act in ways that rightly value creation.

For much of Western church history, virtue theory has largely been the province of the Catholic Church. The marriage of Aquinas' dominant Christian virtue model with a medieval Catholic version of nature and grace has left post-Scholastic Protestants largely hesitant to enter the domain of virtue because of its seeming distance from the biblical narrative of salvation history and opposition to justification by faith alone. Yet with the onset of renewed interest in virtue theory in the twentieth century academy, some Protestants--namely, postliberals--began a retrieval of the virtue tradition. Rather than embed discussion in the medieval nature-grace framework, postliberals tended to build upon the postmodern innovation of narrative. Eventually, some Reformed theologians joined the retrieval. As the movement has picked up steam, though, to date no distinctly Reformed account of the economy of virtue has emerged to relieve the perceived tension between Reformed soteriological commitments and Thomist nature-grace foundations that remain dominant in Christian accounts of virtue. The present study seeks to fill this Reformed void, arguing for the economy of Christian virtue rooted in the doctrine of union with Christ by the Spirit.