Toronto Journal of Theology 

About: Toronto Journal of Theology is an academic journal published by Toronto School of Theology. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Faith & Christianity. It has an ISSN identifier of 0826-9831. Over the lifetime, 517 publications have been published receiving 1114 citations. The journal is also known as: TJT.

The Hermeneutical Arc

Abstract: In contemporary interpretation theory, Hans-Georg Gadamer's metaphor of the 'two horizons' has become a familiar expression for the relation between the historically engaged interpreter and traditioned texts. Schooled by Heidegger, Gadamer will not accord heteronomous power to classical texts to impress understanding; nor, on the other hand, will he vest authorial power in the interpreter subject. He views understanding, rather, as a cognitive function completed in the fusion of two horizons. The understanding achieved is never absolute or abstract but lies within a continuum of encounters, each of them a moment of 'effective-historical consciousness' (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein).

Letters to Demetrias: A Sidebar in the Pelegian Controversy Helenae, amicae meae

Abstract: In 412 an event occurred which Jerome described as lessening "the calamity of the fall of Rome," an event on account of which "every church in Africa danced for joy, every island between Africa and Italy was full of glad tidings, [and] Italy put off her mourning. " The occasion for this extravagant jubilation was not the reconquest of Italy, not a military victory of any kind, but a decision a fourteen-year-old girl had taken to live a life of celibacy. Such a choice was far from uncommon among late fourth- and fifth-century Christians, and possibly made more attractive at this time by the turbulent conditions in Europe and North Africa. Why, then, the exuberant language? And why are not only Jerome's letter, but those of Augustine and Pelagius, still of interest today?

Deep Incarnation: Why Evolutionary Continuity Matters in Christology

Abstract: This article presents the idea of deep incarnation in outline. In dialogue with Wentzel van Huyssteen's interpretation of imago Dei and Christology on the one hand and with Arne Naess's notion of deep ecology on the other hand, it is claimed that evolutionary continuity is as important for Christology as is the evolutionary distinctiveness of the human species. Without a strong continuity between the historical figure of Jesus and the cosmos at large, we end up in a culturally confined Christology. But without referring to the unique human identity of Jesus Christ, we would speak of a Logos principle thinly spread over the universe rather than of Jesus Christ as the living divine bond in and between everything that exists. Incarnation is “deep” both in contradistinction to a purely anthropocentric Christology and as opposed to more shallow proposals of a universalist Christology.

Introduction and Translation

Abstract: Theology should concern itself more seriously with music. Music contains signs of life that nihilism was not able to cancel. From the end of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century, in the age of the secularization of art, all of the great musicians confronted the themes and works of the religious tradition in their major works (from Wagner to Henze, from Schonberg to Andriessen, from Strawinskj to Messiaen, from Skriabjn to Gubaidulina). This essay presents the passage of music from the Romantic ‘‘religion of art’’ to the contemporary ‘‘ethics of dissonance.’’ With W.T. Adorno’s thesis in mind, a vision of music as the capacity to redeem the signifier from nihilism is proposed. Music restores power and beauty to the divine gift of the human capacity to signify. In this way, it gives new hope to words, to gestures, to the representation of reality.